Photo: Hector Haines in IFK Lidingö colours

To many, the name TioMila is very well-known. And those that have experienced it understand the excitement and the grandeur of the competition. But it takes living it to really get to the essence of the race.

As Ralph is not running at the JK this year On The Red Line asked him to share a few notes that might help your thinking about what to expect.

The "JK", the biggest annual festival in the UK orienteering calendar, held every year at Easter, is upon us. What a lovely prospect! This year the West Midlands Association are hosting. How's the training gone, have you got it all planned out and read through 28 pages of programme, how did you fare on your big weekends in February and March? Do you miss chatting to your friends at a model event before the real action - once upon a time that was the Friday entertainment. And will we have snow? (No is the latest I've heard).

This Winter I took the opportunity to work on the Orienteering Australia Coaching Scholarship in Melbourne, Victoria. I spent six months from September to March racing, coaching and training across Australia. But what do you expect orienteering to be like when you step foot into terrain on the other side of the world?

I have been lucky enough throughout my orienteering career to have the opportunity to race in extremely diverse environments across Europe and China. Australian terrain, however, was different. What more would expect from a country on the other side of the world? Yes, the contours can generally be interpreted in the same way, but nothing can prepare you for the way the Australian forests have grown.

Good results come from good performances, and good performances come from being focused and in the moment. When you are in the moment you do everything you have practised. There are many ways you can work on this: building up your fitness, improving your orienteering techniques, refining your mental routines to cope well in pressure situations, and so on. Let's just take an example of something you may have given little thought to: your race day routine.

The prime orienteering season in the UK is condensed into spring and summer with all the major competitions occurring over this period. The winter months are an opportunity to prepare yourself for the major races and I expect you thought about orienteering during this period: did you translate tha...

Photo: Graham Gristwood, at the British Sprint Relay Champs 2017, by Brian Ward.

So much of orienteering happens when a runner is on their own that international runners and analytical mental strength go hand-in-hand. Some of the athletes are quiet, some are chatty, some are in between, but they are, as a general rule, very strongly self-aware and determined. They subject themselves and their performances to merciless self-analysis.

The short answer is, for forest orienteering, top ten but not top five.

The International Orienteering Federation (IOF) maintains World Ranking tables.

There are tables for men and women, separate ones for forest and sprint orienteering. (And also for Trail, Ski and Mountain Bike Orienteering.)

On 27th November 2017 British Orienteering announced a squad of 24 athletes for 2018. New members are all from the Scottish Orienteering Association: Kirstin Maxwell of Roxburgh Reivers, and first-year seniors Jennifer Ricketts and Sasha Chepelin both of Edinburgh University.

The Squad's primary target is the World Championships. Membership of the squad does not offer any financial or service benefits.

It’s all Paul and Sarah’s fault. Paul and I met in London Orienteering Klubb in the mid 80s. We were both something in computing, just like nearly everybody else in LOK at that time. Two of those who weren't something in computing were Sarah Brown and Helen Teece. Readers, we married them. That's Helen in the middle of the rather overdressed GB Men's Team at WOC 2015 in the picture.