Discussion: Pace-counting

In the previous discussion I created topic was "Baseplate or Thumb". Quite frankly I was surprised about so many different approaches and techniques my fellow orienteers use regarding compass and I was wondering how many other "technical" differences there are regarding O-techniques.

I many conversations I have heard that people do pace-counting during O-course. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with pace-counting. As far as myself - I don't use pace-counting and I have not used it in the past. I can't explain but somehow I feel how far I should run before I start looking for control or for next catching feature when using 1:10 000 and 1:15 000 maps.

I would not say it's a gift I have but more the experience and lot of O-courses. It is a skill that can be aquired and it needs to be maintained. I have noticed that usually feel for the distance is not as great during first starts of the season. Or sometimes I am little bit shaky on first few flags.

Anyhow - the question of the day is - pace-counting or no pace-counting and why. I am curious to hear your honest confessions regarding this subject.

I pace-counted on one leg, in the dark, at the Rogaine last weekend. Whether it helped or not in that case is inconclusive, I'd say. Prior to that, I recall pace-counting once in October of 1988. I do pace-count when mapping when I run out of other options.

Although I have never really kept track of it and lost count way before I have reached the control, pace-counting helps me focus on tricky legs. Maybe like a mentra or some sort of transcendantal meditation? IT's totally useless to me in terms of estimating distances, but it sure helps me stay focused and stop thinking about lipstick and nail polish.
I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world.

I hardly ever pace count, though occasionally I find myself in the middle of a long, featureless leg wishing that I did! The vast majority of the time, I just somehow know that I am getting close or coming into the circle and it's time to slow down and navigate more carefully. I also tend to rely more on thumbing along and collecting features as I go, then estimating distance. Since my mind tends to wander out there, I think I'd have issues keeping count anyway

In my (limited) personal experience, I have found that pace counting is not necessary in technical terrain, but can be quite useful in vague areas with little features. In Sweden, there are little details everywhere on the map and I can usually relocate there just by using the features around me. In southern England, on the other hand, there are very few features on the maps and thus a significant number of controls feel like bingo controls. For example, there might be a pit in the middle of green-slashed woods, with no other features in a 200-meter radius. If you run into this type of area going on a bearing only, you are most likely going to wind up lost in the brambles, with nothing to relocate off of. So, in this case, pace counting can be quite useful to give you an idea of how far to go before you start to search for the control.

That said, one has to *know* how to do pace counting properly in order for it to be beneficial. The pace counts through nice, fast terrain are different than pace counts through green, bracken, or areas of brashings.

I pace count all the time, but apparently it is neither cool nor necessary. But then, I am no elite orienteer. I also set bearings on my baseplate compass all the time.

I orienteer much better when I pace count on medium-long legs and in technical terrain. Less so with the big features of the midwest.

If I don't pace count on medium-long legs, I tend to start hesitating probably 1/2-2/3 of the way: "Am I there yet? Is this a mapped or unmpped gully? Is this a small re-entrant or the one I'm looking for?" With pace counting, I still check off features, but I'm smoother and don't start looking for control until 90% of count. Also, "300 m to the road" seems to go faster if I'm counting.

In technical terrain like US Champs in Oregon or at Telemark, pace-counting helps me distinguish mapped vs unmapped small features. (My best legs in Oregon Day 1 was in the lava fields - after I'd blown 20 minutes earlier in the course.) Also, pace counting helps compensate for a weakness I have in estimating vertical size of knolls and depressions in moraine terrain.

With more woods training, I suspect I'd rely less on pace-counting. On the other hand, pace-counting obviously uses a separate niche of my brain and is not distracting. While pace-counting, I can read the map and terrain, add distances in my head, say, "Have a good run.", and (unfortunately) still get mentally distracted.

Feynmann wrote of this in one of his books. His colleague could count and carry on a conversation simultaneously, but he and his colleague counted differently. Fenymann's was more aural, his colleagues was more visual (ala, numbers on adding machine tape).

I will note that although I don't pace count, some of the best orienteers I know do. I had the privilege of doing one Rogaine with Peter Gagarin, and I know that, at least when it was dark, he was pace counting all the time. (And he uses a baseplate compass, but he never sets bearings.)

I'm also a member of barb's "uncooI club." I pace count almost all of the time, and I set bearings on my baseplate compass. I know it helps me, and my philosophy is "why not?" Every little thing helps.

As a kid I counted everything, automatically: steps on my walk to school, strokes to swim a mile, etc. I have a module in my brain that can do the counting while the rest of my brain does something else. So, in a sense, pacecounting comes naturally to me. When it's working well during orienteering (about 20% of the time), I am always counting on a leg (up until I spot the flag), automatically resetting the count to 0 every time I come to a feature that I'm confident I can locate on the map. Then, say, if I come to a boulder and wonder, "could I already be at this boulder, or might I be at the one much closer off-line to my right", I just consult my current count, and have an immediate answer with minimal hesitation. And I've avoided mistakes, or corrected my poor compass work, through pacecounting of this sort.

Why does it only work 20% of the time? Because I'm lazy, and when I get tired I lose my count, or forget where I started my count; the numbers in my head are still there, but they're meaningless! Also, I've never done the pacecounting practice needed to get a precise count over different types of terrain; I make an adjustment for trailrunning, but that's about it. So, I have an ideal of how pacecounting could work for me, though it often doesnt.

In the rogaine last weekend, pacecounting was rarely useful; I let Jeff do it the few times it was needed, since he seems to be pretty accurate from his mapping experience.

I think PG also has a count running in his head automatically most the time, but interestingly, he counts one for every four steps, instead of one for every two. I wonder how many people do that?

Several times I've thought that it would be nice to have one more tool in my O toolbelt and that I should start pace counting. I've always had trouble doing it, though, and now that the two vs. four count has been mentioned I think I know part of the reason.

I often count my steps when I do a road/track workout, because I know that if I'm thinking about it I can run at exactly 90 paces per minute, or 3 steps per second. I can usually time my intervals to within 1 second by counting my triple-steps. I find that to be a natural count, much as I find breathing every third stroke while swimming to be very natural. So maybe I should try pace counting that way...

Like PG I count every 4th step when I'm not being too lazy. Damon Douglas ended up counting every 3rd step because it matched his breathing pattern best.

I pace count all the time, even when I don't have too, I agree with Barbie in that I do it automatically. I'm not trying to avoid thoughts of lipstick (this girl only wears lipgloss) but usually how much pain I'm in at the time. Pace counting helps me focus on something else. As a down side, I do think I rely on pace counting more instead of looking for features and contours. I'm not ready to give it up though, I have found myself in tricky situations too many times with flat featureless terrain. Even with pace counting I can get mixed up...54, 55, 76, 77, oops...darn, where was I?? I just hate when that happens.

In O competition, I use(d) pace counting selectively, depending on the situation, more frequently in weak-featured terrain like French Creek, mostly from attack points into controls, but sometimes mid-leg and even on trails if needed to find a critical point, for example a side trail, without strong support features. I like the security of being on a strong leash in uncertain situations.

In mapping, when the base info is weak, or has bad geometry, I rely on pace counting almost exclusively, because I find it easier to resolve descrepencies into good *relative* placement. Even with good base info, I trust my pace more than my compass, but compass work (either rough map orientation or precise bearings) is more efficient timewise, at least until problems arise.

Hey Gil, good basic topics!

I hate pace counting. When I do it, I miss things---and as slow as I move, that's saying something..

Because I don't pace count, I never set legs with the intention of making someone pace count. I'm always surprised when I talk to someone who pace counted on a course I ran, or especially, on a course I set. I'm not saying they're wrong or anything, just that I'm surprised because I almost never recognize the need to pace count. A few years ago, I ran a leg that looked like there was no other way, but I got near to my (invisible) attackpoint and just eyeballed halfway between two points on the map.

People mention bland areas, and I certainly see the use of pace counting there. But, one situation that sometimes makes me wish I'd pace counted is when the map is filled with similar features that make it hard to keep track---For example, at Vasquez Rocks, the mapping standard ignores boulders less than 1m or so high, and the map is still filled with mapped boulders. Trying to keep track of them at speed is more than I can do sometimes. If I can ignore that detail and still execute the leg, either with a big feature or a pace count, I might be able to save some time. A corollary to that might be, "If you travel too fast to read the map detail, you might need to pace count more often than someone slower."

See, now I feel out of touch - I use a base plate (which I do occasionally set bearings on) and I sometimes pace count. Both have saved me many times. I'm a very hesitant orienteer and it's nice to have my pace count backing me up. That said, if I'm really navigating well and the terrain is making sense to me then I don't typically pace count or set bearings. It's in races where I can't seem to get anything right, or there is a lot of featureless terrain and my attack points are far away from the control, that I then start setting bearings and pace counting. It's good for me to practice so that when I need it, I can do it.

After reading this a few days ago, I tried counting by 2s 3s and 4s, and 6es; and 3s definitly work for me :))

never pace counted, never will. Just read your map

Imho pace-counting can be quite useful in a few cases :

- in rogaining, when the map is not that precise and when some features are not mapped. You then need to make the difference between a mapped feature and unmapped ones. For that you need to estimate your distance, which can be done by pace counting, or more adequately in rogaine by timing yourself.

-as stated in posts above, in feature-poor terrains where there aren't many choices, apart from precise bearing and pace counting.

-in very technical terrain (see for instance http://www.wcup2006.fr/anglais/index.php?url=extra... ) where feature-interpretation will slow you down. You'll be going faster by just taking a bearing and pace-counting to a clear attackpoint rather than risking some detailed and slow orienteering.

other than that pace counting adds some unnecessary cognitive overhead. Rough distance estimation may then be preferred. One slight downside of this latter method is that it can be sensitive to (lack of) confidence...

So I have a pace scale on my thumb compass but rarely use it...

Do you people who don't pace count use your watch to estimate distance? Or do you just "read your map"?

I just blow by the controls.

I don't usually pace count. It's my way of keeping the information flow manageable; simplifying. I know that some like Peter have practiced it so much that it's almost unconcious to them. When rogaining we were going so slow that I usually had a much better sense of matching up things on the map with what I saw. When orienteering I don't think I read the map as fast as others and things come up quicker; more likely to overwhelm me. This is especially true for me while in green terrain where there are many distractions just to keep moving.

When I have pace counted it has helped some. French Creek is a good example. There, pace counting helped me simplify because it's hard for me to read so much rock on the run. I think pace counting is best if applied consistently. That way you know your pace going uphill or down; through open terrain or the thicker or rocky stuff. The consistency becomes useful because you don't always know in advance when you'll need it.

Practice and getting better at reading the map have allowed me to compensate for not pace counting. More often than not, I have a good sense of going the correct distance and stop appropriately. However, measuring reinforces and gives one confidence.

I hope that's not an "exclusive or" (as logicians say). I should think reading the map is always primary; pacecounting is typically a backup that can serve as a doublecheck, thereby boosting confidence. Sometimes. though, pacecounting is a tool in its own right, as when there's no clear attackpoint from a trail, and the best strategy is: go down the trail 50 meters from the junction, and attack. Of course, many orienteers can do that just as well without pacecounting.

In the Allegany rogaine, I used my watch as the backup pedometer: our pace was regular enough that I could figure in advance, say, that it would take about 12 minutes to angle down the vague hillside to the stream (trail, etc.). If we hit an unmapped stream in 8 minutes, I'd know we weren't there yet. Can't think of when it was ever really needed though (because the map was pretty good); more a game to occupy the mind.

Ye old polar coordinates - when maps were bad, take a bearing, count your paces. For those of us like Peter, who experienced the maps in the early 70s - they were - rogaine-like and "bingo" controls were too often the fashion. Your pace count was good along with the bearing - then the control wasn't there - "now what did THEY screw up?" Amusing to see a new generation getting a retro taste of less-than-perfect maps and control placement. Pace counting is second nature for those who had to use it, but it sure is a joy to read today's good maps.
And Peter's hint (at some USOF Convention) of using double pace counting (every 4th step) was - as the Guinness guys say - "brilliant!"

Pace counting is an absolutely essential skill in Adventure Races where you are sometimes just given distance and bearing to the next control. I also find it useful when navigating normally on USGS-quality maps, especially at night.

A variant of pace counting that I use quite a bit is what I'll call perpendicular count. This is an estimate of how far you are off the redline on one side or the other. This is particularly useful when moving through patchy vegetation and you have to move laterally to get through things. A good O-map may give you enough vegetation or other detail to get back on line, but with USGS, you can get pushed quite a ways off and not have a good way to get back. Once you're comfortable with it, it becomes a pretty good way to get back on line even when an O-map is giving you enough info to do it with features.

As others have said, the map is always primary - but sometimes it's not enough.

This is the coment from one of the less taught orienteers. I showed my family how to do it and sum1 showed me in about 10 min. I have had good training since then but even interational coaches have never taught pace counting. For me at least i would find it more distracting than helpful and need all the concentration sumtimes to just go in the correct direction. I feel that being able to read features is a more valuable tool but have been told otherwise by the older orienteers in South Africa who like to use it.

Yes, reading features is great, but the point is, you have to have features to read - and preferably not an overabundance of them, such as when you get dozens of lookalike boulders along your route, or new unmarked trails appearing in bland terrain.

Orienteering maps and courses usually make it possible to get by on reading features alone, although we get the odd bingo control, and the relevant features aren't always visible when we orienteer at night.

If you want to be able to navigate on all kinds of maps to all kinds of locations by night or by day, then pace counting is one of the tools to keep in your arsenal. It's not to be overused, but not to be scorned either. If you've never needed to pace count, then IMHO you either have an amazing internal sense of distance travelled, or else you've been spoiled with maps and race courses where you haven't needed to do it.

It's amazing how few adventure racers I know use pace counting, given how useful it can be on less-detailed AR maps. Timing yourself is more common in AR, and it is useful for longer legs where you would never remember to count, but it's less useful for distances under 1 km where pace counting is far more accurate.

If I remember correctly, I think Peter Palmer, arguably the greatest GB coach and campaigner, once wrote that all the best elite orienteers will have pace counted at some point. Even if they claim not to have done, it is proabably the case that they did as a junior but have forgotten. Automatic distance judgment comes after one has practiced pace counting. (Personally, I hardly ever pace count, partly because I'm too lazy. Something to work on.)

Ants count paces. (And use a compass.)

I think the part where they cut off part of the ants' legs is most unpleasant.

Desert ants, Cataglyphis, navigate in their vast desert habitat by path integration. They continuously integrate directions steered (as determined by their celestial compass) and distances traveled, gauged by as-yet-unknown mechanisms. Here we test the hypothesis that navigating ants measure distances traveled by using some kind of step integrator, or "step counter." We manipulated the lengths of the legs and, hence, the stride lengths, in freely walking ants. Animals with elongated ("stilts") or shortened legs ("stumps") take larger or shorter strides, respectively, and concomitantly misgauge travel distance. Travel distance is overestimated by experimental animals walking on stilts and underestimated by animals walking on stumps.

-Science 30 June 2006: Vol. 312. no. 5782, pp. 1965 - 1967

I sometimes pacecount. I find it useful if I'm in somewhat unfamiliar terrain where I don't know what to expect visually based on what I see on the map (if there are small unmapped features, unusual vegetation, not sure of how distinct trails will be, etc). It also helps when I'm feeling shaky or I find myself hesitating just out of sight of the control when I think I should be just about able to see it but start questioning myself. Like Sam, I also like pacecounting when I'm running a race where it doesn't feel like things are fitting well or where I'm distrustful of my own instincts (because I've been making mistakes). It just gives an extra certainty. It also can help me keep focussed throughout the course if my mind is starting to wander. It never seems to distract me; rather it's just a background thing once I've started it. That said, I often find that I will finish a race and have not pacecounted at all (and it will have been fine).

I noticed few commenting that pace counting keep focus on the course. Even I have never done any pace-counting in the past and I was not intending to do any as of recently however pace-counting might be something that could cure bad, focus depleting habit I have when I run.

It's silly but more often then not I am singing in my head while I am going through the course. It's not intentional but it just creeps in my head. Once I notice I stop for singing for a while till it comes back. Lately tunes of “American Rejects” are messing with my focus. (Funny thing about it – I am not huge fan of “American Rejects”; I like their tunes but if we are talking about rock – I’d prefer AC/DC)

I don’t have a problem with singing when I do pure running races. You’d think when you do pure running then you could afford “singing” since it is pure physical feet and your mind is there along for a ride?

I have the creeping songs problem, too, though it's usually the theme to "I Dream of Genie". AC/DC would be infinitely better.

Funny, I have the exact same thing happen... quite often there's a song stuck in my head out there. Normally something that I've heard recently -- such as in the car on the way to the meet. (Probably at least partly because my CD player is broken and hard to eject, so I've likely listened to the same CD 3 times through on the way there.)

I don't find that it messes with my concentration too much. But the funny thing is that years later, I can remember specifically which songs were running through my head at which events, and even which parts of the map/which controls were involved. If I hear the song on the radio, it takes me back to the course. Strange how much more intense memory recall is with a multisensory experience like that.

Okay, people, don't let this happen. Having some random song bouncing around in your head while orienteering is not a particularly good thing. You need to overcome this by intentionally picking a good song and getting that going as the internal soundtrack to your run. If "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window" tries to creep into your consciousness, push it out with something that would fit well with one of Tero's "Follow Me" videos. You can't go wrong with "Purple Haze" or Boston's "Smokin'", though I tend toward ELP's "Hoedown" or Geoff Bartley's "Blues Beneath the Surface". Good music in your head helps you run fast.

Quantum est ille canis in fenestra? I get it in Latin sometimes. Not good Latin, but Latin.

Um, I don't know that this is an improvement. At least it does have the same number of sylables though.

Either you can't count or, impressively, you know that the '-um' is elided before 'est', so that it's pronounced "Quant' est ille canis in fenestra". So I'm not sure whether to be impressed or not. I'm going for 'not'.

The second line has been known to be 'Celui a la queue wagglante', which isn't in any language in particular.

On a more serious note - songs in your head are bad. Focus means just that: no distractions. Easier said than done, of course.

Well, this is technically a thread about pace counting.

I was merely attempting to demonstrate--through analogy--the necessity of parameterizing your inputs since anything involving counting, if done by an unqualified individual, is suspect.

With "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall", you can accomplish both at the same time.

I am glad to hear that other people have songs going through their heads as well. When it happens to me it is clear that I have lost focus.

Worst part of it though is that they are always songs from one of my son's videos. Particularly annoying for numerous and obvious reasons is a song from Bob the Builder--"Running here and running there we'll find that cat."

This makes it too easy to change "cat" to "control" then all hope is lost.

If you hear an attak badger gnashing its teeth somewhat rhythmically, it isn't pace counting. It is about to attack. Why is it going to attack? Because that's what they do.

Having a song running through my head is definitely a sign that I am not concentrating well. A good slap on the head and a purposeful return to thinking about what I should see next usually quiets the genie.

Reading Barb's comment, I can see now why I tend to overshoot targets... ;-)

You wear stilts when you orienteer?

MC was born with stilts.

Yeah, and I like to wear stilettos on top of those natural stilts, it's perfect to plant SI stands in the ground. Who needs a nine-inch nail when you have stilettos on stilts.

Singing Nine-Inch Nails songs? Hmmm... maybe. Of course MC would probably also recognize that "waggante" should be spelled "ouaggante".

I wonder if you could use the beat of the song to help you pace count?!?

Adam - that's what I was thinking as well... use different songs for sprints, regular courses, long courses. Sprints might require fast pace punk rock tunes, traditional rock/pop/rap would be good regular courses, love songs with slower beat for long courses.

"Climb Every Mountain" often runs through my head on long slogs... How 'bout you? :-)

If you think you hear me belting out a NIN song during a run, it probably just means I've fallen, or run into a tree, again.

Normally I don't have the bandwidth to stream audio while orienteering, but I am intrigued by the replace counting with a song thing. 2 x this refrain is 100m on trail, 3x is 100m in terrain or uphill. Could work, and although repetitive, it can't be any more so than counting.

Not sure should I laugh about this or not. This happened to me last night at ROC Score-O. Conscious about not "singing" and maintain concentration level high I was able not to sing for entire course until...

I had to cross busy road and car passing by with windows rolled down was playing R&B song. Next thing I knew - I was singing that song during next 1 1/2 legs till I realized what I was doing and managed to stop the singing

Hearing songs or music in woods is clear sign of mass hallucination. Just shows that you lost your concentration and going to miss your next control. Natural frequency of any orienteering race is much lower than rhythm of any music and coinsides with the terrain ups and downs :)

As it was observed above the one has to practice pace counting as a junior and slowly develop "feel" of distance when essentually it is done automatically as an estimation of the distance covered. It is impossible to do precise distance counting in woods as too many factors influence the measurement, for example, the fact that map is projection of the terrain on a plane.

Deliberate pace counting is very useful tool in a featureless woods though.

Ok... It was not hallucination last night. It was white Pontiac (I do not recall license plate number anymore...:)) Meet was held in the one of the central Rochetser parks, so, there were plenty of cars.

Just came back from training (Greensfelder CP) with Zan and Anna. In setting tapes, I consistently pace-counted more often than usual. It complements my ability and style very well.

For example, while contouring along 200+ meters of mapped and unmapped rock features, it felt good to say, "50 paces, ah this IS the mapped boulder. 60 more paces, yes there should be a stretch of rock faces, time to drop down to cave opening." Without the paces, I would have spent more time matching features to map and I probably would have hesitated and dropped down too soon. Even though the steep hillside with lose footing certainly affected my stride, the rough pace count was stil useful.

BTW, if you see a rusty folding chair hanging from a tree branch, would many of you have interpreted that as marking a cave opening?