okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
Friday, November 14, 2003 Is night orienteering as hard as it sounds?Night O' is hard.At night you lose some of the things you can use to navigate during the day. You can't see very far. That makes it harder to keep track of how far you've gone and keep moving in a straight line. If you lose track of where you are, it is harder to relocate at night. In one way night O' can be easier than day orienteering. At most night O' races the markers have some reflective tape on them. The tape often shows up very clearly from a distance. Sometimes you can find the control by just getting near and then sweeping the terrain with your lamp until you get a reflection. You have to be careful, though. Wednesday night a couple of people had trouble when they mistook the glowing eyes of deer for control markers. Running at night is different. I wouldn't say it is harder to move fast, but it takes some practice. A distant memory... The first time I saw a Scandinavian O' map was at a USOF convention in Indiana (in 1982?). A visiting Norwegian student had some maps that he showed me. I remember studying one course. After a few minutes I decided that even though it'd be difficult, I was pretty sure I'd be able to finish the course. Then I found out it was a night O' course. Take a look at some courses from Norway. Check out the part I and then take a look at part II. The courses are from the M17-18 championships in night O' in 2003. Oystein Sorensens routes are shown. He won the race. Some maps relevant for the 2004 Junior WOC While I was looking for night O' courses, I discovered a page with a number of maps from a Norwegian training camp to prepare for the 2004 JWOC. I'm not sure if anyone who reads my page is preparing for the JWOC, but just in case I thought I'd provide a link. Here is Tiltnes' JWOC 2004 training camp page. The top four maps are areas that will be used during the races (so you can't train there). The other maps are relevant areas that are open for training. posted by Michael | 7:27 PM
Comments:
The reflective tape really helps out when riding at night. All obstacles should be marked so that riders with lights can avoid them.
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