Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Sunday, December 28, 2003 O' speedIn a comment to my December 17 entry, Jeff wrote:With regards to first control booms, I think that orienteers are being more careful. If you had time/Km information, I bet that you would see that people are going slower to the first control then things pick up on the 2nd and 3rd controls. Maybe people are more careful on the way to the first control. I've been given advice to take it easy to the first control. You want to "get in to" the map. You don't want to start the race with a big boom. On the other hand, maybe people go faster to the first control. The first leg often begins with some very fast running -- commonly on a trail. Sometimes the first leg is designed with the idea of getting the runners out of the start area. If that's the case, the speed would probably be quite high even if the orienteer was being careful. I haven't ever compared speeds for the first control and subsequent controls. Partly because it is a bit of a pain (split lists don't usually show leg lengths). Partly it is because the speed is so dependent on the specific leg. But, I spent a few minutes this morning looking at some information from O-Sport's coverage of the 2003 WOC that struck me as interesting (though I'm not exactly sure what to make of it). O-Sport calculated the speed of a bunch of runners on different legs at the WOC. Speed is the time divided by the length of the route that the individual runner took (not the straight line length). Some speeds from the sprint race Jamie Stevenson won the sprint at a speed of 3:28 (per Kilometer) on his route. The course was 2.8 km, but Stevenson ran 3.66 km. O-Sport has his speed for three individual legs: 2:44, 3:08 and 3:40. Simone Niggli-Luder won the sprint at a speed of 3:52. The women's course was the same length as the men's (2.8 km), but Niggli-Luder covered a little less distance on her route. She ran 3.45 km (210 meters shorter than Stevenson). O-Sport has her speed for three legs: 3:44, 4:18 and 3:48. Some speeds from the long distance race Simone Niggli-Luder won with a speed of 5:48 per km. (It is interesting to note that Karolina Arewang ran at a faster speed, 5:29, but ran about 1.5 km longer). O-Sport speeds for Simone: 5:28, 6:54, 6:27 and 5:22. Thomas Buhrer's winning speed for the entire course was 5:23. O-Sport speeds for Buhrer: 4:57, 6:34, 6:12, 5:09, 4:39 and 4:40. What to make of this info? I don't know what to make of the information. Obviously, the speed orienteers run varies a lot. A quick glance at the maps suggests the speed depends on the terrain. That makes is hard to use split times as a proxy for how careful someone is orienteering. To look at speeds to try to figure out if an orienteer was being careful probably would make sense in certain races (where the terrain is relatively consistent -- not so hilly and consistent footing, climb and runnability). posted by Michael | 1:00 PM 
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