The orienteering session from Saturday went well. We had a good
turnout (15 or more people) and a gorgeous day. I covered the
very basics (Handrail, Aiming Off, etc), leaving quite a bit on the
table for another time; I think there's a lot to be said for
learning about yourself as well as
learning about orienteering in general.
It takes practice to discover what kind of compass you like, how you
prefer to hold and fold your maps, and how easily you move off
trail. I can share how I operate, but it doesn't apply to
everyone else and people getting more into orienteering need to develop
these things for themselves. I guess it's building your own
"style" of orienteering, for lack of a better term.
A few things I suggest doing to help find your orienteering "mojo:"
- Pick two locations, point A and point B, to orienteer between (Newport News Park
has a fixed orienteering course and map to go with it, but any place
can work so long as you have some kind of map). Identify a few
routes from point A to point B -- be sure to have one route with
trails, one without, maybe one with a road, one combination etc.
Use a watch and time how long it takes you to run each route.
Take some time and really explore the options. When you're done,
examine the results and learn from the experience: Are you faster
running off-trail than you expected? How easy is it to check your
map when running on a smooth surface? Does your hand sweat and
damage your map? Is your compass slow to respond? Don't
disregard a 20 second time difference . . . in a "real" situation those
20 second decisions can turn into 20 minute decisions if you use your
experience to your advantage. You could
do this with your adventure racing teammates to help discover how you
work well as a team . . . maybe one is great at vocalizing features
while another is better at quick route selection.
- Take a map on your next long run, preferably a run through a park or
area with lots of greenspace. Track your progress on the map as
you run, and maybe half way through the run get off trail and navigate
your way to another part of the trail or road. You'll be
surprised how much you'll learn about the area around you. Work
on reading features throughout your entire run and getting comfortable
with the mental endurance required. I've found that I make pretty
good orienteering decisions for the first 8 hours of an event, but
eventually my concentration starts to deteriorate and it requires more
focus to stay on track the longer an event goes. This is where
having some team navigation can really help (and some Red Bull!).
- Participate in O-meets like the ones organized by the Quantico Orienteering Club (QOC); their website is http://qoc.nova.org and they have events every week, although you may be in for a bit of a drive! Rumour has it that Encompass-Adventure,
the local orienteering gurus, might have some events for the Hampton
Roads area in the coming months. At these events, take advantage
of the opportunity to talk routes and course selection with the others
. . . it's a great way to mutually learn.
This stuff isn't academic orienteering where you learn concepts and
principles; instead, this stuff helps you learn about yourself and how
you orienteer and can be instumental in building your orienteering mojo
for adventure racing and beyond.