a new approach?

[gross2004]

Orienteering is a RUNNING sport. To improve as an orienteering athlete you have to understand that. You could argue that upto 90% of an athletes performance is governed by his / her ability to run (90% is not an accurate scientific figure by the way )

If coaching wants a new approach for the sport of orienteering (rather than recreational orienteering) then it needs to be able to produce male athletes capable of running close to 30 mins for 10km. The base of this speed is built during your late teens..... yes teach map contact, compass, pacing....... but if you can't run fast you ain't going anywhere... fast

[chrisecurtis]

10K in half an hour would be considerably faster than the world championship cross country pace in each of the last two years.

Also, running too fast, and relying on running speed rather than navigation, is a common cause of serious errors - not for me though!

[gross2004]

You seem to miss lots of points:) 10km in 30 to 31 mins is not particulary fast & is in fact a target for quite a number of national squads. And about running to fast I never made any comment about that....... I said you need to be able to run fast. Obviously within that you need to adjust your orienteering speed to terrain, course etc etc - same as you would if you can't run fast.

Point is that if you have the physical capacity to run at x mins per km then you are ahead on the start line in some small way than someone who runs at x+1 mins per km.

Orienteering is a running sport

[gross2004]

I think you'll find that the World XC Champs for the previous 3 years were won in around 35mins, 35mins and 34mins So certainly much slower than 30mins..... but there again I think you'll find that the WXC is actually 12km or something....... so much longer than 10km

[FatBoy]

Good topic.

On the subject of running speed I agree to be the best you have to be able to run fast fast. When I was 16-18 odd I realised I was never going to stay with the Jamie's of this world. Some days I'd beat him then he'd run times I couldn't get anywhere near. My best 10km set at 16 was 35:55 which isn't slow but just not quick enough to be a world beater.

As for compass and pacing I agree with most of what's said. You can't not teach them because there fundemental skills, even if you use them less in top terrain. My method of coaching juniors was (must put some more back in...) to present them with every technique and let them choose, rather than teach in the "this is the way you do it" mould. If I trawled back through my Sweden maps from years back I could easily find some controls that absolutely needed compass work because not every corner of every forest in Sweden is covered is complex terrain! At the o-ringen I didn't take many bearings but used the compass all the time for rough work, and as I got tired at the end of the week I even switched back to a baseplate (usually use the thumb with a rotatable housing) for the last day because my rough bearings had become too rough! Pacing I use rarely but every so often I do - mostly at night. Pacing is good for creating attack points along line features where there's no other attack points close enough - again at night you need to get close enough to hit a point feature with the compass.

[Mrs H.]

Gross is definitely right orienteering is a running sport although I don't know enough to argue a definitive figure on speed - but as this is primarily about the copaching of young orienteers this throws up an interesting paradox. Orienteers who excel at an early age seem to me ( a personal observation) to be the ones who are very good at navigating - they move up through the ranks coping with the increasing demands more easily and leaving their fast moving contemporaries to run around in circles for a few years.

It is only after they reach M/W16 when everyone is up to top techical difficulty that the true potential champions start to emerge - almost invariably the runners - this seems to be confirmed by Fatboy's experiences.

I've already said in my mag that i think putting a select bunch of 14 years olds on start squad is a waste of time and money apart from being demoralising for those who don't make it and potential injurious to those who do - far better to offer a wider bunch of kids some tour opportunities and see the cream rise to the top later on - keep the options open.

[SJ]

I've never done a 10km race - what's a good time for a woman? And seeing as I wouldn't expect a "good" result soon - what's a good time to aim for?!

[chrisecurtis]

SJ -

As far as I can tell from a little googling the 10K world record (on a track) is

26:20.31 (Kenenisa Bekele) for men and
29:31.78 (Junxia Wang) for women.

Very few women have run 10K faster than 30mins so set yourself a target!

As a 40+ when I was in good form and fitness a few years ago doing 10K on roads in anything under an hour felt like quite an achievement, but I know a fair number of younger people who can do 10K in 40 mins or so. Actually, 10K is tough - running 10K at all is a major achievement!

[chrisecurtis]

Just for the record - it is obvious that fitness and speed are very important for orienteering success and I agree that we have a lot to learn from other sports and other nations about this.
I do think we need to set the right targets though. If there are only a few people in the world who can run 10K in less than 30 minutes on a track (probably with pacemakers) then saying that we need to produce orienteers who can do half-hour 10Ks is a bit bold! As Carol McNeill often says - it is about ORIENTEERING fast - only part of which is running fast.

[Jene]

mmm, just to be random...i do bout 40 mins-ish on a sporting course (i.e. with hills ect), all on roads though for 10k an thats with a pacemaker (aka my mummy!!) though when she were runnin (were talking bout 20 years ago now!!) she were runnin 35 min for 10k so i 30 mins for 10k isn't really a target for women. My target is to get under 40mins....n i'm an ok / average runner.

[gross2004]

We want to produce winners don't we? We need strong runners in the national team. I see absolutely nothing wrong with a target of 30 - 31 mins for 10km. I'm not suggesting in anyway that it should be a requirement but a target......... same as WOC medals are a target.

Suggesting we accept lower targets would simply reduce the standard of athlete in the sport at the top.

[gross2004]

SJ -

. Actually, 10K is tough - running 10K at all is a major achievement!

I think the quote above shows you have the entirely wrong concept of the sport of orienteering... running 10km for an athlete is not a major achievement at all... just look at the number of O races that are over 10km in length

And your other point of a fit 40+ doing 10km in 60 mins is a bit of a joke actually. Hate to say it but even fat old me could haul myself round 10km in 60 mins.... just

[Jene]

thought 30 mins is still stupidly fast for a woman......
and to prove the point

10k 30:01.09 CR 6 Aug 2002 1 Munich, GER
10kR 30:21 23 Feb 2003 1 San Juan, PUR

^^^ they're paula radcliff PB's track and road.

i don't know about the men but i think 38 / 40 seems pretty reasonable for women

[gross2004]

agree with you about girlies........ if a top female orienteer could run 10km in 30 mins I'd advise her to join the international road running circuit and make some money

[gross2004]

One further point on the subject of running fast... orienteering athletes shouldn't treat the ability to run fast as a goal in itself, the speed should come automatically from a structured training programme.

With one girl I discuss training with an awful lot I am continually telling her that she is too obsessed with speed and training to run fast rather than train for orienteering But that doesn't mean you don't need to run fast to reach the top.