okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Monday, March 01, 2004
30 minutes a day
I'm going to spend 30 minutes a day studying O' maps between now and the first A-meet of the year (March 20-21 in St Louis). It is an experiment. Does studying O' maps help?
I did the same thing last September in preparing for the Great Lakes O' Fest.
When I did the experiment in September it seemed to work. But, one positive experience isn't enough to convince me that the map study helped. You can read what I wrote about part of my last experiment.
30 minutes a day is a lot of time to spend sitting and looking at an O' map. But, if it pays off, it'll be time well spent. It is, after all, a very painless way to practice.
When I first moved to Sweden, I borrowed the map books of a buy named Lennart Gustavsson. Lennart was a very good orienteer. He was on the Swedish "B" team and had a top ten finish at the Swedish champs. I spent hours looking at his maps and routes. At some point I realized I could look at a leg and tell you what route Lennart would take. By studying his maps, I'd picked up his style of orienteering. Maybe a side effect of my latest map study experiment will be getting a sense of Valstad's style.
posted by Michael |
8:37 PM
