okansas.blogspot.com
Occassional thoughts about orienteering


Tuesday, January 16, 2007

JWOC terrain

 

I spent a few minutes looking at some of the sample maps for the upcoming JWOC in Australia. You can see sample maps from the JWOC web page.

The terrain looks like a lot of fun. Take a look at Buckenderra South.



When I look at maps, I like to think about what sort of problems an orienteer will face. Looking at Buckenderra South, a few things jump to mind:

1. You could get caught up reading lots of details and running rock-feature-to-rock-feature. That'd work, but it'd be risky and a bit slow. Looking at the big contours under the black features would make the orienteering go a lot faster.

2. Legs that go across hillsides (like 1-2 and 14-15) could be difficult.

3. The course setter could give you some serious climb. Check out 7-8.

4. I wonder if the rocky areas are hard to run through? In the U.S. we've got maps that have lots of rocky ground where the rocks really slow you down. But, we've also got areas where the rocky ground doesn't slow you down much. I ran a race in California last fall where the rocks didn't slow you much. My brain is trained to avoid rocky areas, probably from running in Sweden and New York, but in the race in California you navigated by the rocky ground, but going around it was a waste of time.

Take a look at the map from California below - looks a bit like Buckenderra South to me.




Back to okansas.blogspot.com.

posted by Michael | 7:48 PM

2 comments


Comments:
Buckendarra is about 400 miles due south of the JWOC areas, at a substantially higher elevation, so the vegetation is more stunted and thicker in places due to more rainfall / snowfall. The Dubbo area is much drier, so running there will feel different.

As far as rock goes, it is not dissimilar to Buena Vista, CO: there are areas where you could be slowed by the rock, but not many. Stony ground should probably be treated as the equivalent of light to medium green and avoided out of preference, but not too much.

Your points 1, 2, and 3 are basically right.

Your mileage may vary.
 
Oops: it's Buckenderra, not Buckendarra. Typo.
 
Post a Comment
March 2002April 2002May 2002June 2002July 2002August 2002September 2002October 2002November 2002December 2002January 2003February 2003March 2003April 2003May 2003June 2003July 2003August 2003September 2003October 2003November 2003December 2003January 2004February 2004March 2004April 2004May 2004June 2004July 2004August 2004September 2004October 2004November 2004December 2004January 2005February 2005March 2005April 2005May 2005June 2005July 2005August 2005September 2005October 2005November 2005December 2005January 2006February 2006March 2006April 2006May 2006June 2006July 2006August 2006September 2006October 2006November 2006December 2006January 2007February 2007March 2007April 2007May 2007June 2007July 2007August 2007September 2007October 2007November 2007December 2007January 2008February 2008March 2008April 2008May 2008June 2008July 2008August 2008September 2008October 2008November 2008December 2008January 2009February 2009March 2009April 2009May 2009June 2009July 2009August 2009September 2009October 2009November 2009December 2009January 2010February 2010March 2010April 2010May 2010June 2010July 2010August 2010September 2010October 2010November 2010December 2010January 2011February 2011March 2011April 2011May 2011June 2011July 2011August 2011September 2011October 2011November 2011December 2011January 2012February 2012March 2012April 2012May 2012June 2012July 2012August 2012September 2012October 2012November 2012December 2012January 2013March 2013April 2013May 2013July 2013September 2013
archives
links