Orienteering and young families

[EddieH]

As might the fact that it was widely publicised as the Highland and Moray Junior Championships

[madmike]

Don't think anyone should disagree with you on that Didsco!

You don't have to have ambitions for elite status to enjoy orienteering races. If given the choice to either train or race I would suspect that many would choose to race. I know that some will say it is a cop out but for me orienteering isn't about winning - because realistically I am never going to (me neither fun old thing).

not what i was agreeing with

that orienteering is so much more fun and satisfying when you possess the ability to run o-races at speed without making mistakes

[awk]

If you want to be a good footballer you can't just go out and play matches every weekend, you have to break down the sport to the finer details and do specific training sessions/exercises, same applies to 'o'.

They still play matches every weekend! They do all the other bits in between. (I agree that a lot of orienteers don't, but that's what's wrong, not necessarily racing most weekends)

[Scott]

You've been orienteering for over 5 years (most participants at a typical event). You go to your local TD4 local/semi-local district event (most common type of event in the South). You rarely make more than 5 mins of errors, typically 2 mins. Some training or coaching (if available) might take a couple of minutes off your time

In my experience, it's not by avoiding those two minutes of mistakes that doing a bit of technical (as opposed to physical) orienteering will make a difference to your enjoyment. It's the 20-30sec shaved off each leg because you're simplifying properly, making good plans and executing them confidently, flowing between controls, and generally orienteering with fluency. It's not a feeling I've managed to achieve very often, but when it happens, it's fantastic.

Every one of the last few training camps I've been on has made a substantial difference both to how well I orienteer and to how much I enjoy it. If there was a regular technical training session that I could actually get to, I would be there like a shot. I'm pretty certain that the vast majority of "experienced" orienteers would find that doing some technical training would greatly increase their enjoyment of the bog-standard district event, if only they were given the opportunity and persuaded to give it a go.

[skyhigh]

Bringing the thread back on topic ... at this weekend's Scottish Jubilee 5 Days I am looking for volunteers to (wo)man the string course in half hour or so blocks on the relay and middle distance days. The organising clubs are short on manpower and I offered to help out by planning/map making and finding some on-the-day helpers - it was that or no string courses! Any offers please can you pm me? Thanks!
Mrs Lard??? That's a new one

[graeme]

Don't think anyone should disagree with you on that Didsco!

that orienteering is so much more fun and satisfying when you possess the ability to run o-races at speed without making mistakes

Unless they give it a bit of thought...
To run comfortably at speed you have to train, hard and often. Since we're talking about mharky, I see he's logged 9hours, per week on average in the last year. And he's blessed with considerable talent (IMO). Most people don't have that commitment.
To do it without making mistakes means training in difficult terrain: even from Edinburgh that's likely 5 hours driving round trip. Most people don't have that commitment either.
That's why most people opt not to train.
(and if you do want to run at full speed without making mistakes, there's now urban . And Kent )

[madmike]

pain is only weakness leaving the body Graeme

[andypat]

No, I don't understand it either (I actually preferred the idea of training sessions), but it seems to be a fact that the average orienteer wants to compete rather than train.

Unfortunately the minority who really need and want regular frequent coaching are the newish orienteers who are getting frustrated by making 10 + minute errors on TD4 courses or cant get a decent general O speed up, or the ambitious types who might go on to be elite - or old elite - orienteers, or juniors of course.

Exactly - and this is the conundrum, are the "majority" of orienteers who prefer competing to coaching going to accept the responsibility and commitment to train these guys? And if not who is?

[mharky]

You don't necessarily need qualified coaches and specific technical training sessions to improve your technical orienteering.

Many adult orienteers can talk a good game, so to speak. They know what is actually required to navigate successfully without time loss. After a race they are often to isolate the reasons why they made a mistake, and what they should have done to have not made it.

However, this useful analysis probably doesn't go any further than the assembly field, and that evening looking at winsplits and routegadget.

To improve in a technical skill (in any sport) you need constant feed back, analysis and appraisal. But in my experience most people just go for their 1 hour plod and that's it. They would learn a lot more and improve much quicker if instead they broke their "race" up into blocks. Do 3 x 20 mins, at the end of each stop and have a self-debrief. What's going well, what's not going well. What mistakes have you made (and I don't mean you missed a control, but why did you miss it, poor compass, no attackpoint etc)? Then refocus yourself and try and work on some skills, tactics, strategies etc that were weak in the previous section. Do it again. Then afterwards you can even make a not of what were the key issues. You might even see a longitudinal trend over a few events.

If you don't know what you are doing wrong you can't improve. And if you know what you are doing right then you can correct what you are doing wrong.

[70plus]

... it seems to be a fact that the average orienteer wants to compete rather than train.

Using the word 'compete' loosely.

I recently suggested a very minimal degree of training at our summer-evening events: just doing without codes, and maybe descriptions, on a normal course so that it consisted purely of map-reading (no checks at controls). While that was thought to be good training, it wasn't implemented because (a) many local members only orienteer at those events and (b) juniors could be discouraged if they failed to finish. So we are stuck with the usual fare on a patch we all know pretty well.

People don't want to think any more than they can help - that's why score and night-O are so popular.

[DIDSCO]

Doesn't anyone aim for the 'perfect' run in tough technical terrain anymore

I gave up elite orienteering almost 10 years ago but a few times a year I still go training in hard technical terrain to test my skills and love that feeling of running fast through the terrain and flowing through the course without mistakes. I'd do it more often if my body could take it. Real orienteering is still one of the absolute toughest sports in the world and we should be proud of that.

[madmike]

Doesn't anyone aim for the 'perfect' run in tough technical terrain anymore?

Doesn't everybody aim for the perfect run in tough technical terrain?

I do

[frog]

I disagree with the idea that you don't have to think in score events. I find myself thinking more. You have to be able to judge your speed to work out how much distance you can cover in the time and factor contours into it. Route choice is important. That's one of the reasons orienteers often go for the score event in MMs because their navigational and distance judging skills can be employed rather than just following (or leading) a line of folk around the linear courses.
I find myself thinking more in night events too because my night vision is awful and I'm having to pace distances rather than just running for the gap in the gorse.
I'd also disagree that score and nighto are popular.

[frog]

Maybe 70+was being ironic and I've just not had enough coffee yet to get it.

[madmike]

Maybe 70+was being ironic and I've just not had enough coffee yet to get it.

go get the Coffee