okansas.blogspot.com
Occassional thoughts about orienteering


Monday, April 14, 2008

What can you learn from Quickroute?

 

I've decided it'd be fun to see if I can learn something from looking at Quickroute tracks from other orienteers. I started by looking at Tom's long race in Ohio. Here is the map with his tracks.



So, what should I be looking for?

The obvious thing is to see where Tom ran fastest. But, all that really shows me is that he goes fast on roads and trails, slower in the forest. Not much to learn there.

Maybe it'd be interesting to see how soon after each control Tom got back up to speed. I decided that "back up to speed" meant the first color change after leaving a control. For example, leaving the first control, it looks like the first color change happens about 25 meters after leaving the circle. But, leaving the second control, Tom's speed picks up well before he leave the control circle. A quick look at the map shows that leaving control 1, Tom is going up hill. Leaving control 2 he's going flat. Hmm...haven't really learned much...

If I look at the rest of the course, checking to see how long it takes for Tom to get back up to speed, a pattern begins to show up (which may be a pattern or may just be a pattern I'm imagining). Tom seems to get back to speed quickly in the orienteering right around the campground (leaving 12, 13, and 18). Does that tell me something? Maybe.

I think there is something to be learned by looking specifically at how soon someone gets back up to speed when leaving a control. It might be worth being a bit more systematic - like actually measuring the distance to first color change and writing down the measurement leg-by-leg.

That'll have to wait for another day.

Back to okansas.blogspot.com.

posted by Michael | 8:42 PM

2 comments


Comments:
Would it be better to look at the raw gps data and look at perhaps distance covered in the first 5 or 10 seconds after punching each control?
 
Maybe HR would tell you more - where did I slow down, take it too easy in the green, etc. The question is, should the 'ideal HR' be like a road race and rise slightly throughout?
-pither
 
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