okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Preparing for races
As I've gotten more experience orienteering (and as I get older!), I've become more interested in how to think about an up-coming race.
The Chicago A-meet gave us some good opportunities to think about the up-coming race. On Friday, we had a "model event" at a place next to the race site. Before you started on Saturday, you had a chance to look around the finish area and you could see a bit of the forest on the way to the start. Before Sunday, you could think about what you'd learned on Saturday and could look at the terrain and map before your start (both day's were on the same map). The same person designed the courses both days -- I had a few minutes before I started on Sunday to chat with the course setter.
How do you make the best use of the chances you've got?
What should you look for during a model event?
What should you do if you've got a map of the actual event site?
Can you learn something by looking at the course setter's prior work?
What sort of things to the best orienteers see on the way to the start that the rest of us don't?
If you were getting ready to run the World Champs in Switzerland in 2003 and you had a copy of the map of the classic area, what would you do with it? (If you're curious, here is a 1998 map that covers part of the classic WOC 2003 area).
I've got a few thoughts about preparing for races. But, they'll have to wait a while because I'm getting sleepy.
posted by Michael |
10:00 PM
