Discussion: Orienteering Training

There seems to be two parts of orienteering training: running and navigation. I have a question about the running part. If a person is competing on orange or green courses (4.5 - 7 km); how should their running training differ from a 5k-10k road runner, if at all?

Run in the woods - off trail.
While training for 5-10 km road races will get and keep you physically fit and well prepared for running on roads, orienteering is about being able to move through the woods quickly and efficiently.

Some of the major differences (I'm sure others will add any I miss)
- leg lift When running in the woods, your feet aren't skimming along just barely above a relatively smooth flat surface. You have to move through brush and over rocks, logs, etc. Your leg motion will be significantly different, as well as your upper body. There's a lot more twisting to avoid branches about to skewer you, ducking down and running hunched over if your following a deer path that is clear up to about 4 feet in height with plenty of branches to slap your face if it is higher.

- Awareness of your surroundings. In addition to keeping track of where you are as you move over the map, you also need to be scanning ahead for the best running line - to get around thickets, pick your way through various densities of vegetation where generally the straight line won't be the fastest. The only way to get good at this is to do it - a lot.

Foot placement - You're going to be moving over very uneven terrain. Ties closely to leg lift, but you need to get used to picking your way through a variety of stuff underfoot, which very rarely will be flat and level. Knowing the limitations of the limberness of your ankles is a good thing.

If all your running training is on road, or even trails, you will be at a significant disadvantage to someone who has developed the skill of running through uneven terrain.

is more core strength required in orienteering than road running because of the uneven terrain running?

My gut feeling is yes, to keep you upright on the uneven surfaces. In any case, core strength training is good in any case, but you probably don't need to increase it if you're already doing those exercises. As jima says, though, the best training for running in the woods is -- running in the woods!

or in Tucson, running through the cactus!!

I don't disagree with anything said above, but I think hill running deserves equal billing with woods running for O relevance, in part because hill running directly trains the strength related knee lift and push off aspect of woods running.

A more direct rational is that a typical O course simply includes much more climb than track, road, or even cross county races, and training should reflect that.

While hill running is useful at all intensity levels and durations, I think high intensity hill running, even on trails, is especially advantageous over woods running because it doesn't carry the same injury risk (eyes, feet, shins, ankles) as the equivilent intensity in the woods, in most terrain and vegetation types.

As a practical matter, hills and woods are easy to combine in many/ most regions, in fact in some places they are difficult to avoid.