For non-orienteers they are a very well known club in Norway that have a lot of good results in the past and tend to produce some pretty damn good orienteers (read: current world champion).
They were very welcoming and looked after us for the 2 days we were there. We stayed with Erik and Anna, a couple in the club, and did a couple of training sessions.
Clubs over here are VERY different to back home. Eva took us up to the club house in the forest where they have really nice changing rooms and showers (scandi style with completely communal). Then another big log building with a kitchen, lounge area and dining area where we got fed before a club meeting. The meeting was completely in norwegian but all about this weekend which is the Jukola relay in Finland. There was no old map for the athletes to review so the coaches had gone onto satellite sites and made a new map of the competition area for everyone to look at.
They have 3 coaches and the amount of preparation and being looked after the runners get is incredible. Makes sense why they are all so good.
We left bright and early at 5am (photo shows, daytime!! at 5am waiting for pick up) on Thursday to catch a flight from Oslo to Helsinki. This was followed by a 5 hour drive to get to Kuopio where Jukola is.
My impression of Finland so far is forest, lakes and mosquito's. Not particularly hot but probably quite good for running.
Last night we stayed at a very plush hotel near Kuopio (not very kiwi style, we would have been camping), that even had fluffy bath robes, I was impressed!
Today we moved to a slightly more interesting set up.
Apparently it is ok in Finland to have people staying in hospitals as accommodation.
We drove up to this place called "Neuron" and I thought we were doing a tour of some brain institute.
Nope, it's our accommodation for 2 nights and the orienteers are far outnumbered by the rehab patients who all appear to have had brain injuries of varying severity.
Quite bizarre really, I've had fun playing with my bed buttons and we've all accidentally given ourselves tours when trying to find rooms. According to the club this isn't the usual accommodation style, not quite sure who organised this one but it's definitely an experience!!
This weekend the race is a relay that is one of the biggest races for clubs in the orienteering calendar.
The women's race is called Venla and has 4 runners in each team. I'm running for a club called Umea which is Lara's Swedish club. I'll be running the first leg for their second team along with 1100 other women in the mass start tomorrow. Slightly apprehensive about it all but no pressure from the team so that's good. We start at 2pm so will be getting my elbows out around then.
Venla is known as a bit of a scrummage match, with so many people mass starting at once you can imagine the chaos when they get to controls so it'll be interesting!
Jukola is the men's race which has 10 people in the relay team and starts at 11pm. Known as a night relay, the sun doesn't set until 11.30pm so the race isn't exactly in the dark but as close to it as they can get. Will be a spectacle to watch I'm sure. Around 1600 teams are entered with a few kiwi's in the mix who I will be cheering on like crazy.
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