Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Monday, June 10, 2002 Running or navigating?Warning: today's entry is looooong.There has been some discussion on Attackpoint about the importance of being able to run fast (and to train intervals to get fast). The discussion began under a thread about the recent World Cup races in Belgium and Switzerland. I decided to take a look at Sergey Velichko and Kenny Walker's split times from Belgium (the "middle distance" race). I wanted to get a sense of how much time the top U.S. orienteers are losing. How would they have done if they ran at their capacities? After I looked at the times, I think Kenny and Sergey don't need to be running intervals on the track. They need to be working on navigation. Running capacity I looked at Kenny and Sergey's splits. I took the three legs where they had their best relative places. Of the 58 runners in the B-final, Kenny's best leg placings were 25th, 35th and 36th. The average of Kenny's top three is 32nd. Sergey's best leg placings were 22nd, 29th and 33rd. The average of Sergey's top three is 28th. You can make a reasonable case that Sergey's running capacity is such that he could be 28th, and Kenny's running capacity is such that he could be 32nd. How well would the U.S. runners have done if Sergey was 28th on each leg and Kenny was 33rd on each leg? Sergey would have run 30:22. That'd be good for 21st place; just ahead of Dickie Wren (Raymond's son). Sergey actually ran 37:24. Kenny would have run 30:45. That'd be good for 22nd place; just behind Dickie Wren. Kenny actually ran 38:00. Over 7 minutes below capacity Unfortunately, both Sergey and Kenny lost over 7 minutes compared to their running capacity. (The split time analysis at Winsplits shows Sergey and Kenny booming about 4-5 minutes each). I think the analysis suggests that both Sergey and Kenny are losing a lot of time to navigation. They need to work on reading the map and finding controls. Keep in mind that the terrain in Belgium is relatively straightforward. Vlad described it as "pathetically simple." You can take a look at the B-final map and course and judge for yourself. More running training -- working on running speed -- wouldn’t hurt. But, it probably isn't the place to make up seven minutes. Seven minutes is a lot of time. It is hard to run so slowly that you lose seven minutes over a race that takes 30-40 minutes. Think about it this way -- how fast could you run a 10k road race? Let's say you run 10k on a road in 45 minutes. How much easier it would feel to run the same distance in 52 minutes? It'd feel like a jog. Think about how much harder it'd be to run the 10k in 38 minutes. Could you do it? Probably not. In fact, unless you're doing almost no regular training, a 7 minute improvement is almost impossible. Sergey and Kenny both do plenty of running training. Neither of them is going to be able to add a couple of hours a week or running (even if it is a bunch of track intervals) and run 7 minutes faster for a 10k. On the other hand, they might be able to get rid of a big chunk of those 7 minutes by not booming. I think it is clear -- Sergey and Kenny shouldn't worry about intervals and running, they should worry about map reading. They should try to add more physical training. They should add more orienteering. Making the best "investment" in training time When you're thinking about how to train for orienteering, I think it is useful to think about marginal returns. Think about how you would best use the next hour of training a week. How many minutes would you gain on an O’ course if you added: One more hour a week of steady running? One morehour a week of intervals (or hills or whatever)? One more hour a week orienteering technique training? Some final notes 32nd place on each leg gets you 21st overall. That’s one of the things that makes orienteering interesting. You don’t have to be fastest for the leg, you have to be fastest for the entire course. My analysis is very limited. It’d be worth looking at some other races (and some other orienteers). Maybe I’ll do that in the future. My analysis oversimplifies the issue of running versus navigation training. The two aren't really seperable. The fitter you are, the easier it can be to navigate because you won't be so tired. On the other hand, the fitter you are, the harder it can be to read the map because you may be moving too fast. Running and navigating have to be in balance. Finding the balance is a key. It isn't easy. posted by Michael | 9:00 PM 
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