Photo: Jess Tullie in Domnarvets GOIF colours

This year's TiomIla Women's race is in the afternoon of Saturday 28th April. It starts at 12:15 UK-time and the winning team will finish about a quarter to five. You can watch it on the internet, with English commentary from Boris Granovskiy and Graham Gristwood. There will be several hundred teams. Apart from the sprint specialists, most of the GB Squad women will be running, and they are looking forward to it.

Video showing the start of the 2016 race There wasn't English commentary in 2016 but you can see Jess lead off for the lowest numbered team.

Cat (OK Södertörn)

The Tiomila forest offers many small contour and rock details and because it’s steeper and rockier than many Stockholm forests, there should also be some important route choice legs – just running on compass will not be very quick! I feel that the new map (part of which has been available for training this year) increases the challenge by including so much detail. It can be really difficult to see what’s important and one of the key skills will be how much of the detail you can take away to get near the control quickly, without ignoring any of the features you really need to avoid a mistake. I think there will be a lot of big mistakes this year but I hope that I can be one of the ones to tackle my course relatively successfully!

The competition area is part of the Södertörn forest to the south of Stockholm, so this year is very much our "home" Tiomila! I’m excited to be running with locals who I think can orienteer in this kind of forest at least as well as I can, and that our relatively young team is a year stronger. Nothing is certain but I’m excited to see how high we can reach.

Megan (Rajamäen Rykmentti)

I'll be running the final leg of Rajamaen Rykmentti's girls' team. I ran Tiomila for the first time last year - I was ill but it went well enough and I brought us up to finish in 50th place. We have a strong girls' side this year with new addition Laura Robertson (NZ/ Edinburgh) and we're aiming to have solid performances to finish top 30. As for the terrain, I'll be training in some nearby areas the couple of days prior to the race to get used to the terrain. I've just come back from 10 days of training/racing in Finland and Sweden so I am ready to put my technical orienteering hat on again for Tiomila!

Jess (Domnarvets GOIF)

TioMila has fast become a highlight of my year: a chance to run with teammates in such a large field of runners. Last year the women's relay changed a bit as they implemented a long leg for 3rd leg runners. There were many of the British girls on this leg, and it looks like it might be the same this year. Interestingly, the relay will start with two shorter legs, before the 11km non-gaffled 3rd leg. Following on from that, are two key legs to decide the results. It will be interesting to see how it pans out! I run for Domnarvets and we have had a training weekend in the terrain, although there was still a lot of snow. Out here in Sweden they've had a proper winter of snow, so runners in the more northern clubs especially haven't had chance to orienteer much yet. We're all looking forward to it!

Hollie (Halden SK)

I am also really looking forward to racing, Tiomila always feels like the first big competition of the season that everyone gets excited about.  I think especially this year with the European champs coming up and many people focused on selection races Tiomila provides an opportunity to have some fun racing.  Like Jess said, snow has hampered a lot of teams' preparation which perhaps means that the playing field has been levelled a little.  This, combined with the slightly different running order (two shorter legs followed by long non-gaffled leg), means that it could make for an interesting race.  I missed Tiomila last year due to a friend's wedding so I am doubly eager to get back this year, though which leg I am running is still to be decided so dependent on that, it might add to the nerves.

I would recommend trying to join a Scandinavian club and experiencing Tiomila to any young aspiring orienteer.  For a large number of clubs this is one of the main focuses in the year, this means a lot of preparation goes into getting ready for the race.  Learning how to prepare for a race in new terrain is a vital skill and this is a great environment in which to learn and equip yourself with the skills for future internationals.