Discussion: Workouts- Forest or Track?

Perhaps the attackpoint community can offer some perspectives on this question.
Where is it better to do speed sessions, the forest or the track?

If your sport is orienteering and you try to stick to Jack Daniel's idea of specificity of training then it seems that straight through the forest might be a better place for workouts to increase the speed you can run at through the forest. However, if your goal is also to get a steady, consistent effort then perhaps a forest, with its elevation change and varying terrain, is not the best place to do a tempo, intervals, etc. Any opinions from training experience? Only one or the other? A mix of the two in your training regimen?

Mix of the two! On the track for improvements in VO2 max, in the woods for capitalising on those improvements with increased terrain strength and agility.

If I were just starting out with intervals (which I'm very aware you're not) I would get a good base on the track before moving into the woods to do them too.

The most important question is - what would you like to improve. If you want to improve your speed in the forest than you should practice in the forest. Anatomy of the terrain running is by far different that that of running on track. Studies have shown much higher adaptation of thigh-muscles in orienteering runners than in in track runners and much higher adaptation of calve muscles in track runners than in orienteering runners. In other words - if you are a top-level orienteer track running will not improve your speed in the terrain much.

Also it has been known for a while that physical abilities in orienteering are much more similar to those in XC skiing that to those in track running. Orienteering includes higher lactate levels, more oscillations in load and so on. All of those abilities are more naturally developed through training in the terrain.

I believe that almost any type of training can be done in the terrain, including intervals, VO2max sessions or even strength training.

We had an oportunity to listen to Radek Novotny and his thoughts about a week ago and he was quite clear about that. Main characteristis of a good orienteer are: adaptation to demanding terrain running, map work (timing) and being able to keep your head up during the run and high lactate tolerance (and ability to neutralize it). If we agree with these simple demands for a good orienteer it is quite clear, how we should train.

For example - one of the top Czech orienteers, who has 9 training sessions per week in the winter time has: 4 terrain run sesions (long, intervals and aerobic-anaerobic treshold runs), 2 strength sessions, 1 regenerative session + running coordination, and 1 track interval session and 1 specific sprint running session (in the typical sprint terrain).

I think bubi's got it from the technical perspective.

One different perspective though - which location is more likely to give the participant an encouraging and perhaps even fun memory - one that will lead to additional training...

I'm glad Greg asked this and I'm interested in others responses. My own opinion (and I have no credentials), is that usually, it should mostly be in the terrain but an occasional track session should be included for working on pure speed. However, if you were going to concentrate on sprint races, than I think most of your speed work should be on the track.

It also depends where you are and what you do. Ideally you would be a full time athlete and train in terrain all the time - I think this is the option described by the other guys. In reality, many of us have city based jobs and can't get to good terrain within a working day. Then you have to make do with what you have, and you can do a lot with track based intervals and gym based strength work.

One data point, but a salient one:

In 2007, I decided to devote the year exclusively to orienteering improvement. Part of that was moving nearly all my track workouts to the forest. We have a lot of open forest ridgelines in Missouri which allow you to run 3-4 minute efforts at VO2max without a lot of up/down/around. My speed in the forest improved dramatically and I had my best orienteering year ever, including a couple age-group national championships (both on courses that favored speed). I do agree with those who note that for this to work you need to have a very good sense of pace. I was bringing 30 years of interval training into that year, so it was not hard to run them by feel. Without that, I think alternating track/forest would be a better idea, or maybe just use a HR monitor.

Anyway, have fun experimenting with what works best for you. FWIW, I am a huge fan of Daniels' methods.

"steady, consistent efforts" doesn't sound speedy to me. So forest is the right answer for orienteering. However, real consistency will be difficult unless you find something like ebuckley's ridgeline.
True speed, consistency and pace judgement come on the track; which you have a lot of experience of. You have done a lot of 3,000m steeplechase training and races. Is that just because you thought it would be good training for orienteering? It is a very hard event on the body and to get right.
I did a quick search on your log and couldn't find any mile, 1500m or 800m races. I did find this session:

3x1 mile@5:04 on 4 minute jog, then 3x800@2:32 on 2 minute jog.
Times:
5:01
5:01
5:04(I wanted to hit one on pace so that the 800s didn't suck. I should have just kept at 5:01, because the 800s were easy.)
2:31
2:30
2:31
I didn't feel like I was working until the last 800.
To me that suggests some potential over shorter distances.

I appreciate the suggestions with reference to my training. I asked the question thinking about how to apply it to my training. I suppose I was also interested in people's personal experiences or perhaps references to studies. I've decided to start more in-forest training since where I'm living has made it significantly easier. We'll see how it might benefit me in a few months.