Discussion: head cam

In the old days before head cams the training session of choice was called 'follow John'. it wasn't designed to encourage following training (some are better than others at that anyway) but rather to have somebody observe another's orienteering styles and strategies.

I always performed poorly with those because I was not able to focus on the map and was thinking what the follower was thinking.

I always felt that exercise was good practice for racing where lots of people were in the woods. ie., try instead to focus on the race.

I wonder if the headcam does the same thing? Can you get into the zone where you don't even remember having it on?

About being able to stay in the zone with a head cam. I've seen this youtube video from a training that Halden SK did, Olav Lundanes is wearing the headcam. I can't find the video now tho :(

Anyway, the Idea of the training is this:

In total you have 4 runners. 3 runners get a map with a short course on, about 1K and 3-4 controles. One of these runners gets a headstart of 30 sec and the other two will try to catch him. The interesting part is that there's one runner without a map that will start with the first runner and just follow him and try to stress him to make mistakes.

So in the video you can hear him in the background yelling stuff like: "they're running way faster then you", "are you really going in the right direction?", "you're not good enough" and so on...

Now that would be fun. I think I have the perfect person to follow and yell annoying insults.

I would love that job, but I think there's better people at following than me out there.
Just compressing your video now Robbie - not long till the world gets a sneak peak at RobbieVision (though as long as you didn't look for a control in a shed, you still won't have the most dumbest mistake caught on video)

I think it's even more distracting than racing with lots of people...

If it were my own head cam, I don't think it would be so bad, because I would have control of whether I should post it or not. I think the scariest thing was knowing that you guys would probably put it up. :)

That training sounds really fun. I think Nick would be a really good 'distractor'. :P

I can imagine few things worse... both Nick and Igor on your tail :p

I think it is great training to get used to be "watched"! All important international races will require runners to wear a gps and your performance will be streaming live on the stadium big screens and on the internet for the world. Better get used to it! ;)

Halden have been pretty good (understatement) at the relays the last couple of years. Maybe this is why?

Pi, that is a very good point. In international events 'the World is Watching' so probably something to get used to.

Posting the video is not meant to be a comedy but rather a learning tool. It is also good for younger kids to know that even Canada's top orienteers make mistakes. We can learn from other people's mistakes as well. When people lost contact with the map or were confused in the videos from the weekend there was a sense of panic. Nobody went back to the last place they knew they were (which is the best thing to do). Lots of running around and quick looking around which compounds the error.

I watched a bit of Robbie's Sunday AM training this morning with Patrick. We picked up that Robbie ran along hill tops. That is the best thing to do in a lot of terrain but not ROcky Ridge because the hilltops are slower with all the rock.

So think of it as many other sets of eyes being able to 'find seconds'.