I think there's a big difference between juniors and seniors, club orienteers and internationals here.
I agree with Gross if he is talking about are the top internationals, where everybody on the starting line can navigate, but the faster you are the better your chances of winning.
For average club runners, more time can often be lost in navigational mistakes than can be made up for in speed (and speed can make mistakes bigger). Until big mistakes never happen, speed is of lesser importance than navigational ability. I'd hate to see juniors (particularly young ones) training hard fitness-wise to do better and ending up injured.
Also, if you're not a natural runner, no matter how hard you train, you will never be as fast as someone who is. The junior I work with could do 2 miles cross sountry in just over 13 minutes at the age of 12. She's now 14 and I've got no chance of keeping up with her when we go out together. What is the point of working on her fitness at the moment?
a new approach?
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Agree with all you say. And as a 12 to 14 year old you don't want them to be training hard for one specific sport. Kids that age can pick up general fitness through taking part & experience all kinds of activities. I think I said earlier than the base that you need to build on to become a senior athlete is built during mid to late teens......
Juniors are a strange breed.... take loads of the Scots juniors through the years... they can orienteer technically well but can't move fast through fast terrain... so when they used to travel south they got beaten on easy terrain because the couldn't run fast enough. Take the southern juniors to highly technical terrain & the Scots would win.......
Juniors are a strange breed.... take loads of the Scots juniors through the years... they can orienteer technically well but can't move fast through fast terrain... so when they used to travel south they got beaten on easy terrain because the couldn't run fast enough. Take the southern juniors to highly technical terrain & the Scots would win.......
- gross2004
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
I am not sure where I have missed the point of the sport... You seem to imply that it is only for "athletes" - the kind of people who can run 10K and take it for granted. One of the things I find most impressive about orienteering is that it is extremely welcoming and inclusive. There are lots of sorts of "athletes" in orienteering, not just the super-elite. For lots of people (and not just the over-40s) completing a 4K green course (let alone 10K) in under an hour is a major achievement - the targets then get raised, progress gets made and they have lots of triumphs as well as disasters - OK no medals get won, but if I understand what I have read and experienced about orienteering quite a lot of the sport is about competing against yourself and the terrain at least as much as it is about beating anyone else.
If you want to be world orienteering champion, setting yourself the target of running faster than anyone else in the world at competition distance and navigating better than anyone else in the world in competition terrain is a no brainer. I agree with gross that if we want to win world championships more often we need a squad that can do both - obvious really.
It would be tragic though, if people who are not (yet) in contention at those levels were seen as "a bit of a joke actually" if they cannot, for the moment, live up to someone else's view of what they should be achieving. It would be even worse if they were to give up the quest to become better orienteers if they cannot (yet) come near to those targets.
I meant what I said to SJ "set yourself a target" - don't let other people do it for you.
I still think running 10K is an achievement. Doing it in an hour (which is still only twice world record pace) is impressive - probably more than 90% of the population could achieve. If you can get anywhere near the performance of people who are genetically "designed" for the event and who spend literally years of hours every day training for it then you deserve huge respect. I would be very happy to finish within 10 minutes of Paula Radcliffe on a 10K run - even she has had runs of over 40 minutes!
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chrisecurtis - red
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I didn't imply anything of the sort & wouldn't be so stupid:) Orienteering is for all but it falls into at least 2 categories..... Sport orienteering and recreational orienteering.
Sport orienteering is competitive and this is the area that coaching etc comes in.....
Recreational orienteering is just that... recreation & nothing wrong with that at all! Compete against yourself & the elements. Coaching as such probably doesn't have much place here... probably better with instruction.
I'm not saying one category or the other is better... each to thier own interests. But sport involves competition & competition delivers winners and losers and the desire to improve... recreation is all about enjoyment and it maybe that one way of increasing enjoyment is to increase skill level and/or compete about yourself.
From my experience (which might not be as great as other posters) sport athletes are interested in competing against others as a priority:)
Sport orienteering is competitive and this is the area that coaching etc comes in.....
Recreational orienteering is just that... recreation & nothing wrong with that at all! Compete against yourself & the elements. Coaching as such probably doesn't have much place here... probably better with instruction.
I'm not saying one category or the other is better... each to thier own interests. But sport involves competition & competition delivers winners and losers and the desire to improve... recreation is all about enjoyment and it maybe that one way of increasing enjoyment is to increase skill level and/or compete about yourself.
From my experience (which might not be as great as other posters) sport athletes are interested in competing against others as a priority:)
- gross2004
Not sure that I agree there is such a clear distinction between "sport" and "recreational" orienteering but see where you are coming from.
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chrisecurtis - red
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I quite agree that the two categories - recreational and competitive - exist. But I think there is a lot more cross over than Gross implies. My "coaching" involvement with the sport is firmly at the recreational, instruction end of the sport (or activity if we're being pedantic). That doesn't mean that the kids I'm helping to orientate a map - "that blue blob is the pond you can see over there...." won't one day be competitive orienteers. And even if they don't, what we sadly lack in the UK is a broad base of "competitors" at all stages. I know this is common to all sports, but saying that we should concentrate on runners capable of 10k in 30mins will only exacerbate the problem.
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Lumpy Lycra - orange
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Again you misunderstand the concept I'm not saying anywhere that we should concentrate on people that can run 10km in 30 mins... that's obviously a bit daft as you'd only concentrate on two or three people.
What I did say is that we need to concentrate on people with the potential to run fast in sport orienteering... forget the 30mins... it's becoming a red herring:)
What I did say is that we need to concentrate on people with the potential to run fast in sport orienteering... forget the 30mins... it's becoming a red herring:)
- gross2004
Unfortunately Gross is right (I hate having to say that). If you're talking about picking people in their mid to late teens who could be world class they have to have natural running ability, and I think running 10km (boys) in about 30, maybe 32 at most, is a good benchmark. I'm not sure I'm qualified to comment on the girls but I would say 35-7 would be a comparable time?
I'll tell you a story. British Champs 1994 Cardiff Uni shared a village hall with OUOC and I ran M19A and just beat one of Oxford's guys who I'd not met before. He was new to orienteering and comparing splits it was obvious that if he learnt to navigate he would beat me by 20 minutes. His name? Nick Barrable.
I'll tell you a story. British Champs 1994 Cardiff Uni shared a village hall with OUOC and I ran M19A and just beat one of Oxford's guys who I'd not met before. He was new to orienteering and comparing splits it was obvious that if he learnt to navigate he would beat me by 20 minutes. His name? Nick Barrable.
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FatBoy - addict
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