Orienteers similar to Triathletes?

[Paul Frost]

Early results of a recent survey (3,800 completions) by the Triathlon Industry Association make interesting reading and how similar some thing are and how different others.

• Running is a core area from which to get into tri... 56% were runners before triathletes
• Committed to tri... 61% training 5-10 hours per week over the winter
• Average of 1.6 triathlon events per person in 2012
• Tri Starters... 20% new to triathlon in 2012
• Average triathlete salary £45,000
• 83% of triathletes are college/degree educated; average household size 2.6 people
• Lifestyle importance of health, fitness, personal challenge, training, etc., are common themes
• One third of triathletes expect a 10-20+ % increase in discretionary tri spend in 2013...

So they share a similar socioeconomic background and I suspect the conversion from running is a common one. But the amount of training done to the number of events entered couldn't be more different.
The number of events seems low to me and doesn't tally with my experience and those I know, but the time spent training being considerably more than competing is true.

Personally I tend to think of triathlon as a very competitive sport and orienteering as more participation orientated, (I'm not likely to be winning at either so that's not influencing my view) so the fact that they rarely compete yet spend hours training and orienteers generally compete rather than train seems at odds.

I realise these are sweeping statements and will vary by individual, but I think there is enough evidence to consider the following:

Should orienteers spend more time training?

Does your club provide plentiful coaching and training opportunities?

[SJC]

Should orienteers spend more time training?

Does your club provide plentiful coaching and training opportunities?

Probably and Some.

However experience shows that far more people will turn out for an event than a training session, which is why it is difficult to persuade members to put on the latter.

[andypat]

I think we are moving more towards training/coaching in Clyde.

I assume by training you dont just mean running Paul?

Maybe its about perception. We dont have so many good areas locally around here for training - lot of parks mapped and one or two overused areas. I guess generally for orienteering training I'd want to go somewhere more taxing, whereas if its just a local event I'll turn up for the competitive aspect - your personal view of orienteering as participative rather than competitive isnt the same as mine!

[SeanC]

The local athletic club has a triathlon section. I bet that encourages runners to do a bit of triathlon, plus there are benefits with shared facilities, coaching etc.

Such a tie up with a local orienteering club might work in some places. An orienteering section and the local orienteers (from probably wider afield than the runners) joining in with the running club for running training and taking advantage of shared facilities (eg club huts).

[Paul Frost]

I assume by training you dont just mean running Paul?

No, not just running, but other forms of fitness and strength training. Cycling and swimming are also great ways to improve fitness with a reduced risk of wearing out and damaging the moving bits.
You don't need a TD5 forest to practice reading a map on the run and making fast decisions, urban or park environments are fine for this.

...your personal view of orienteering as participative rather than competitive isnt the same as mine!

I did say it was a personal view and I was thinking of it more as a comparative observation, triathlon seems and looks more like racing. Part of that is the visual appearance, most triathletes dress like athletes (even when the body may not look athletic), lots of tight lycra and garish colours, but in a nice way. Whilst some orienteering kit is just embarrassing in colour and style.

The fact that orienteering tends to spit people up into smaller groups based on age rather than ability can reduce the amount of people that you can realistically compete against. Whilst with triathlon you are all doing the same race and distance, so it's easier to compare performance agains others and measure improvement over several races.

But I still like running around forests (or urban areas) with a map.

[graeme]

Committed to tri... 61% training 5-10 hours per week over the winter

Are you saying that's a lot or a little?
I imagine the main difference between O and Tri is in age profile, and that if you adjust for that and the fact that bike training takes about three times as long as running, its quite similar.
And what's training anyway? - I reckon any O-event other than Championships are mainly training, and some of those training rides those tri-guys do look pretty competitive to me

[Paul Frost]

Committed to tri... 61% training 5-10 hours per week over the winter

Are you saying that's a lot or a little?
I imagine the main difference between O and Tri is in age profile,

It was the comparison that for that training volume they only do 1.6 races a year.

The survey results so far didn't cover age, but looking back at what I suspect is a fairly typical Sprint distance Tri in Aberfeldy last year:
200 entries total, of which
75 Veteran
34 Super Veteran
7 Vintage

[DeerTick]

Part of that is the visual appearance, most triathletes dress like athletes (even when the body may not look athletic), lots of tight lycra and garish colours, but in a nice way. Whilst some orienteering kit is just embarrassing in colour and style.

Sorry, Paul. Lots of Lycra and garish colours cannot be combined with an unathletic body in a nice way and, unfortunately, the combination appears regularly in both triathlon and orienteering (and road running). On the other hand the guy I'd dearly like to emulate in M60 orienteering sports an athletic body and some fairly crappy kit.

During my days as a runner, the pecking order was:

Top line: sponsored shoes and sponsored fashion (not many of them in those days)
Good runners: best shoes they could afford, crappy fashion
Posers: expensive shoes, expensive fashion
Most club runners: crappy shoes, crappy fashion.

The fact that orienteering tends to spit people up into smaller groups based on age rather than ability can reduce the amount of people that you can realistically compete against. Whilst with triathlon you are all doing the same race and distance, so it's easier to compare performance agains others and measure improvement over several races.

Quite the opposite for me. I only compete at M60 level in big events (JK, etc). Elsewhere, I'll run against M55, M50, and below to get the distance. Can be embarrassing at times, but it's definitely value for entrance money.

AP

[charles2]

Some triathletes will plan their year around one or two big races for which there usually is a large entry fee. They usually participate in running races, cycling time trials, swimming trials and so on which hones their fitness and gives them a measure of how well they are doing. I guess triathletes don't count all these in the headline figure of 'number of races done'.

When I was competing in triathlon there were a number of races throughout the spring -> autumn (and a few in winter), so most triathletes I knew and still know would probably race triathlon 10 or so times a year (maybe events were cheaper 15 years ago!).

By training and competing in the disciplines separately you can make a good triathlete, but you do miss out on the transition training (from one discipline to another), although that is often also incorporated into training regimes.

Orienteering, on the other hand, I have found requires races to be part of training in order to combine fitness with clarity of thought and decision making.

[Paul Frost]

Orienteering, on the other hand, I have found requires races to be part of training in order to combine fitness with clarity of thought and decision making.

I agree with you, the pressure of competition in the decision process is part of training. The trick is to recognise when something has gone wrong and possibly go back and repeat a leg, or try alternate routes, rather than just carrying on. You can still compare leg times with others to see how well you could have done.

[roadrunner]

However experience shows that far more people will turn out for an event than a training session, which is why it is difficult to persuade members to put on the latter.

This was my club's experience too - though personally, I preferred the training sessions, because they got you to focus on specific aspects rather than just competing in the normal way. Of course, you can use an event for training, but I still feel it's helpful to give an aspect to focus on (e.g. compass and pacing), and plan with that in mind.