25-manna - the 25-person relay just outside of Stockholm. The relay works like this:
leg 1 is normal and can be run by anyone;
leg 2 is normal and can be run by anyone;
leg 3 is run in parallel and has to be run by women: the leg 2 runner hands off 4 maps at the same time, and the 4 women are sent out;
legs 4-7 are also run in parallel, 4 people for each, with various age and/or gender requirements (legs 5 and 7 can be run by anyone). The first runner back from leg 3 hands off to the runner designated as 4a, the second to 4b, and so on. This continues up through leg 7. Then, as the leg 7 runners come in, they hand off to the leg 23 runner. The first three leg 7 runners hand off blank maps, and the leg 23 runner has to wait until the 4th leg 7 runner has come in to get an actual map and run off. Then, leg 24 is individual and has to be run by a woman, and leg 25 is a normal anchor leg and can be run by anyone. Confusing!!!
Anyway, i ran leg 7d for Linne's 2nd team, meaning i was the last leg 7 runner to go out. The first three guys went out pretty close together, but i kept waiting for 12 minutes for the last leg 6 guy to come in, so i knew it would almost certainly be me handing off the actual map to the leg 23 runner, so i had to run hard. Traditionally, the courses at 25-manna aren't extremely technical, and this was no exception. I had a pretty clean race, with maybe one 40-second mistake, and came in having helped bring us up from 68th to 60th place. My time was 39th of the 347 with my course, 4 minutes off the best time, so i was pretty happy. Plus, splashing through the mud and running with tons of people out there was so much fun!! In the end, we came in 66th (4th among second teams), and our first team came in 4th!!!! A pizza party and general celebration ensued.
Splits at
http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.a...