WAOC Training
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These notes were written by WAOC's then Club Coach Julia Crook.
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My aims are to encourage club orienteers to improve their orienteering skills
and to provide training events for the club through which this can happen. To
perform at your best you need to work on the physical side as well as the
technical side, and to make sure your energy and hydration levels are optimal
before a race. I will be concentrating on the technical side and leave you to
work on your fitness.
As you know I have been writing articles about different orienteering
techniques in each edition of Jabberwaoc. I
have duplicated them here:
Each year I hope to provide a series of training events which allow you to
practise these techniques, discuss the courses with others and have some fun at
the same time.
BOF produce several books teaching orienteering techniques such as:
- "Orienteering: The Skills Of The Game" by Carol McNeill
- "Orienteering: Pathways To Excellence" by Peter Palmer
- "The Complete Orienteering Manual" edited by Peter Palmer and of which I
own a copy
Map Familiarity
When you start orienteering, the
biggest problem is lack of familiarity with orienteering maps. I remember early
on getting confused between white and orange areas. Green obviously meant trees
to me but I often forgot that white also meant forested but more runnable. There
really is no other way to train yourself at being better at interpreting the map
than by going orienteering as much as possible in different areas and looking at
maps after you've run. Different people map areas in slightly different ways. It
is always a matter of interpretation. With experience you will get used to what
is likely to be mapped and what is not. I still find that causes me problems in
areas outside the South East.
Handrails
When you first start orienteering you
will be using "handrails" all the time. "Handrails" are line features such as
paths, fences or streams. They are excellent navigational aids providing safe
routes between controls. You simply follow the feature without having to keep
looking at the map or compass. All courses up to and including orange will
entirely use handrails, although on orange courses the control sites may be just
off a line feature. Harder courses will also allow "handrail" navigation for
many parts of the course (particularly in the South East where there are many
paths) but these "handrails" may be on less obvious line features such as
re-entrants or spurs, and taking a safe path route may not be the fastest route
to the control.
Aiming Off
Aiming off is a technique allowing you to go on a bearing to an obvious
feature, which you can then follow in to the control. Suppose you have a control
on a stream junction and you are approaching it in a roughly perpendicular
direction from point X (figure 1). Instead of taking an accurate bearing from X
to the control and having to go slowly to make sure you keep on the bearing
(route 1), you aim for example to the left side of the control and go on a rough
bearing (route 2). This allows you to go faster to the stream and you know you
will need to turn right along the stream to locate the control. An accurate
bearing allows you to hit the control spot on and means you run the least
distance, but unless you are very accurate with your bearing you may end up to
the left or right of the control and then not knowing which way to turn when you
reach the stream.
Attack Points
Attack points are very important in orienteering although in orange courses
and below you will not be aware you are using them, as handrails lead you to the
controls. An attack point is an obvious point feature or crossing of 2 line
features reasonably close to the control that should be easy to find. You aim to
find this first and then go more slowly into the control. Sometimes there may be
several possible attack points and it is up to you to choose the one you think
will be easiest to find and from which the control will be easiest to find. This
is not always as easy as it sounds. Figure 2 shows a fairly simple example to
illustrate what an attack point is:
Control 9 is on a crag in a forest to the east of a path and control 10 is on
a hilltop in the forest to the west of the path. To carry out this leg you will
almost certainly want to use the path as a handrail for a large part of the leg.
You could cut down to the path and then pace count as you head south on the path
until you think you have gone the right distance before heading on a bearing
into the forest to locate control 10. This is risky because you would have to be
very accurate in your pace counting. Instead you should notice the crag on the
east side of the path not far from control 10. You can run fast along the path
until you see this crag at which point you slow down and take your bearing to
control 10, the crag being your attack point. It should be easy to find and when
you get there you know exactly where you are allowing you to take an accurate
bearing to the hill top and control 10.
Catching Features
A "catching feature" is typically a line feature or some large obvious
feature. e.g. a lake beyond the control and perpendicular to your route which
will "catch" you if you miss the control and overshoot. A catching feature may
also be a line feature parallel to your route which will catch you if you wander
off your straight line route. For example, suppose your control is in a small
depression with a path beyond it , a stream to the right and a fence to the
left. The path will catch you if you overshoot and the stream or fence will
catch you if you veer off to the right or left from your desired straight route
from X. Catching features can give you confidence to go a little faster because
even if you make a mistake you will not go too far wrong because your route is
contained.
Traffic Lighting
"Traffic Lighting". A useful skill
in orienteering is the ability to break down a leg into easy, more difficult and
tricky navigational sections (you may not always have 3 types of section in each
leg) and to run at the speed appropriate to this difficulty. This is known as
"traffic lighting". This means knowing when to go fast (green) such as when
following a handrail to an obvious feature, knowing when to slow down (amber)
such as when you are approaching a control which is not in a very difficult area
and when visibility is good, and knowing when to walk (red) such as when finding
a control in a very complex contoured area.
Compass and Pace
Being able to judge distance is a
very useful skill in orienteering. It can help you know when to start slowing
down and look for your attack point or control, and it can help you know when
you've gone too far and missed your control. One way of helping you know how far
you have gone is to count paces - typically you will count double paces. You
will need to know how many double paces you do to 100m. I do about 40 when
running through open forest, but if you've got long legs and run fast you may
well do nearer 30. Obviously this also varies depending on the type of terrain
you are running through.
Being able to use the compass is an essential skill in orienteering, firstly
for getting the map the right way round, but also for checking you are going in
the right direction along a line feature, for helping you determine which
path/stream you are on or crossing and for going on rough bearings as well as
taking accurate bearings when there are no line features to follow. Compass and
pacing is the only way to find a small feature such as a pit in an otherwise
featureless forest (other than using the headless chicken approach!).
Visualisation and Simplification
When you plan your
route you need to think about what you will see on the ground, ie you are
interpreting and visualising the map. You need to form a 3- dimensional picture
from the 2-dimensional map. A map covered in intricate contour detail is
particularly difficult to visualise, but the best orienteers can do this. Being
able to visualise contours is very useful even in the South East because
contours rarely change whereas forest can be chopped down and paths disappear or
new paths appear.
If the distance of the leg is short you may well visualise everything between
the controls on the map, but if the leg is quite long you need to pick out the
big features that you will see and not worry about the little ones on the way
(until you get near to the control), ie. you are simplifying. You need to do
simplification to be able to use the Traffic Light technique, eg. if the 1st big
feature is a path crossing your route, you can ignore all those pits, thickets
and knolls on the way to the path and therefore run fast.
Relocation
This is about finding out exactly where you
are when you are lost. "Lost" can mean several things from "you haven't the
faintest idea where you are on the map or even if you are off the map", to "you
have a reasonable idea of the region you are in but are not sure of your precise
location". If you have no idea where you are then relocation is very tricky.
Hopefully you have some idea of where you are. If you can remember when you last
knew exactly where you were and have some idea of what you have seen since then,
by studying the features around you and matching them to what you see on the map
in the area you think you are in you should be able to work out where you are.
Good visualisation ability helps a lot here. If there are no distinct features
in sight, you will have to decide which is the best direction to travel in such
that you will hit an obvious feature shown on the map. In an area where there
are several paths this may not be too difficult providing you can distinguish
between them. The difference in technical difficulties 5 and 5* is purely on how
easy it would be to relocate.
Route Choice
Once you get to red and orange standard
courses you should be getting some route choices. Route choices may be deciding
between going round a path or straight through a wood, going over a hill
straight or a longer way round on the flat, or even a choice of whether to go to
the right or left of a bush. The best choice for you may not be the best for
someone else. It all depends on your level of fitness and navigational ability.
Different routes may provide different attack points, one more reliable than
another. So you will need to weigh up length, climb, runnability and ease of
navigation of each route. It can be of great benefit to compare routes with
other people after an event. Often someone will have taken a route that you
never spotted while in the forest. If you can compare split times too then you
can get a good idea which is the better route. If you find yourself looking at
the map for some time trying to decide between two routes, you'll probably find
that the routes are not that different and you should just get on and implement
one choice. The time spent weighing up the differences will probably outweigh
any benefit gained. One tip though, once you've decided on a route choice, it is
best to stick to it unless you have a very good reason to change your mind.
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