okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Saturday, November 09, 2002
Micro route choice?
I've heard people talk about "micro route choice." I think they mean small decisions, like whether to go around a fallen tree to the left or the right.
I've always figured it doesn't make sense to spend time making small decisions and worrying about which side of a tree to run on. It seems like there are more important things to think about. Running around things is always risky because it is easy to drift off the line you intend to run. If you train by running in the woods, you probably make reasonable choices without thinking about it and without drifting off your line.
But, at today's local meet, I spent a lot of time thinking about "micro route choice." The forest was less than pleasant. We spent a lot of time running through hip high brush (a bit of if with thorns). Making it a bigger challenge was that last winter's ice storm knocked down a lot of trees. Parts of the forest were filled with downed trees. I was looking for deer trails to get through the brush. I followed them even if they didn't quite go the right direction. I also spent a fair amount of mental energy looking for routes through the fallen trees.
Given how rough the forest was today, worrying about small decisions was probably a good use of time and energy. But, it isn't something I want to get used to doing.
posted by Michael |
8:01 PM
