Discussion: Pre JWOC Training

I am thinking of setting up some pre JWOC training in the Syracuse area from June 22-25. It would be for any juniors attending JWOC. WOC members are welcome as well. This is not definite in any way. But I would like feedback. If those dates work, if the place works. I can try and do it in a more central location for people. Some feedback would be great. Let me know if you are interested.

I think it would be a great idea but sadly I will not be able to attend since I will already be in Europe cause of Jukola.

If at all possible, holding the training earlier would maximize Team participation.

Still don't know if earlier would be good since some of us would have a lot of graduation stuff going on in June. The weekend before the western mass 5 looks the best from what I can see.

TJOC June 3-8 is a full week of intense training. And a great value at $150 including all meals and lodging. But application needs to be postmarked by April 28. Contact me or GuyO right away and we'll send you an application. Of course many of you will still be in school at that time. I don't mean to detract from responses to Erin, just pointing out another possible training opportunity.

Hopefully Andrew and Ethan can make it that weekend.

I could probably make it the 22-24

Sounds good, I'm pretty sure that works for me

Perhaps it is time to set up a US JWOC 2012 Team AP group...

Note, Canadians are welcome to come as well, the more people the better the training.

Great to see this happenning. Kudos to Erin.

Zac will be there. I would prefer an earlier date. Thanks for doing this.

Erin,
Eric and I will both be racing in Europe at that time but thanks for the invite. I'm sure if we were around we'd take you up on it and would gladly pitch in with a bit of coaching for the juniors. I'll pass the invite on to Alex, Molly, and Laura though.\

Would it be better for more people if we did it June 15th-18th? Just a fun idea (if anyone wants to really train, and stay with me for the month of June they are welcome.) wont be easy but You will be ready when the time comes.

Either weekend is good for me. As for month of training, I will have to get back to you on that next year if the offer still stands then.

Ethan's high school graduation is the 15th so we'll train closer to home that weekend.

The June 15-18th would be better for me; that said I could probably make either weekend work.

so, has it ended up being planned for June 15-18th weekend? I'd be happy to join in, train, give coaching/advice!

Based on Feedback and Conveience for me to set stuff up the training will be June 22-25. I am hoping people will come friday afternoon and do a sprint friday evening. Then Saturday we will go to salmon River and happy valley for a morning session and an afternoon session. Sunday we are going to go out to highland forest for a morning session. Afternoon session will be physical training, and track intervals. Monday morning will finish with a couple sprints. Please let me know if you can make it soon. Also let me know if getting up for friday afternoon works, and staying through monday morning. Thanks.Erin

Shoot! I don't think I can make that one as something for CSU anniversary is on Sat night, but getting the juniors there is more important anyways, hope lots can make it!

Don't know about Friday. But we are planning on Saturday and Sunday for sure.

There have been some questions about non JWOC and WOC team members coming to the training, I would be happy to open it up to anyone who can complete a brown course or higher. Please contact me by email if you are interested in coming.

I can come, and get there for the sprint on Friday (I think).

Can people who are coming let me know what they are doing for accommodations? If you are crashing on my floor or staying some where else let me know. Thanks

Aleck, Anna and Elina are interested. We would do Saturday and Sunday.
Do you have the location of the two areas so that we can try to find a motel nearby.?
Are there any more specific details out? Start times, etc.

Zac will be there for training on Saturday and Sunday. We just need to know where to meet up first thing Saturday morning. We can either meet somewhere close to your place or meet on the map. I will be driving a small car and can possibly fit two additional people. Is there anything you need for us to do to help? I still have limited walking ability so I am no good for hanging streamers or flags.

Isabel coming with Meg.

Erin if me and Isabel could crash at your place for Friday and Saturday night that would be great; we'll have to leave around Sunday early afternoon to drive back to MA

Here is the schedule

Pre-JWOC Training Schedule

Friday Meet at Thorndon Park Pool Parking lot at 5pm.
5:20-sprint 1
6:00 sprint 2

Saturday We will start at Happy Valley by the cell phone tower at 10am

10-11am Woods tempo/line O
11-11:30 Break
11:30-12:30 Course
12:30-2 Lunch Break

Starting at 2 we will meet at salmon river

2-3 Course
3:30-4 Break
4-5 Memory Course

Sunday Will start at the SU Track with an interval workout and some physical training at 10am

10-12 Track and physical training

12-3 Lunch break and map training

3-6 Drive Out to Green Lakes Course setting and running exercises

Monday: Meet at Thorndon park Rose Garden 10am.

10-10:30 Sprint training in field
10:30-11:30 Sprint race.
11:30-12 Heading out.


Note: I have plenty of floor space at my apartment so everyone is welcome to sleep on my floor. Friday evening we will go to the grocery store so people can get food for the weekend. I have a that everyone is welcome to use. You can also bring food. We will be out all day on Saturday so bring stuff to snack on, or get stuff to make lunch and snacks at the grocery store. We will probably do some recreational things in the evenings so have a little spending money. If there are any questions please contact me. If you will be here before 5pm on Friday let me know and I will make sure my house is open for people to drop stuff off. My address is 131 Miles Ave, Syracuse, NY 13210. My cell number is 845-364-1752. Thanks. Erin

Note please let me know if you will be there either for Monday and/or friday, not going to set anything up if no one is going to be there and I may change some things for Sunday if people are only staying till Sunday.

I initially read the exercise for Saturday 10-11 am as "Woods trampoline O." I was excited.

:-)

Here is a map of Saturdays training
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=
203464903431202798123.0004c2ed5beaf6cbb59c6

Its seems like most people will be leaving Sunday so we will not do any training on Monday. Instead after track work we will do a sprint and exercises and then end probably done around 1-2pm.

We will still do the Friday stuff although I may push it back until later so more people can come.

That link didn't work for me.

Try this - http://goo.gl/maps/Dfzo

Thanks Neil.

oops, missed the overflow. Thanks.

Neil if you want to come with us we are pulling out around 6:30 tonight

Hey If you are coming for the Friday afternoon/evening training, come to my house first, i am going to wait and see what time people get here before I set anything up.

Hi, Erin - Meg, Ben & Isabel are on their way; left from Carlisle MA around 11am.

Andrew and Ethan left home about 12:30. Should be there about 5:30 pm though not sure if they were planning to go directly to the park or to Erins

We are not leaving until 5:30. See you Saturday am at the tower.

we will be at Erins house around 8:30 tomorrow morning. We are staying at the SUPER 8 SYRACUSE EAST

My wish I was doing all that sweet training. The woods right now in Estonia are pretty thick and not very pleasant. Tomorrow is 100 controls over 12km in the same woods. Should be interesting...Can't wait to meet up with everyone at JWOC. #usajuniors

Also after experiencing jukola last weekend. I've been thinking a lot about putting together a junior (a little over 20 is cool too) team from the US. It's by far the greatesy relay I've ever seen. So anyone interested? We can also talk more about it at JWOC.

Great training weekend put on by Erin. Not only did he emphasize the technical aspects of orienteering but he incorporated overall physical fitness training as well. Job well done!

I've been to a few training camps Erin has hosted in the past year and have been super impressed. If Erin ever offers to put one on or invites you to one you should definitely go.

Yeah, I already sent Erin an email but for those listening in, Andrew and Ethan said it was exhausting but fun and enjoyable too.

Erin is a great coach. The first day he started with a team exercise having the guys and gals run together alternating the lead on a Tempo-Line O. Then he sent them out on two middle runs and finished with a fun Memory O. All total about 20k in length.

On the second day had them do a set of interval runs with a couple of short sprint courses mixed in. And finished with some fun exercises and
And finished with some fun exercises and Plyometrics

Aye, if someone could rustle up a grant/OUSA funding to get the likes of Erin doing this full time, that would be beyond wonderful.

In a few years when the current juniors make up the bulk of the US team, it's not a stretch to envison Erin as the US team coach.

No need to wait so long :) Erin has a lot of fans in the senior team already!

I wonder if Erin would be interested in organizing or leading a junior trip to some orienteering multiday and doing some coaching in conjunction with the races. I'd chip in to pay his ticket on a venture like that...

It would be great to start with the A meets in the fall, if that were possible: some serious training and coaching in addition to the regular courses? With families already planning to attend, that might be relatively easy to schedule. I realize there might be some hesitancy to train too hard on top of championship races, but course review and designing individual training and some navigational work might fit in.

I believe that Janet Porter and others have already been thinking about ways to provide funding for junior coaching, so let's make sure this gets addressed.

The weekend training session with Erin was great from our perspective as well. I was really glad that there was a contingent of girls there.

I don't think the US team is coachable. It's too spread out (as it should be) and independent. Now if you could get a NE elite coach and a West coast coach etc., then you might get somewhere. Every second non-A-meet weekend, have a squad training camp. But you'd also need some sort of development programme to create bodies willing to train.

Who would put up a thousand bucks to make it happen? Fifty generous people? A hundred?

I'm not sure if Erin is the cart or the horse, but he seems to be willing to go first so I think we should be backing him. Anyone know how to set up an athlete on Kickstarter.com.

Schirminator, the Swiss o week is going back to Zermatt in 2014, you could for sure set something up by then :)

Neil has a very good suggestion about the regional coaches.

Having regional coaches would be great, but one of them would have to be in overall charge of USA junior training.

Why? That is ridiculous. What would they be supposed to do? No-one is in charge of European Junior training.

NE is already a huge region.

Well, Europe isn't a country -- Eurozone not surviving withstanding

A Team Coach is required and is an automatic member of JTESC. He/she would appoint regional coaches, make sure that they are doing their jobs, and appoint the JWOC Team Coach.

>I don't think the US team is coachable.

Yes that is true. ;-)

Club and regional coaches are the way to go.

Neil comes up with a perfectly reasonable solution to maximise the potential of one person that is interested in coaching the juniors... and suddenly there has to be some one in charge of said person or they have to be on committees???

If he wants to coach, let him coach and leave the bureaucratic bull to someone else to deal with.
If someone is capable of doing technical/physical coaching for orienteering let the person do that and let someone else fight the paper/ego battles in the background.

+1 like

Thank you for all the generous compliments above, I love all the ideas. Get me the money and I will make them happen. I think because there is such a lack of money we have to start small and grow. One coach for now will suffice and when money is generated, two coaches can be paid and when we get more money 100 coaches etc. One idea I think we need to approach is how to get all the orienteering clubs on board with promotional stuff. Imagine if we could grow every club, so that they had a coach, regular training, support for people to get to events, a healthy volunteer base, and a much larger financial capital than most clubs have now, then we would be doing well. But all these things have to start small. I can and want to do the work to start some growth. I think stage one is to stop arguing on attackpoint lol about what the right way is or not, and see what we can get, but also not limit that to a small picture.

Just saying, if every orienteering club Pitched in 1000 dollars that would cover the coaching salaries easily.

$1K/club is phenomenal value! Kids in the local triathlon club here in Hamilton each pay over that per year to get their coaching. Yet in orienteering we never seem to provide the financial support for what good coaches deserve.

Just counted the Clubs on O USA there are 79, 500 a piece would go a long way. Its hard to imagine that clubs could not give up 500 for a good cause. Especially to generate that kind of money.

Each club could go out to there members and see if they would all pitch in in 5 bucks, that would probably cover the coast to.

Coming from the xc ski world, things are much more club-based in terms of development. Wait, back up. There is junior development. Clubs have their own training camps, which are usually open to all skiers throughout the region, but the development of skiers are left to their club coaches. There are regional opportunities, however, run by the New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA). Right now, a Regional Elite Group (REG) camp is taking place up in Craftsbury VT, which was invitation-only of the top elite juniors in the region. This is run concurrently with the J2 (age 14-15) REG camp, so that the younger kids get to occasionally intermingle with the older ones. At a "lower" level, there is the Eastern Highschool Championships camp, which is another regional camp open to any skier who raced at EHS. There is also the J2 regional camp, open to any skier who raced at the J2 festival.

Of course, this is getting at the fact that there are regional competitions in skiing, and from that, you can draw an "elite" group of juniors. In orienteering, we don't have the numbers to choose a set of juniors to develop to the elite level - we have to take every single interested junior. I support that, but I would love to see a broader base from which to draw. Different battle.

How can this apply to orienteering? NENSA has done huge amounts of work to develop competitive juniors, and has a person whose job is to run NENSA's competitive programs. This person sets the racing calendar, sets races as national ranking events (A-meet equivalents), chooses the Junior National team, sets up the camps, and generally tries to develop the competitive side of skiing, separate from the masters' and recreational base of skiers, which is huge. Similar to orienteering. Since OUSA does not have regional governing bodies, we have to skip that step and go straight to the clubs. We have hard-working people fighting for the juniors at the national level, but the groundwork has to happen at the club level. Can we get some of our clubs to make it a priority to attract juniors to the competitive side of orienteering? (i.e. stop wasting time on boyscouts).

I see this as a two-step battle. First, we need to develop the juniors we have into competitive athletes. Many orienteers are not familiar with the actuality of being an athlete, and thankfully Erin has a good grasp on this side of the sport. I won't tell him how to do his job. And the juniors still have a ways to go with the technical side of the sport, as well. All this can be learned/trained.

The second battle is that we have to increase the numbers of juniors to draw from. To this end, we need to change orienteering from being a dopey sport for geeks who hide in the woods into a flashy, high-paced sport that appeals to kids who want to race. (Think: WOC sprint). I think there are a number of individuals pushing really hard to move our sport in that direction, and there are just as many others pushing against it. Hand-in-hand with changing the face of our sport in this country comes selling it, and that may be impossible at the junior level until it's in the schools, and there is some sort of competitive interscholastic competition. Sounds like COC is seeing some of that. ARK is a great model, too. That's been discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere, but we need to be aware that our junior numbers are shrinking.

My suggestion? Let's drum up the money to pay Erin a legit salary for 3-5 years. Have him submit a proposal for how he is going to develop some sort of regional competitive junior program, complete with goals, measures and metrics. Support him to take groups of juniors on a summer tour in Europe, hitting up major competitions, doing quality training in between, and building lifelong bonds with their fellow juniors. Support him in running regional training camps. Support him in beginning an ARK-like program for younger kids in his area, to begin developing the numbers. Don't force him to be tangled in red tape. Let him eventually hire some underlings to help manage what he builds. We've got someone here who is young, motivated, comes from an athletic background, and is good at this. Those in power would be idiotic not to do more to support him! If the northeast program is successful, hopefully we can find other like-minded individuals to start similar programs in other regions of the country. This isn't a quick process, but it's absolutely necessary if we care at all about competitive US orienteering.

Alex's last paragraph has awesome advice. Yeah I'm biased because of the mention of ARK but not getting tangled in red tape is so true. The approach we have taken in GHO (and now together with Stars) with ARK is a page out of Cdn XC skiing. ie., we developed a kids program that not only has increased our junior numbers from about 10 to about 300 in 27 months but has also increased the number of coaches we have and provides enough revenue to cover a large portion of a full-time employee (which includes some of his time as a coach).

We now have three levels
1) Adventure Running Kids (6-14)
2) ARK Attack (10-14)
3) Dontgetlost Juniors (13-18)

Most of our kids are quite young and are in level 1 but I think the approach has worked well. We kick off the autumn with our teenager rep team (Dontgetlost Juniors). So far we have 12 kids that have signed up and they will get 3 evenings of training a week and will participate in a variety of trail running, adventure running, XC running and orienteering races.

Good luck Erin. Let me know how we can help.

I'm listening...

Sounds like COC is seeing some [sort of competitive interscholastic competition]. ARK is a great model, too.

As someone who's been involved in one (Washington State Orienteering League) and closely following the other (ARK) from afar, here's what I see:

WIOL has been around for 30 years, and has helped produce several US elites to JWOC or WOC. It's a great framework for interscholastic competition, and has seen moderate growth in the past decade. (Participation is up 71% since 2004, up 39% since 2009).

However, WIOL isn't all that great for training programs. There are certain schools with good coaches and good programs (EAS, Woodinville, Lakeside...), but most of the teams don't develop very well, because the coaches and training programs aren't adequate.

On the flip side, ARK is spectacularly awesome for training, and growth is exploding. They don't have a competitive league yet. ARK starts them younger with training and is gradually bringing in more competition as they get older.

If you're starting from scratch, I'd focus on a training program like ARK. They've basically done from nothing to a WIOL-sized population in two years. Once you have a good number, then it'll be easier to work it into the schools.

Having regional coaches would be great, but one of them would have to be in overall charge of USA junior training.

ndobbs: Why? That is ridiculous.

This (D.2.1c) is why...

Oh, sure, that looks like an impassable speedbump...

The U.S. Junior Team is a designated group which exists

Oh yeah, missed that one.

Oh, sure, that looks like an impassable speedbump...

To...??????

Oh yeah, missed that one.

...and this one:

D.2.1 The leadership of the team is:
...
c.The Team Coach, who is in charge of Team training and development. The team coach will be an automatic member of the JTESC.

There can be a Junior training system that is not the Junior Team. In addition, there are precedents for rules being changed (or ignored) when they aren't helpful.

There can be a Junior training system that is not the Junior Team.

The "Junior Team" essentially encompasses all junior development from the Orange/intermediate level and up-- not just the JWOC teams. While identifying promising juniors at the beginner (White/Yellow) levels is pretty much up to the clubs, most junior training camps have accommodated a wide range in ability/experience. Also, kids who love orienteering, but might not see themselves on the "JWOC-track" (yet), are also welcome.

In addition, there are precedents for rules being changed (or ignored) when they aren't helpful.

Indeed, and some changes in D.2 are being considered.

How about if Hammer conducts a forum on his ARK etc. programs for any interested parties in the US and Canada. Perhaps during the North Americans this fall? Having looked at his videos last fall, I found myself revved up to get something like that going in VT. Better to learn from their successful model than reinvent the wheel. Franchise? That would build on the name and create a sense of connectedness to something bigger, something national, international. It could be a major feed into the Junior Orienteering Program per se.
I would be interested in the structure of the program, the marketing, and the funding. The kids in those videos were having terrific FUN and that's what we need to deliver.

The U.S. Junior Team is a designated group which exists

The "Junior Team" essentially encompasses all junior development from the Orange/intermediate level and up

Is that really how it is designated? The Team Coach may add or remove team members at any time.

Who is the "Team Coach"? Are they really managing training and development for all Orange+ juniors across the US? That's quite impressive.

I applaud the ideas and initiatives being discussed. However, at the risk of being a bit negative, I think more creativity is needed on the financing side.

In my neck of the woods is AOC (Austin O Club), whose members you can count on one hand; they are not going to come up with $500. There is ALTOS (AR + LA + TX O Society) whose membership you can count on two hands and two feet; $500 is a whole lot of money to them. Then there is HOC and, my club, NTOA, who are bigger and have more cash. However, our starts consist of 60-70% juniors for whom we charge a very low fee. Because OUSA dues are based on starts, the ratio of dues paid relative to income is very high for us compared to clubs whose starts are not so dominated by a discounted group.

All of that is fine and I don't mean to whine or suggest things should be different. I mention it only to point out that what seems obvious and easy for one club, may not be so trivial for another. Thus, the same creative thinking and work that will go into the planning of the coaching and orienteering, will also have to go into the financing.

From what I understand of ARK, is that it's self-sufficient, a money-maker, and wildly popular.

OUSA doesn't really have much of a Junior Development Program. What we have is a set of rules that defines a Junior Team in such a way as to be a development program. Despite the best intentions of this, it has been very difficult to provide coordinated development to much more than the top JWOC hopefuls. Other than that we've got a smattering of training camps across the country which typically operate independently, not in a coordinated fashion as part of the development program. We also have navigation certificates and the Little Troll program, which I don't think are used much. I'd really like to revamp the Little Troll program into something more like ARK and provide an entire template from OUSA on implementation for clubs or anyone else who wants to start such a program. I only know what ARK does on a basic level and would love to learn more. I've often talked about starting some sort of ongoing park-O for kids program through local Park and Rec, but have never had the time to put it together.

Is that really how it [the junior development team] is designated?

That is one of the changes being considered for D.2

Who is the "Team Coach"?

The Junior Team Coach position has been vacant since Jeff Saeger ("coach") retired in early 2011. We have a candidate in mind...

Also, we are working on designating a Junior Development Team.

and provide an entire template from OUSA on implementation for clubs or anyone else who wants to start such a program

That would seem to be where OUSA could help. That and helping with the administrative side of employing regional staff.

Trying to coordinate training >500 miles away seems madness...

Orienteering Canada has developed a long-term athlete development (LTAD) system that the US should have a look at. Reading this thread it sounds like people are mixing up different levels of the junior development ladder. Sounds like too much wrapped up into one role.

The Adventure Running Kids program we have going here in southern Ontario is not a pre-JWOC type of program and it is not a race attendance program. Rather it is a participation based program. It has two levels (ARK and ARK Attack) and is 95% participation based (not competitive) and is pitched at the FUNdamentals and Learning to train levels of the LTAD respectively. We are starting a new program (Dontgetlost Adventure Running Juniors) this autumn that is pitched to teenagers and the "Training to Train' LTAD level. This is the level that most (all other?) junior programs in North America seem to be pitched at (ie., they start too late in my opinion) and the level below where National programs generally kick in to take the athletes to the JWOC and WOC levels.

I understand Tom's concern about relative differences in clubs ability to pay but I personally don't buy the 'we don't have enough money' argument because there are many sports much much bigger than ours that charges much, much, much more for coaching and programs. Don't think of this as the club or USOF pitching in the money. Think of it as the parents of the new kids that will cover the cost.

For whatever reason in orienteering we don't value coaching to the $$ level it should be. If kids, youth (and their parents) are serious about being active and getting faster then there is a price to pay for good coaching and innovative programs like ARK. Our experience is that there are many parents willing to pay that cost and many programs available through local charities and NGO's to subsidize families in need for kids programs. But price has not been a barrier for us to grow from a half dozen kids to almost 300 in under 30 months.

In GHO we don't sell the coaching and athletic development side of the sport short but instead have developed an innovative curriculum with ARK and together with a lot of marketing now have a program that is not only growing the sport but
is growing volunteer capacity through parents and growing revenues to allow us to offer a full time position and year round coaching for our top juniors (starts this autumn).

Erin, visit Hamilton this autumn and we can chat about ideas.

Thanks Mike I will probably take you up on your offer. I have talked to many of the top teams coach at JWOC to see what they do and how they went about developing their programs. There are many ways to go about it. I have many ideas as well but its a matter of what will fit and work in the US.