okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Plan for this weekend's race
I'm running M40 (for the first time!) at the St Louis A-meet this weekend. I spent some time this evening thinking through my plan for the weekend. The plan is simple -- read the map.
I think visibility might be pretty good in the forest (check out some photos and map clips). So, if I keep my head up and look far ahead, I ought to be able to orienteer fast and spot some controls for a ways away. I won't be surprised if they hide the controls a bit because of the good visibility. Sometimes course setters hide the controls with the idea that it forces you to navigate all the way to the control. I don't know it that'll be the case, but I won't be surprised it if happens.
I want to make a conscious effort to have a good picture of the terrain in and around the control before I get there. When I'm orienteering poorly, I tend to just look for the feature that the control is on (e.g. the boulder). When I'm orienteering well I tend to orienteer to a much bigger and more distinct feature (e.g. the boulder on the little spur about two lines below a large cliff and due north of the sharp bend in the stream 100 meters away). I think the map study I've been doing the last couple of weeks will help have a good picture of the control.
