Mikkeli Jukola

After NOC all three of us traveled to Mikkeli on Thursday.
We did some trainings offered by the organisers in more and less relevant terrain for this years Jukola.
But prior to the race we had already known the characteristics of the terrain. The old map showed very untypical Finnish terrain with lots of paths and nearly no bare rocks. Also less detailed and just some tricky green areas. So it should be fast and not so difficult running with just some more difficult parts.
Me and Warti were running for OK Tyr on 4th and 7th leg while Wolfi was running 7th leg for GMOK 2. Our last years position (183) was a quite big step back and we were very motivated to show how good our team really is. With Jonas Leandersson and Henrik Brohede on the first two legs we had a almost perfect start and were in the top 25. On the next legs we lost some positions which was also partly my fault on the 4th leg. After the WC Middle distance my body seemed to perform pretty strangly as my legs felt so heavy during all the running sessions. At Jukola I tried to push hard from the beginning but soon I realzied that my legs were not ready for a good speed today. It was a strange feeling to feel totally relaxed with my heart rate and my breething while the legs just couldn't run at normal speed. Wel,l I lost about 9 positions and after some up and downs on the next legs we finished on 69th place which was good for our young team! We believe in this team and in a few years we will be ready to fight for the top places. Warti and Wolfi both running on the last leg had stable runs and finished their trip to finnland with nice impressions in the fast Jukola forest.
I have to say it was really nice to be at Jukola again as it is just amazing to see that we are obviously not the only O-Freaks... :P