okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Monday, April 10, 2006
Insult to injury
This weekend I discovered a lingering effect of my fall in the forest in Ohio. I can't find my magnifier. I suspect that it came off my hand when I fell. It is probably sitting out in the forest in Ohio.
I use the magnifier to read the map. In some terrains and with some maps, I'd struggle to read the map without the magnifier. Well, ok, I'd be able to read the map, but I'd need to stand still to do that.
With the magnifier, at a given speed I can read much more from the map. I also make fewer interpretation mistakes where I'd misread one symbol for another (like a boulder group versus a boulder field).
I've already got an order in for 2 new magnifiers from Compass-Point.
Thierry Guergiou wrote about some recent training, including the following:
I started without magnifier glass for the first couple of controls and even if I have always thought having a good vision, I simply couldn'?t run and read the map at the same time. Honestly, it is not anymore the same sport with this scale. Then I used a magnifier glass for the rest of the course, it helped a lot, even if it was still difficult and I couldn'?t avoid some stops in the dark forest.
