Tiomila i Nynäshamn

In Finland, as the snow melts, as the days get the longer, as the spring flowers come poking up through the leaves, we orienteers get ready for Tiomila. It's one of the first big relay competitions of the season and for Finns it means a boat trip to Sweden and many hours of race speculation and team order discussion. 

The women's race consists of 5 relay legs where all are forked except for the 3rd which is mega-long and unforked. The line-up for Angelniemen Ankkuri's ladies team this year was Selja, Heini, Sanna, me and Sanni.

With orange, green and white ribbons in our hair, we wished each other "tsemppiä" and "see you at the changeover" and then got down to focusing on our individual jobs in this team event.

While relays may not always go perfectly, we all ran our very best out there to finish in 43rd position!   For those watching the English commentary live you may have caught my interview with Boris and Graham but for those who missed it you can watch it down below:

It was a really wonderful event to experience together as a team, supporting and cheering on each other, as well as an individual, alone while racing through the forest but knowing that each spiked control is one for the team.

Complete results can be found here

And all GPS tracking here