okansas.blogspot.com
Occassional thoughts about orienteering


Saturday, September 14, 2002

More thoughts on route choice

 

Saving energy

The best route isn't necessarily the fastest time on a given leg. The best route is the route that gives you the fastest time for the course. Sometimes, you can give up a bit of time on a leg to save some energy that you'll be able to use later.

Take a look at the two routes on this map. Route A is the fastest route. Ten men ran both routes and the average for A is about 30 seconds faster than B. Seven women ran both routes and the average for A is about a minute faster than B. What is interesting is that the B route -- with a steep climb just before the control -- also slowed the runners on the next leg. The A route saved energy for later in the course.

Even if A had turned out to be slower than B, it might have been the best decision because it saved energy.

This example is from an academic paper on route choice by Rasmus Westergren in 1990. If you can read Swedish, it makes for interesting reading. The paper is available here.

Some ways to train route choice

I do a couple of things to train route choice:

1. I look at courses and pick routes. I try to find several alternatives even if one route looks obvious. I even look for alternatives that I think are not feasible. I'm not trying to see the best route, I'm trying to see the options. The idea is to make it easy to find the different options.*

2. I do a few route choice tests where I compare times on routes where one route looks to be clearly slower (perhaps running a trail that is far out of the way). I try to learn how much time I would lose by taking a crazy route. I run these tests with a heart rate monitor to try to keep the effort similar. Another way to do this sort of test is to run with someone -- each of you taking different routes -- either starting at the same time or starting a minute apart. I think it works best when you expect one of the routes to be clearly slower. It is interesting to see how much slower.

*Peter (I think) wrote something in a comment about the tendency for Swedes to miss routes that aren't straight because they are used to just going straight. In Sweden, the straight route is often the best. Compared to a lot of nations, Sweden is flat and the runnability doesn't vary much. Swede's get used to heading in the general direction without even looking for the alternatives.

posted by Michael | 10:32 AM

0 comments


Comments: Post a Comment
March 2002April 2002May 2002June 2002July 2002August 2002September 2002October 2002November 2002December 2002January 2003February 2003March 2003April 2003May 2003June 2003July 2003August 2003September 2003October 2003November 2003December 2003January 2004February 2004March 2004April 2004May 2004June 2004July 2004August 2004September 2004October 2004November 2004December 2004January 2005February 2005March 2005April 2005May 2005June 2005July 2005August 2005September 2005October 2005November 2005December 2005January 2006February 2006March 2006April 2006May 2006June 2006July 2006August 2006September 2006October 2006November 2006December 2006January 2007February 2007March 2007April 2007May 2007June 2007July 2007August 2007September 2007October 2007November 2007December 2007January 2008February 2008March 2008April 2008May 2008June 2008July 2008August 2008September 2008October 2008November 2008December 2008January 2009February 2009March 2009April 2009May 2009June 2009July 2009August 2009September 2009October 2009November 2009December 2009January 2010February 2010March 2010April 2010May 2010June 2010July 2010August 2010September 2010October 2010November 2010December 2010January 2011February 2011March 2011April 2011May 2011June 2011July 2011August 2011September 2011October 2011November 2011December 2011January 2012February 2012March 2012April 2012May 2012June 2012July 2012August 2012September 2012October 2012November 2012December 2012January 2013March 2013April 2013May 2013July 2013September 2013
archives
links