It seems I start every post with the same thing, an excuse for not posting anything earlier. I have been writing some things: my SM sprint thoughts will be on the Project 2015 website, and my JK thoughts will be in SLOWprint (and I will copy them onto here once they have been published).
On with the business...

Finally, after hours of slogging though snow covered forests in the dark Tiomila was here. I ran the 9th leg for SNO and ran quite okay. My speed was good enough and I just made one two-minute mistake which, as people were quick to point out, was shown on the big screen. Fantastic! I am cross with myself for the mistake as I knew exactly where I was about 10 seconds before I started to get confused, one loss of concentration and what could potentially have been a really great run turns into a fairly decent run. Still it was both a great experience and a lot of fun but the quest for improvement goes ever onwards and this is why I like orienteering.

We had some problems with injuries and sickness to runners in the build up but our goal remained the same, less than one minute of time loss per leg, a tough goal but an achievable goal. We knew that if we could achieve this we could look up at the results and be proud of what we saw. In the end we did not all hit our target but nobody was ever far away and we finished in 4th place. We were all really pleased. Pleased with what we had achieved and also pleased that we had proved people wrong who thought that without some runners we could not be competitive. It just goes to show that it is not the 10 guys who get the result but the whole team; the coaches who have stood in the forest, the guys who have not made the final 10 but have been at the training pushing everybody else along, and the supporters on the night itself: taking clothes, providing food, offering advice and encouragement.