Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Wednesday, December 13, 2006 Yest another sprint route choiceAnother sprint route choice...a or b? Not much of a choice is it? A tougher question is - how time would it cost you to take b rather than a? The straight line distance from 8-9 is about 50 meters (though, obviously, you can't run the straight line). When Mary set this course, I'm don't think she thought there was any route choice on this leg. I think the purpose of these legs was to force a little tempo change and to give the runners a chance to experience some of the "canopy" symbol on the map. The snapshot below (by Gene) shows a runner on the way from 7 to 8.  At least one runner missed the entrance and ran to the construction area before turning around and going into the "canopy." The snapshot below (also by Gene) shows a runner leaving 8 while another punches at the control.  Did you think about how much time it'd cost to take b rather than a? My best estimate is that it cost about 30 seconds. I didn't test these routes. It never occurred to me that anyone would do anything other than route a. But, I think Tom didn't see the a option and instead took b. His splits suggest he lost about 30 seconds. Back to okansas.blogspot.com. Labels: route choice, sprint orienteering posted by Michael | 7:21 PM
Monday, December 11, 2006 Another sprint route choiceHere is another sprint O' route choice test I ran a few weeks ago. Same questions as yesterday:Which route is fastest? How much slower are the other routes?  When I looked at these three options, I picked b as the fastest, followed by a and c. When I timed the routes, I ran all three within 2 seconds. I was fastest, by just 2 seconds, on a. My times for b and c were equal. For such a rough test a difference of 2 seconds isn't enough to conclude that a was best. I figure that all three routes are equal. A good case can be made that a is risky, because the little gap just about at the "a" might have turned out to be impassible. Back to okansas.blogspot.com. Labels: route choice, sprint orienteering posted by Michael | 6:51 PM
Sunday, December 10, 2006 A sprint leg and a training ideaTake a look at the sprint leg from last weekend's KU campus race. The leg is a bit over 150 meters long.I've sketched in three routes. An easy question: which route is fastest? Now a trickier question: how much slower are the other routes?  One of my favorite training sessions is to pick several routes for a given leg; predict the time differences; test the routes; and compare my estimates of the time differences to my tests of the time differences. The idea is to train my brain to make trade-offs. In the leg above, it might be worth giving up a few seconds to take a leg that is a bit simpler, but gives you a smoother route, leaving time to look ahead at the next few legs. But, to make that sort of decision, you need to be able to not just pick out the fastest route, but have a reasonable sense of how much slower other options are. Another reason I like this sort of training is you can make good use of strange legs. You can set a leg that has only one obvious route and then test a couple of routes that are clearly slower and that you wouldn't even consider during a race. It is a good way to make use of maps that you're familiar with. For the record, the fastest route is b. Route a was nearly 15 seconds slower (I'd estimated it would be more like 10 seconds slower). I never tested c, but I'd expect it to be similar to a. Back to okansas.blogspot.com. Labels: route choice, sprint orienteering, training posted by Michael | 5:26 PM
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