Florida's
Ron Eaglin has posted a map from the USARA Nationals race a few weeks ago,
the map is available via this link. I love going over orienteering maps and visualizing routes; Ron's is great because you can see his notes in the margin and the hand-drawn details really makes you want to get out and try the course yourself!
For some more "real maps" with a course and everything else on it, the web helps us out (along with the
World of Orienteering website). For example, one of the top US orienteers,
Sandra Zurcher, (both parents are Swiss, but she's American even though she lives in Switzerland officially now -- it's a bit complicated I guess) updates a weblog just with her O-maps at
www.samamaps.blogspot.com. Found it through World of O a few months back; check them out.
One last thing about orienteering, and it might help you snag a few of your hard-core running buddies into doing some orienteering events. This links to
a story on orienteering as interval training and a method to crosstrain and improve your running speed. Of course, for adventure racers, orienteering is great map and compass work
too, but I had never considered it for more pure runners but it makes sense. Forward the story to your running friends and see if this captures their interest:
"Sprint orienteering is a terrific way to work on agility, plyometrics, hills, and speed in a tight compact package without having to worry about repeats.”
Orienteering is like a pyramid scheme, you know, bring as many others into the fold and you'll be better for it down the road! Find o-events near you at
www.us.orienteering.org, including links to the two mid-Atlantic groups I can highly recommend to anyone:
• James River OC (JROC) - 1409 Shortleaf Lane,
Chesapeake VA 23320 (sc_callahan at hotmail.com)
• Quantico
OC (QOC) - 8910 Yellow Daisy Place, Lorton VA
22079. 24-hr
hotline: 301-765-0841 (sidneysachs at juno.com)