Discussion: Thanks

for posting those links.

I watched a good bit of Finnish relay racing this weekend.

The league continued last weekend, two new videos:

https://youtu.be/nlw4WABd7qE
https://youtu.be/DYeyuPcfgPM

I haven't watched yet myself.

Thanks for this weekend's races. I'll watch those, too.

For last week's races I remember seeing Pasi Ikonen and thinking...he must be about 40 now. I wonder if he can still read all of that detail. Then he lost a minute or so within the circle on a control in a very detailed area. Maybe just an error, maybe his 40 year old eyes are starting to cause some trouble.

I liked the coverage even without being able to understand any of the language.

I guess you spotted Emily K?

Pasi, well, he is 40, eyes must be ageing and in every way 40 years old body can't be like 20. Recovering from brain cancer/surgery should not make staying fit any easier. But results lists look like this. I don't understand, but I am happy anyway.
https://itapaijanteenrasti.fi/wp-content/uploads/2...

I did spot Emily Kemp. It was fun to see that she was fairly stable in maybe 7th-10th place and then suddenly she popped out at the last control in 2nd.

I wonder if Pasi runs with a compass. World Of O' has a nice photo of him in 2011 with a wrist compass and thumb magnifier.

http://news.worldofo.com/2011/09/01/pasi-ikonen-20...

Go Haw Ass!

I think people has figured Pasi's teqhnique a bit wrong. He is and has always been excellent bearing runner, good at lookin up ahead, keeping diretion and running straight line. Yo umay have seen his traks at night in featureless terrain without compass. He is so good at that he doesn't need compass (to keep direction) and also can focus on features further ahead at somewhat narrow sector and that consistency and narrowness may allow him to read sort of everything in that line, more than we average meandering orienteers, and also ability and confidency to keep direction makes him able to avoid parallel errors. If I remember right he began to run without compass just because he had bad a habit of just going straight with compass without any plan. To get rid of that he eliminated compass, forcing him to look at map and plan, but kept on using the skill of keeping straight line. So thats where he ended up, going straight with some idea of objects he will soon see, reading map along the straight line, and become world champion.

I supect people think simply running without compass and reading everything is the thing here. Not quite.

I wrote something about how often we confuse techniques with skills. Compass is a technique, running in a straight line is a skill. Pace counting is a technique, knowing how much distance you've covered is a skill. You can run straight and know how far to run without using a compass or counting steps.

If you think of the skill rather than the technique, then you can train in different ways and learn different ways of improving the skill.

I don't know Pasi Ikonen and don't know much about him. But he's fun to watch.