A weekend in the forest - Jukolan viesti
Some time I haven't posted, but there are some good reasons for that: Most of all the training was really bad in the last week, because I felt tired all week and thus made only 10 training sessions last week. Then on the weekend I was in the Finnish forests close to Tampere to participate in "Jukolan Viesti". For me it was a good way to brake my current rhythm of life and to get some motivation for training again. Jukolan Viesti is the worlds' biggest orienteering relay and this year there were altogether more than 14.000 participants in nearly 1500 teams.
If you ever have the chance to watch this event or even participate in it, you should use your chance, because it's a great way to experience the nature and the forest! This year it was my second appearance after 2005 and once again it was a truly unique experience.
The relay is composed of 7 runners and starts in the dusk at 11pm on Saturday night and continues throughout the night, with the winning teams finishing on Sunday morning at 6am. For all the teams that have not finished the race until 9am, there is a restart with all the remaining runners at 9.15am. Since I had the (questionable) honour of running the last leg, I knew quite early that I am starting in the restart at 9.15, because the team I ran for, consisted of recreational hobby orienteers. Anyway, I had to run the last (7th) leg - which is also the longest - because one of the other runners (Vaajakosken Kuohu clubmate Kimmo) was injured and he ran the shorter 4th leg.
The orienteering went quite well, considering that I orienteered only once this year. After approx. half an hour I went for a "swim" in a muddy swamp because I underestimated the ground and couldn't jump over this wet obstacle but that's orienteering. Altogether the 13,7 km (air-line distance) took me 2:25:51 h - that's almost exactly the time of my marathon debut :)