Discussion: Training

Besides running up hills and working on your punching technique...what are some good ways to train for orienteering for us little guys?

Another question: Do you think its better to warm up before going out to run, and if so why? I saw some people running around before a meet, but others seemed to try and stay relaxed, so...

Hi Jayson,

There are lots of things you can do to train for orienteering. Probably the best thing you can do at this point, aside from staying in running shape, is to orienteer as much as possible, and especially in a variety of different terrain types.

As a next step, after each course you do, review what went well and where you lost time and could do better. Once you do this for a while, you might notice some patterns. It helps to have someone more skilled and experienced to talk over how it's going, help you identify things to improve on, and suggest ways to make those improvements.

Morning Jayson

If you get a hundred replys most of them will say just what 'ebone' said, go out and orienteer... Now not all of us have 'races' every week, so do the next best thing. Run on old maps. You have to become comfortable running with a map on different terrains. Then yes hills will help you get strong, but we also need something to make you fast and help you recover while running hard so you can read your map. So you should look at Fatlek.

You other question about warming up is also a good question, but let me answer it like this. If warming up is going to make you tired I would stay relaxed, but it is a good idea to get the legs working a bit before sprinting off at an event. You see if your legs are cold and you start your event with a bang you could pull something, so if you are wanting to go hard from the start you need to warmup, but if you are taking it easy the first couple of controls could be your warmup.
good luck

Warmup is mainly about injury prevention. You're more likely to pull a muscle, etc if you go out fast and hard without loosening up. You'll also find that you can go faster that first half mile or mile if you're well warmed up. Especially for short races like sprints, you want to have your muscles loose & be ready to go fast from the first step. Other people will probably have much more detailed advice, but that's a start.

Shadowing. It's a time-honored O training technique, and potentially available to you before/after every local meet.

I remember ebone shadowing me and my friend as we ran on a map in Conneticut for 30-45 minutes...one of the most valuable training sessions I've had because

- your training is no longer sloppy: suddenly you're accountable for every move; you're aware of a talented orienteer watching your every route choice

- my friend may have arrived at controls faster, but his route choices were more risky according to ebone

- each leg was dissected immediately, before the next began: "what were you looking for here?"

- leg speed at each part of the leg was commented upon - this is something that you seldom self-diagnose

I'm not sure what ebone got out of his generous contribution to our improvement. But I would think that both the shadower and the shadowee could benefit from such an exercise, which forces both to "go back to basics" as PG sometimes says.

Jayson,

This isn't a specific orienteering training, but I've needed to train my running - conditioning & speed - more than my orienteering skill. I struggle to find time to run, and enjoyed reading Run Less, Run Faster after a visit to my local library;-)

The authors have a good plan for those of us that are time challenged. I'm planning to use their methodology heading into this non-snow season.