Discussion: Updated rankings

The USOF rankings have been updated to reflect the rolling off of the Western States Champs (part of the 2005 PNWOF), and the addition of the last four days of the 1000 Days (Night-O Champs, Middle Day, and US Champs).

On the 28th, the rest of the 2005 PNWOF will roll off.

P.S. If you see any errors - like you are listed twice on the same course, please let me know.

Wow, that was quick. You guys rock!

Um, I mean, you guys are great! I think we've all had enough of rocks today... ;-)

Rankings done before results are posted (US Champs)--cool! (I do expect the results to be posted by tomorrow....)

Sandy wouldn't let me drink the rest of the six pack until I had them done. ;) And I was scared that she would start hitting ME with the fly swatter - there were about 100 flies in the cabin which she went after with a vengance.

J-J is on the road - I think as far as Oklahoma City tonight.

Colby, KS -- change of plans. But the results have been sent out, so theu'll be posted as soon as Swampfox can get to them.

I will get the results up sometime Monday, after I get home.

Wow, what a fast rankings update, thanks!
A question: why are the US Night-O Champs counted in the rankings? I know of no other country that counts Night-O in its rankings, and given how different it is from regular orienteering, it seems strange to me that we count it... (I realize my question may seem self-serving given my DNF in the recent Night-O Champs, but this is something I've been wondering about for a while.)

Currently the USOF rules say that all sanctioned events should count in the rankings. The exact language is "an individual USOF sanctioned class “A” meet with individual staggered starts (including elite meets)". If there is widespread sentitment that Night-O should not count then the rules could be changed but my guess is that there will be about as many people wanting to keep night-O in as there will be those wanting it out. But I could be wrong.

Although I can't find anything in the USOF rules about it, it's my unstanding that anyone can at any time before they compete request that a result not count towards their ranking. So if you are sick or injured say, but still want to participate in an event, you can request that your result be designated as non-competitive in which case it will not count towards your ranking. I may be wrong about this though since I can't find it in the rules. I'll try to track it down.

That's correct. You have to tell the meet director prior to your start (there's some set time, like 12 hours prior), but you can voluntarily exclude any result from the rankings.

As far as Night-O goes, I only think it's different if you don't practice it a lot (which is true for most folks). Among those who do a fair bit of night training, the results are nearly indistinguishable from day results. Excluding Night-O might be a slippery slope. Would sprints get chucked next? Separate rankings for Classic vs. Middle? Pretty soon we'd have as many rankings as we do championships which would make them all pretty meaningless.

We've been around and around on the rankable night-O thing for years and nothing (even grass roots) has happened as a result. In my mind night-O depends too strongly on equipment. Skill and practice matter of course, but if one dude brings the max legal car headlight and the other dude has a mini maglight there *is* an advantage/disadvantage. Don't even bother to mention how shoes and compasses and clothes make equipment differences, because thats a much smaller deal.

Night-O is the *least* practiced form of O for which the US has a championships. I think Boris mentioned in his training log some time back that someone in Sweden asked him if there is night-O in the US, and he said "yes, there is a night-O champs....and thats pretty much it." There is the odd club (b-meet) night-O, but the champs is the only A-level night race in the US. Yes, its silly to have a championship in something that you only do for 60 minutes a year at the championships itself. Even sillier to include that race in the individual rankings. How many sprints were there this year? Last year? Sprints were just made rankable in the last year or so in response to a real need to improve our sprinting, as it has recently (2001) been added to the World Champs. When night-O is added to WOC then we will probably adapt and add more night-O in the US. When we start running night-O maybe the champs will mean something. Until then they should be dropped from the rankings. I haven't run a night-O champs on blue in years simply because it counts in my blue ranking. Eliminating the night-O champs is something completely different than not counting it in the regular individual rankings, something that we also don't do with the relay or trail-O (both have champs now) for that matter. The US Relay champs is a sanctioned event but it isn't counted in your rankings. One could argue that its more relavant than night-O (there is a relay at WOC by the way). So there is already an exception to the "any sanctioned event should count towards the rankings" rule because of the mass-start thing, which in the past has also been waived for things like the long-O champs when that is occasionally mass-started. Why not another exception for the (even stronger case of) night-O?

Last year I ran the red at the night-O champs at Manitou in CO. I had a *deplorable* run and got a silver medal in M35. :) wooo!

Sounds like Eddie is a candidate for notifying the meet director in advance that he would like his night-O run not to count for rankings. Rather than not ranking night-O competitions, I think it makes sense to leave it up to individuals, who are best able to decide whether they are sufficiently disadvantaged (by lack of equipment, training, or any other deficiency) that their run ought not count.

By the way, Eddie, there is a rule against mass-started or chase-started events counting in the rankings, which is why relays and mass-started long-O races don't count. I am not aware of exceptions having been made to the mass-start rule. I think some chase-started race (perhaps at the end of the 1000 Day) may have been given an exception several years ago, but I don't remember.

Yes, I think the long champs in WY had an exception one year, and one of the long champs at the Pig got an exception once as I recall. Its only been a couple of times that I can remember. Still, why are exceptions granted? Presumably the rule is in place for a reason. When will the trail-O champs be added to the rankings?

I wish I knew about week ago about being able to exclude races in advance from my ranking. I would have been so all over that!

We don't include ski-O or trail-O in the rankings, we shouldn't include night-O either. I would have thought it was a no-brainer....

Night-O is pretty similar to orienteering during the day in terrain with low-visibility forest. It's really not all that similar to ski-O or (especially) trail-O, so I don't understand why it's being compared to those.

Eddie, which events and which years got exceptions? The lists of ranked events are on the web for the most recent years, and they show no exceptions that I could see (but perhaps I didn't look carefully enough?)

The point is the visibilty varies according to your equipment, and that large variable makes the night-O score a 3-sigma event in the rankings. Its being compared to those others because someone argued that throwing the night-O out of the rankings is as arbitrary as throwing out the sprint or middle distance champs races. Which would be as arbitrary as adding trail-O or Ski-O. Or Night-O.

The long champs are always included, so they should appear on all the lists, but are exceptions such as "mass-start" on those lists? What link to included events are you looking at?

I suggest the relavant rule to be changed to a ranking race being "an individual USOF sanctioned class “A” meet with individual staggered starts (including elite meets), but not if you have to start after it gets dark." After that, before every race the Sanctioning Committee (perhaps a new committee can be created) has to define how dark is dark for the purposes of this rule.

I'm not going to advocate either way for Night-O being in or out of the rankings, but the "different lights" argument is specious. It's not as if lights are handed out via a random draw. If you can't see well enough, get a brighter light. Some people do better during the day because of this thing called "training", and that's a pretty large variable, too. And don't argue that it's a financial barrier -- I've pretty much got as much light as anybody out there, and it's a $10 Dennis the Menace piece of junk that I put together myself with ductape and staples. (When I get my act together, I'll make a web page showing how you can build one of your own.)

Is the light argument similar to the glasses/eyesight argument? Some people see better than others, some people get glasses/contacts while others do not. Maybe the difference in lightning at night is bigger than difference in sight during the day, but maybe it isn't.

Also, there are rules regarding maximum light output, suggesting that there should be a ceiling on what a competitor can carry.

On the other hand, I've got a pretty good light and I still suck at night O.

> I know of no other country that counts Night-O in its rankings

Me neither. Never heard of any country doing it, until I heard that the good old US of A included Night-O in its rankings.

But by all means, go ahead if you think that it adds credibility to your ranking scheme that other countries somehow lack.

Ouch.

I suspect the reasoning is more like 'if it's not rankable, nobody will compete in it'. Which is of course slightly backwards logic...

Yes, batteries can die, blubs can burn out, you can drop them on a rock, Dennis-the-Menace battery packs can burst into flames in the rain. Any of a number of things can happen to hardware. If the argument for getting a better light is to hold up, why is there a limit on light wattage in the rules? If more light=better, why set a limit? I choose the sun.

The variable called "training" is precisely the quantity one is trying to measure with a rankings system. If I wanted to measure light quality I'd use a night-O. The fewer free variables in your competition the more meaningful the number will be, and I'd draw the line before night-O, just like the rest of the world does.

While night-O consists of nearly 1/3 of my technical training, I really don't care if the night-O champs are ranked or not. That said, I still see no reason not to rank it.

First there's the obvious point already made that if you don't want it to be a ranking event for YOU, it doesn't have to be. Why deny the ranking points to everybody else?

As JJ pointed out, anybody can buy a light. Very good 5w LED's are available for under $200, which is generally less than travel and lodging to the meet itself. If you really want to light up the hillside, a 13w HID only sets you back around $350 (unless you want a fancy lith-ion battery). Neither of those setups will die in the rain or burst into flames (unless you're using a Dell laptop battery made by Sony). Sure you could fall down and break your light, but if the risk of DNF is a barrier to ranking, then no meet could be ranked.

As for night-O not being widely practiced, that's just nonsense. It may well be that most of the US elite don't practice it, but it is very widely practiced in both training and competition. Most of those competitions go by some other name, like Rogaine or Adventure Race, but they are night-O just the same.

So why aren't rogaines and ARs counted in the USOF rankings?

> Why deny the ranking points to everybody else?

As stated before, why put a random number into your set of measurments of foot orienteering skill? Sure, I can leave it off my ranking, but what about everybody else? It works both ways. Someone bad at night-O leaves off their night-O score, someone good at night-O puts in their night-O score. What do the resulting rankings mean? Basically, nothing.

This is confusing. I think it's weird that there's a Night-O Championships when there aren't any other big night-O events. I also think it's weird because I don't think of night-O as being fundamentally different from day-O. You could have a Green-Vegetation-O or Stormy-Weather-O Championships and they would be just as silly. Going with that reasoning, I don't see what the objection to having rankable night-O meets is.... it's just another O meet, right? What am I missing?

My only true "night-o" experience so far has been the Night-O Champs last week (which I didn't realize were rankable when I ran), and it didn't seem to me that people had problems that were unfair - like batteries exploding or something. The problems people had (myself included) were about navigating carefully, which is harder to do at night, but it's the same skill as used during the day. Just because people are bad at it doesn't mean that it's not a fair event.

I guess all the other countries out there must have some reason for not ranking night-o, but I haven't really seen a good explanation here.

What do the resulting rankings mean? Basically, nothing.

Exactly. Orienteering has too many variables to worry too much about the rankings.

Someone bad at night-O leaves off their night-O score, someone good at night-O puts in their night-O score. What do the resulting rankings mean? Basically, nothing.

That's why I leave sprints off my ranking, because I'm bad at them, and I feel they measure a different enough skillset than the one I'm interested in. (And I also don't trust the math w.r.t sprints, but that's FUD, as I've never actually looked at the math). (I actually don't leave sprints off my ranking, because doing so seems lame, but I've thought about this alot).

So we have a classic line drawing problem here, and intelligent people will argue for a long time as to where draw the line. It seems to me we should rank each discipline separately, and then create a composite ranking. I've never suggested this to our overworked volunteers in the past, but now as I understand the way things are set up, such a suggestion wouldn't be too hard to implement (the difficulty would be to classify certain races by discipline ...).

If we have one ranked night O a year, I guess the rankings for that discipline would be pretty easy to calculate :-)

So why aren't rogaines and ARs counted in the USOF rankings?

Surely you know the answer to this!

Rogains are not counted in the rankings because they are team events. AR's are not counted because they fail to meet most of the criteria for ranking (not the least of which is USOF A-meet sanctioning).

Neither event is excluded from the rankiings due to being held at night. Furthermore, if any USOF club decided to hold a non-championship A-meet at night, that event would be ranked without any waivers. The fact that this hardly ever happens does not mandate a re-writing of the rules.

As for the rankings being rendered meaningless just because a single event can be cherry picked by a night-O specialist, get serious. You need at least four solid runs to get a good ranking. Until ranked night-O events start showing up in fairly large numbers, any skewing of the data is indistinguisable from white noise.

So you're saying a rogaine is nothing more than a team night-O?

If night-O is no different than day-O (without the light) then why is there a separate US Championships for it? Wouldn't the Individual Champs suffice?

In other words, if night-O is sufficiently different from day-O to merit its own separate championships, how can it also be similar enough to lump into the day-O rankings?

That was my point - that there should not be a separate championship because it's all the same stuff. And if it's all the same stuff, then it should be ranked.

I would agree with both of those statements. And yes, I'd say that a Rogain is just team orienteering, some of which is done at night. The same techniques are used even though the pace is obviously slower.

I'll disagree with the above statement about rogaines.

Anyways, which is the easier sell: dumping the US Night-O champs or unranking them? At the current pace, dumping the champs = zero ranked night-O races anyways.

Geez, you guys

Nah, I would much rather have sprint races dumped from the rankings. There is already a separate ranking for them anyway. I rather like the Night-O Champs, but then I have a really powerful light.

I've never understood why night o's are ranked. I don't think they should be included in our regular ranking; they are a different mode of orienteering -- just like canoe o', score o', ski o', etc. I am not fond of sprints and long events being lumped in, either, but that is less bothersome to me because the races differ (primarily) only in length. Perhaps Eddie, Peter, and I, et al, are in the minority.
Luckily, I no longer care *enough* about rankings to not run in something because of them.

By the way, the sarcasm in several posts being either misunderstood or knowingly taken seriously in other posts is amusing me. Keep it up. Just, no one bust a vein over it.

Sarcasm is only funny if you don't laugh at it.

Rogaine is also different in that it's scored differently, that is, a good performance is high points instead of low time. Yes, you could just use the reciprocal, but it's a discrete, rather than a continous, measurement, and depends on the arbitrary assignment of point values by the course setter. On a "regular" course, a time 5% lower means that the competitor traveled (on average) 5% faster. But in a Rogaine, a score 5% higher could in principle translate to just barely having made it to a high-value control. (There are other differences as well, some of which are relevant.)

Night-O really isn't that different from navigating in foggy conditions, which happens in daylight from time to time. Also, on the topic of why there's a national championship in a discipline that barely happens the rest of the year, the same can be said about relays and Long-O. Not much Long-O except for goats (which aren't sanctioned), and it's rare to have more than one non-local relay in a year other than the champs.

Lights can fail, yes. And shoes can blow out, compasses can get smashed, ankles can sprain. There's nothing inherently random about lights.

It is all coming to fairness :)

As all people react very differently to same light levels so having better lamps at night would give unfair advantage to some. It is like some would run at bright sun light and some at the sunset. Very different.

At least during day light all are presented, more or less, with same conditions either it is sprint, middle, classic, or long race.

so having better lamps at night would give unfair advantage to some

What if some have better compasses during a day-O?

Oh, this thread is so fun.

What if some people react differently to heavy vegetation, or rocks, or pavement, or sand, or high altitude? You can train for some of these things, maybe, but not perfectly. I think it is unfair that some people can run through blueberries better than I, that some are not allergic to poison oak/ivy, that some train ever day at 8000 feet, that some can run through heavy marshes, etc...

Wah wah, boo hoo.

And speaking of night O -- I wonder if Boris is better at night O than most of us. I doubt he used to be.

Randy and Clem,
The point here is that even with best possible lamp some people will suffer at night. And this would be not due to the fitness or navigation technique levels - that is what we are trying to test at our competitions not who are better equipped. People can develop skills on going fast through the bushes, swamps, etc. but, unfortunately, nothing can be done to alter eyes and natural night vision perception. Unless, of course, night vision devices will be allowed but it may be dangerous as opponents start blinding each other with powerful lights :)

Is the difference in compass quality really the same as the difference in light quality in a night-O? The compass is far less important to nav than visibility (and map clarity). Orienteering is based almost entirely on visual cues from the terrain and the map. Of all the compasses people are using in competition I'd argue that there is very little real difference in their ability to point north.

Regarding terrain variation, everyone should ideally be given a level playing field. Everyone has the same terrain to deal with. At night everyone has the same darkness to deal with (assuming all the starts are in-fact after dark). Its just that those with bigger lights can see better, and this gives them a HUGE advantage. Someone carrying a macchette could probably handle thick veg better. Sharper blades are better than dull blades. Some people have sharp blades and some have dull blades. Some have no blades at all. When the results of the race depend so strongly on the equipment carried into the field, its no longer a real test of people's orienteering skill. Or at the very least its a significant enough difference from people's daytime orienteering skill that it should not be lumped into the same ranking system.

Like Randy said, this comes down to where to draw the line, and there should indeed be a line between night-O and day-O. Why else would we have separate championships in each?

This thread seems to go around in circles -- rather apt, I think, beause that is what happens to me when I do one -- but anyway.

Why not just standardize the equipment, then? But, I thought that it was -- I am not sure why putting a ceiling on wattage is not sufficient. If there is a limit to the kind of light you use, then isn't that enough?

Lots of sport use equipment and also limit equipment advances. Why wouldn't that work for bloody night-o?

Anyway, since I don't like night O, I have no idea why I am posting here...

Because the limit is set higher than the readily available equipment in the US, and the price is higher than most orienteers are willing to spend for a light they only use 60 mins a year.

Hmm... while I'd like to admit Vlad's and JJ's concoctions as evidence to the contrary, it isn't really, as they are both exceptional.

Anyway, I'm glad that I got the brightest light allowed. It sure does me a lot of good, though.

I will rent it out to anyone whose interested. I'll let Eddie try it for free, though.

I don't have Vlad's or JJ's electronics prowess.

This issue will need to come to a vote. That will be the only way to answer Boris' original question. When he asks why night-O is (or is not) included in the US foot-O rankings we can simply point to the majority vote and say "that's why."

Exporting democracy, eh?

Well, I abstain.

Anyway, I wonder how (statistically) different this year's night O results were from the corresponding day results... on the first order, they look similiar, don't they?

Had I run, my results would definately not have been similar - light or no light.

>in the rankings? I know of no other country that counts Night-O in its rankings, and given how different

I know one: Finland

Isn't it always dark in Finland?

BTW, Eddie -- I'll make sure that neither you nor I run a night leg at Jukola, OK? :)

That would be wise...for the benefit of our team. :) I mean *the* team.

Speaking of rocks and always dark, poor little Pluto is no longer a planet. Now its just a lump of ice and rock orbiting a star (heh). All those Trivial Pursuit sets will have to be changed - even the Canadian ones.

Canadian ones should be discontinued.

Actually, Uranus does have a moon named Puck

Speaking of rocks and always dark, poor little Pluto is no longer a planet.

And I suppose Xena, et. al., were passed over for promotion as well? Do you have a link to the results/commentary handy?

And not to do an eddie and hijack the thread too far ...


People can develop skills on going fast through the bushes, swamps, etc. but, unfortunately, nothing can be done to alter eyes and natural night vision perception.


And I haven't seen people logging their presbyopia correction training for day-O. I forget the point this makes.

Never mind, I think the thread has long ago run its course; lets talk about those planets :)

Vlad's concoction is not brighter than the brightest light allowed. The one that Vladimir mis-designed for Eric is, though. Witness the flames that come out periodically.

There is a terminology issue that should be understood, the difference between the electrical input that goes into the luminaire (*) and the power that comes out as visible light. For an incandescent, halogen bulb, less than 1% of the electrical-power input is converted into visible light. The rest is lost as heat—also EM waves but ones you can't see. So, for a 20 W light, you have maybe 0.2 W of light coming out. LEDs are much more efficient. The numbers on the latest whites are between 5% and 10%, I believe. Arc discharge (HID) claims up to 85% efficiency. (**) How well you light up the woods depends not only on how much light comes out but also on how well you can focus it. On the absurd end, a continuous-wave 20 W (***) laser is not as efficient as HID, but will probably burn holes in trees.

The rules place a 20 W cap on the electrical input (easy to measure) but say nothing of the light output. I'm pretty sure the rules say something about the event staff having access to a voltmeter and an ammeter, so that electrical voltage and current going into the luminaire can be verified; their product is the power. That's straightforward; but it would be a very difficult measurement to accurately verify the visible-light output of anything. You would need an enclosed room full of detectors.

The HID headlights of a car are in the 30 W–40 W range (electrical power in). So, a 20 W limit on power-in seems meaningless in the context of HID (half a car headlight is much brighter than even JJ's LED concoction, also going into a much wider angle). The reasons HIDs are not widespread as headlamps are, the bulbs themselves are expensive and the electronics to control them are quite involved (starting voltages are in the kilovolts—do you really want kilovolts stuck on your forehead? Another thing you may not want on your forehead is kilodegrees. HID arcs melt ordinary glass.)

(*) Indeed that's the word for something that generates light out of electricity.

(**) I got this number off a quick Google search. Don't know if it is real. I guess the reason you don't get all the heat is that a pulsed arc is not a black body.

(***) 20 W of light out. I have no idea how efficient CW lasers can be.

I think Pluto got a bad deal planet-ranking-wise because it is so far away from the sun and has to manage its orbit in increased darkness.

They had to draw a line somewhere...

Yes, Xena and the large asteroid Ceres were passed over. They are now designated "dwarf planets," basically what used to be called "minor planets" - a class that includes asteroids and space rocks (yeah, like the candy).

I dunno. I get all my astronomy news from CNN. Brad Whitmore was actually giving talks at the IAU meeting where this was decided last week. He doesn't bother with space rocks though. Even Jupiter is inconsequential for what he does. A "minor gas blob"

Luminaire? That sounds a lot like numeraire. For an erudite discussion of money as a numeraire, in a GE framework, I recommend Martin Shubik.

Nothing like changing the subject, huh, j-man? Did you lose the argument or something?

As I said, I abstain. There must be more worthwhile arguments somewhere to attempt to win. I still have something to settle with Balter, anyway.

At any rate, I'm glad at least one economist read my comment, if not acknowleging any humor in it. Mea culpa, I suppose. But, I really thought the GE thing was pretty witty...

If you think this argument is bad, immagine the week-long argument a bunch of nerds had about whether Pluto is a planet or not. Many pairs of glasses were smashed and taped I'm sure.

You are too darn funny! My stomach hurts.

>Isn't it always dark in Finland?
No, but it is our dream.

Isn't that from a Spielberg movie?

People have different night-vision, and that's unfair? People have different vision, period, and that's not considered unfair. Yes, some will go out and spend hundreds of dollars on glasses or contact lenses. I did. Of course, there's nothing I know of that I can buy to change the fact that I'm colorblind, but you won't hear me calling for black-and-white maps to level the playing field.

You may notice that my night-O results are, relatively speaking, better than my results in the daytime. Reasons? Partly motivation, partly having a good light, and partly because of training specificity: I purposely do some of my training in the dark.

USOF rules don't call for the event staff to have meters. The originally proposed version did, but (partly at my urging) that section was removed, because it's impractical to ask the event staff to be partly disassembling lights (at night) to make such measurements, particularly when the ones you'd want to measure may have, as Vlad notes, kilovolt power sources.

Electronics prowess? Hardly! I know a nine-year-old who fully understands the concept of wiring a battery, a switch, and a bulb in series. Yes, my Li-Ion battery charging method is a little fancy, and my low-beam is slightly more esoteric (replace the bulb with an LED and a series resistor), but it's not... well... it's not rocket science. You could just use a bunch of disposable C cells, and a smaller bulb if you want a low beam. Then with some ductape and staples...

(Hint: you'll also want these.)

I love night-O!

People have alot of different things. Some people can't even go out in the woods. Bad orienteers sometimes start right before very good orienteers and that affects the results. The goal is to minimize the things you do have control over - like map quality - so the end results mean something. I have no problems with night-O specifically. Sometimes I even enjoy it.

I do know that:
(apples+oranges)/2 != apples

and

(10*apples+1*oranges)/11 = apples +/- oranges

but definately

(10*apples)/10 = apples

USOF rules don't call for the event staff to have meters. The originally proposed version did,

Now that is so darn funny that my stomach hurts.

I'm sure Mr. Lordi loves Night-O too.

Want to improve your orienteering ranking (day) next spring?

Yes! Well then instead of going for a run on the road, treadmill or trail when you get home from work/school in the dark, buy a good 20W headlamp and replace one or two workouts per week with some woods running or in the snow in a park with your new and improved light. Add in the odd night-O training. Get better technically and physically at night and improve your day time orienteering performance.

Exactly how all the Scandinavian orienteers train, in the forest, year round, often with a map. If it is dark, use a light, get better in all aspects of orienteering!

Why don't you all just ditch the maps and jump on a track for a little 5k or 10k race. Oh, but wait, some guy might be wearing spikes and another guy might be in high-top b-ball shoes. Bottom line is all sports are equip dependant. O'ing has way more variables than one can count, so what's the big deal about comparing apples to apples. If you want to do that, just run circles around a track. Then you can compare PRs instead of "rankings."

You're right...what difference does it make?

New rule propsal: "In the event of disputed rankings, hold a foot race on a track between all disputed parties. The fastest diputee will be declared the winner." Bottom line, rankings are never perfect... They're good, but not perfect.

Exactly. But thats no reason to thow up your hands and say "oh well, its the best we can do." We can change things to make them better. Removing night-O from the US rankings would make the rankings better. Practicing night-O will make orienteers better. Its win-win.

Jagge: I couldn't read the Finnish. Was that a noon-time start?

Eddie: Astronomers always seem to have phenomenal night vision. All you seem to need is a couple pixels of light from a star a godzillion light years away to tell how large its planet is. The maiximal USOF light would probably blind you.

Ricka: It is the web site of unofficial night o cup of Lahti district, since 2002. There is two breaks, summer (no darkness) and winter (too much snow). Maps and routes of some of the latest events can be found here. Some races has mass start, some not, sometimes gaffling, sometimes not, some times epunch ... depends how course setter likes to do it.

---

Wintertime here is dark when I go to work and again dark when I come back from work (17-18 pm). Daylight training can be done only weekends.

Summertime night o training is pain here, you have to wait until midnight to find some sort of darkness. I did this training before 43-kavlen - It is only 20 min drive I from home, but was home after 1 am. And first 10 min was not dark enough.

In theory, I agree with Eddie that equipment makes a big difference in night-O. This is certainly true in bushy or densely forested terrains and particularly for less experienced orienteers. However, among experienced orienteers, good night orienteers with mediocre lights usually beat not-so-good night orienteers with top-of-the-line night-O lights. I (usually) seem to do fairly well at night-O, and I finished pretty well (1:32 in 2nd versus Mook's winning 1:30) at this year's U.S. Champs while running most of the course on LEDs only, because the batteries I used were too wimpy to power my 10w halogen bulb (let alone the 20w) for more than about 15 minutes.

I'm sure it helps me that my club holds a couple of night-O events each year, and I always make a point of night orienteering when I have the opportunity at other events, such as conventions or other groups of events that offer night-O. It seems to me that there are many orienteers who avoid night orienteering for one reason or another--injury risk, spooky to be out alone at night, aren't good at it or bad night-O experience in past, cold at night, low mood or metabolism in evening. These orienteers will, of course, be at a disadvantage to those who relish night-O and do it when they can.

jj- maybe your results at night o are better because vision in dim light relies on the rods rather than cones, so, no color vision for anyone at night :)

also, more importantly, i thought i heard somewhere that the night-o champs was going to be discontinued because there is no world night-o champs. i think i heard that at the same time that it was decided that trail-o and sprints need to have us champs.
has anyone else heard this?

i thought i heard somewhere that the night-o champs was going to be discontinued because there is no world night-o champs. i think i heard that at the same time that it was decided that trail-o and sprints need to have us champs. has anyone else heard this?

Eliminating the night-o champs was brought before the board about a year or so ago. Another proposal to hold it every other year was also floated. At the same time, it was proposed that a trail-o champs be added (to some, this seemed illogical, as there are more night-o starts than trail-o starts (at least at the time that was true)). The final decision was to keep night-o, and add trail-o and sprint. Later, it was decided that NAOC would go to sprint/middle/long. Presently (after the aforementioned changes), the championship package is not before the USOF board (AFAIK).

For my part, I'd like to see the USOF championship package be: sprint, middle, long, ultra long (current long), relay, interscholastics. Eliminate everything else until enough starts are demonstrated to warrant a championship (yeah, I know this probably isn't true of the current relay and long, but its my proposal, so I'm allowed to be biased :-)). But this idea hasn't got much support either on the board, or, most likely, with the USOF membership in general.

That looks good to me. You could add some form of rogaine champs to that list since that is somewhat in the USOF purview. US Rog Champs and NA Rog Champs.
Mmmmm, relish....

I think it's unfair that classic-O and long-O are included in the rankings, because it favors people with a genetically high VOmax.

This head start is much harder to catch up with than the advantage having a good headlamp (anyone who saves up the money can buy one).

Buy your way to a better ranking? Very satisfying.

There is nothing stopping the team from removing the night-O champs from the rankings calculation for WOC selection purposes. That doesn't require a USOF decision.

We'll deal with that this fall when we review Team selection rules for 2007.

Whether night-O is a part of the rankings or not, is a separate issue, but _please_ don't discontinue the night-O champs! Why? How could it possibly benefit US orienteering to do that? I was always happy and impressed that the US has a night-O champs (and sad that Canada doesn't). Night-O should be encouraged, not discontinued, and having at least one big event per year will help motivate runners.

As Hammer points out in this thread, and as I'm sure Boris and others who have trained in Scandinavia knows, one of the key reasons they are so good technically is that they do tons of night-O throught the dark months of the year. It's not hard to imagine that it feels like a piece of cake orienteering during the day, when you're good at it on a technical map at night.

And I don't understand this whining about the cost of a proper headlamp? Most of you who post here are completely passionate about your sport, and some of you are national team members, and you all spend thousands of dollars on traveling to meets and on o-shoes and so on, yet you are not willing to spend a few hundred dollars on a "real" scandi style orienteering headlamp? Listen to Hammer, stop whining, get a proper light, get out on maps more often and close the gap to the world elite!

Whether night-O is a part of the rankings or not, is a separate issue

It was my impression that this *is* the issue we were discussing.

Boris asked:
A question: why are the US Night-O Champs counted in the rankings?

Yes, sorry, I got a little bit carried away by some of the negative comments about night-O and discontinuing the champs.

Sweden does have night-O ranking as well, but it's on a separate list.

Canada has the disadvantage that, at the time of year when it gets dark at a reasonable hour, it's also getting cold outside. My opinion is that the US Night-O Champs should usually be hosted in the winter by clubs in southern states. So far, this has happened once, when SDO hosted the event in December. (Yes, I do realize that by my reasoning, night-O in the Nordic countries of Europe should be a hopeless cause. My hat is off to the tough competitors from those countries!)

I don't think anyone here is questioning the value of night-O to overall orienteering skills. Any training where you remove one or more of your normal inputs will sharpen your skill in using the others. Things like running on maps with only contours, or removing the trails or running without a compass are similar. But we don't have a US no-compass championships or a US contours-only championships. If night-O and trail-O were more heavily practiced in the US a championships would make sense, and I hope that day comes eventually. In the mean time, having some sanctioned (non-champs) night-O's, particularly at A meets, would be great. See if the attendance at such things increases. Its hard enough getting people (myself especially) out on maps for training period, let alone getting them out there at night. I like to think I'm passionate about orienteering, but I'm not passionate enough to justify the hours of driving and gallons of gasoline that would be required to get me an adequate ammount of training time in the woods - daytime or nighttime. We're always striving to get more maps closer to home. If I lived in a place where it was dark after work hours for long periods of time I might do more night-O, provided the maps were reasonably close to home. I do most of my winter running and skiing in the dark after work. Obviously doing that in the forest with a map would be much better.

I don't agree that night-O is similar to running on a map with only contours. That comparison doesn't make sense to me at all.

But, of course, I grew up in a place where night-O is just a natural part of orienteering. It had never even occured to me to question it.

You're right, they are not similar. Its the idea that is similar. The reduced visibilty of night-O is day-O with fewer or subdued visual cues. Less information for your brain to work with. Same concept (although not the same skills) when running on a map with some of the normally available info removed. I should have said "similar concept," which is what I meant.

-25C is perhaps a bit of a disadvantage (of night-O in Canada)...but actually most nights aren't that cold even in winter. 0C and dry can be quite pleasant for orienteering. So far, FWOC hasn't missed a week of orienteering for five years or more; in the winter this means night-O's usually.

For those bemoaning the lack of a Canadian night orienteering championship, come to Saskatoon next year. The night event may not be sanctioned as an official championship (though this was sought), but it should be a lot of fun and a good competition anyway. Due to the interests of the organizer, it will be a team (of 2) event, 2 hour score. (For those who prefer day, there will be the usual Sprint, Middle and Long Canadian championships of course (2 of which WREs), and some low key pre-events.)

It's my turn to be a bit grumpy now :)

I was very disappointed to hear that there would be no "normal", individual start, night-O at the COCs. A team of 2, 2 hour score-O, just isn't the same at all.

Damn right it's not the same at all! If I, Barbie Doll Bruno, can consider doing a certain night-o, then it's not a real night-o. And the one in Saskatchewan, well, I am considering (even though I absolutely dislike score-o format!). So Pi, I agree with you on that one, even if you are a cranky bastard today (hehe).

You really found a teammate? ;)

I plan to be there, and I plan to do the night-O, whatever the format, though I agree that a "normal" night-O would be preferable. Have to find a suitable partner if it's in teams. Now I just have to make sure I can charge up my hatlamp. You people up there in Canadia probably have some kind of metric electricity, right?

We use metricons vs. your imperial electrons.

Some of y'all might have your doubts about night-O in the rankings. But the juniors are training for it:

You people up there in Canadia probably have some kind of metric electricity, right?

Yep...we use Watts, Volts and Amperes.

Hey Clem: tananana, tanananana, tananana, tanananananana...
If you play that all night I'll be your teammate ;-)

Hah ha! I was hoping I'd get you started!

Is that Paul Simon?

No it's called "Song from a can of tuna..." or something like that anyway.