"but you don't run in orienteering" .......!!

[RCB]

I went along to my first 'parkrun' this morning to see what all the fuss is about and compare it with orienteering event registration and organisation. As a virgin parkrunner I was asked to come to the front for the pre run brief along with at least 20 others. Slight delays meant that I got chatting with some of the other beginners and I asked them what had attracted them to the event - word of mouth was the general answer along with ‘it’s a nice day for a run in the park’. When I was asked, I mentioned that there were no orienteering events nearby and I wanted a social Saturday morning run. I was met with quizzical looks and several comments:
“What is orienteering?”
“But you don’t run in orienteering”
I come across this type of comment often especially amongst parents who don’t participate but will watch their kids from the touchline at the local pitch – not surprising. I was however a little concerned that a group of runners had little or no knowledge of our sport. Perhaps we need to engage with the running community more aggressively and open their eyes to what we have to offer.
I may have convinced one of them to join me at a local club midweek training event to see for himself.

[Mr Chips]

If you Google for "orienteering" the top two non-sponsored links are British Orienteering and Wikipedia. Each opens with a description of orienteering; the words "run" and "race" are not prominent in either description.

[RCB]

I prefer the Encarta Dictionary English (UK) explanation:
Cross country race involving map-reading
‘A sport that combines map-reading and cross-country running. Competitors make their way through unfamiliar terrain using a compass and a topographical map.’

[Copepod]

Unfortunately, it's only possible to register as a member of one club when you run with Parkrun, but it's a way to get orienteering (or at least ...OC) listed where pure runners might see it.

[Gnitworp]

If you Google for "orienteering" the top two non-sponsored links are British Orienteering and Wikipedia. Each opens with a description of orienteering; the words "run" and "race" are not prominent in either description.

Can't anyone change Wikipedia articles?

[AndyC]

As I was about to edit wikipedia as suggested I found someone had!

[ba-ba]

surely it's a chance to get 'creative.'

"Orienteering? I gave up as I kept ending up in the wrong gully" - Oscar Wilde.

Orienteering is the king of sports, combining physical prowess with mental agility in a battle against the clock, yourself, the terrain and, more often than not, a rancor as you try to pulverise the terrain and your competition (which you can't see as they're all wearing invisibility cloaks) into submission. And all this with a freaking monster on your heels! On occasion John Rambo turns up in the area and gets his ass kicked, orienteers are that hardcore. As with many sports and pastimes, some enthusiasts believe that it is best undertaken in the dark, where no-one can see your face or hear you scream. The sport is so 'out there' that only the advent of teleportation would render it obsolete, unlike, for example, darts, which has been rendered obsolete by sumo wrestling, and golf, which has recently turned into a massive game of innuendo bingo.

alas there's no uncyclopedia page for Orienteering...

[SeanC]

Perhaps we need to engage with the running community more aggressively and open their eyes to what we have to offer.

Not sure whereabouts you live, but you should have a look at the SLOW trail challenge series. There's some information on the participation part of the BOF website. SAX and SO have been doing these too. SLOW/LOK have also branded their summer park orienteering events "park race", so close to park run it should get some accidental hits online.

The thing that strikes me about these formats is that
a) There is no mention of the o word. Orienteering has limited brand awareness, and also I suspect many runners who do know of orienteering will think "mapreading, can't do that and run".
b) The orienteering is easy - so even beginners can run, but a decent length for runners - not just a yellow course.

Our publicity officer has handed out fliers at parkruns and has put an advertisment on a local parkrun website (see http://www.parkrun.org.uk/bromley/News.aspx). However the local orienteering is on a Saturday too. The timings mean they could do both but perhaps most wont have the energy.

[greywolf]

on the positive side... the latest edition of PB (Scottish Athletics equivalent of Focus) has a page on orienteering - half is flyer for Perth PWT, half is explanatory text by Scott & Oleg, and they definitely emphasise the sunning / racing element.

[EddieH]

[quote]and they definitely emphasise the sunning / racing element[/quote]

Nice to know that Oleg and Scott are so sure about the PWT weather already

[EddieH]

No-one in Moray who reads any of SunlitForres's fantastic press articles which appear almost every week could have the slightest doubt that orienteering is a running sport. Maybe if clubs elsewhere can persuade their local paper to print more than a set of local results this message can be conveyed all over the country.

In general if you write exciting reports which require no jounalistic work they'll publish.

[Kitchatna]

I could be wrong here, but it often appears to me that clubs seem to prioritise attracting 2 types of people:

1. fresh new youngsters who could possibly be very good when they reach their prime racing age

or

2. adults who already run (on or off road)


Whilst '1' seems perfectly sensible, there never seems to be any effort to attract; 3. fit adults who enjoy navigation from say the likes of hillwalking... probably on the basis they "don't run".

As an adult orienteering from a hillwalking background, to me the biggest attraction of orienteering is the navigation element, the mental pressure of doing that at speed.
I would suspect that '2' above would be more interested in the physical aspect, so therefore throwing something into the event that takes emphasis away from that would be a bad thing.
Orienteering got me into running, wanting to go faster and faster...

Again, I could be wrong, but I personally think you're more likely to get a fit 'non-runner' navigator wanting to go faster and get more into running, than getting an established road runner interested navigation around a forest.

I still continue hillwalking, but a few years ago one of the people I used to walk with started doing the odd long sunday run and decided to concentrate more on his cross-country runs at the weekend. He's now one of the UK's top ultra marathon runners, having started running from a relatively late age (in his 30's).
Another of my friends who is more of a mountain biker these days, is also a good navigator from hill walking, he recently had a top 10 finish in the LAMM.
The latter of these two is more than happy to navigate at night over the high hills - given the choice of attracting him (someone who doesn't consider himself a 'runner') or a typical club road runner focused on setting a new PB on a 10k or half marathon, I know who I'd pick if I was looking to recruit new people into the sport of orienteering.

One other thing I'd say is that whilst neither of these two have kids, if they did, do you not think if they had the orienteering bug they might pass this on to their kids?....

[DJM]

there never seems to be any effort to attract; 3. fit adults who enjoy navigation from say the likes of hillwalking

Not at the moment, but I'm reminded about how I got into orienteering myself ... as an avid climber and hill walker in my youth, I subscribed to every mountain magazine going. One, Climber and Rambler, carried a regular column on orienteering by Geoff Peck, then Britain's number one M21. His articles explained what orienteering was, what techniques were involved and gave some tips on what being an elite was like too. I'm sure I wasn't the only one to be inspired by these pieces to take up the sport.

Yes, by all means give the sport publicity in running magazines, but I'm with Kitchatna on this - hill/mountain magazines etc could prove to be a more fertile focus for our publicity/promotion.

[SeanC]

I'm pretty sure that the SLOW case study says that they found it easier to attract the less committed (to their club) runners. Park Run may attract many of these casual runners so definately seems something worth persuing.

I would agree though that there's lots of other groups which publicity could target. At a local level we've got an article published in "The Orchid" which is a free magazine distributed by Kent Downs area of outstanding natural beauty. This will be read mainly by various outdoor sorts who are more likely to be interested in orienteering than the general population. Might be worth seeing if your local AONB has a similar magazine? Being a small local publication they had plenty of space for an orienteering article, and keen to publish our stuff (anything ? ).

National magazines/websites etc from similar sports/activities? Who in our sport does this? Clubs have plenty of publicity to do at the local level and BOF only has a part time marketing officer, not sure if her job spec extends to doing this sort of publicity?

[Copepod]

I only started running more regularly very recently, having done 3 "Races for Life" between 1998 and about 2005, started orienteering around 1999, aged 35, and now run with orienteering weekly running group, not every week, due to other commitments, but when I can, and have doen 3 Parkruns. Unfortunately, local orienteering club isn't registered with Parkrun, so I run listed as local adventure racing group member. I refuse to wear a club orienteering top to anything, not even orienteering, as it's horrible! Occasionally wear an O top for orienteering.