Discussion: Setting % behind winner goals works? does not Work?

In working on measurable goals for the Junior team I keep on coming across the idea of goals such as, I want to be 20% behind the winner in a given race. If I come within 30% of the best time I reached my goals.
Personally I think we need to take these goals to a more specific level. What does it mean to be 10% behind a winning time? I think we have developed this mentality in orienteering because, of the diversity of courses, the possibility to make mistakes, trying to factor in Navigation into the equation. If you look at any given race weather it be running, swimming, orienteering, adventure racing, the fastest athlete on a good day will win. Now orienteering it happens that you have to be a fast navigator as well as a fast runner, skier, or biker etc. So lets say the best athlete going into an orienteering race can run a 15:00min 5k, can run a 10k through the woods in an range from 35-40min, and has shown on any given terrain that with a clean run can run between 5-6min per K. it would make sense that if you wanted to come within 10% of that athlete, you would need to have run 16:30 5K, a 38-43min 10k woods run, and be able to navigate at 6-7min per K. Now we all know Those factors can not predict a race especially in orienteering because and individual could make a mistake and be off the predicted winning time by minutes. Now because there is depth in the sport it would make sense that someone else would step up and be just as capable of winning. This is true however on a great day the best athlete will run faster than the next best. Lets say even that there are 5 athletes on the same level at the top. It would make sense that if I set a 10% goal behind the winners that one of them would have a great race and If I had my best race it would put me at 10% behind. But what if they don't, are you still going to settle for 10% behind the winner if they have bad days. In my mind that would give me an opportunity to step up and be 5-8% behind the winner. In the example above we have the best athlete in a race and 10% behind the best athlete. Between those two there is some overlap, so if the best athlete did not have a great day the person with times 10% away could potentially beat the best athlete. How can they do this? Because they know they can run or navigate at certain pace. If you set a goal, for JWOC or WOC 6 months from now saying I want to run within 10% of the winners, what are you training for, how do you know what 10% behind the winners will be? You may show up and be capable of running faster than 10% or you may show up under-trained and not have a chance to run within 10% of the winners. If you say potentially the winners can run 15min 5k and navigate at 5-6min pace then you have something to reach for in your training leading up to the race. It also leaves the possibility open for you to move up or down. If you say I want to be 10% behind the leader and everyone has a bad day and you end up 10% behind are you going to be happy with that race? You reached your Goal. It goes both ways however if you know you can do something so fast it would make sense that you could replicate that over and over a least within a small spectrum. Lets say give or take 20-seconds. The stronger you are the more the error will decrease and the potential for faster times will come.
This is a bit long winded but I wanted to go step by step through the thought process of the idea of setting goals and approaching goal setting in a new way. I am hoping that people will respond, not from their personal opinion but from logically what makes sense or not.

First goal - make it easier to read:

In working on measurable goals for the Junior team I keep on coming across the idea of goals such as, I want to be 20% behind the winner in a given race. If I come within 30% of the best time I reached my goals.

Personally I think we need to take these goals to a more specific level. What does it mean to be 10% behind a winning time? I think we have developed this mentality in orienteering because, of the diversity of courses, the possibility to make mistakes, trying to factor in Navigation into the equation. If you look at any given race weather it be running, swimming, orienteering, adventure racing, the fastest athlete on a good day will win.

Now orienteering it happens that you have to be a fast navigator as well as a fast runner, skier, or biker etc. So lets say the best athlete going into an orienteering race can run a 15:00min 5k, can run a 10k through the woods in an range from 35-40min, and has shown on any given terrain that with a clean run can run between 5-6min per K. it would make sense that if you wanted to come within 10% of that athlete, you would need to have run 16:30 5K, a 38-43min 10k woods run, and be able to navigate at 6-7min per K.

Now we all know Those factors can not predict a race especially in orienteering because and individual could make a mistake and be off the predicted winning time by minutes. Now because there is depth in the sport it would make sense that someone else would step up and be just as capable of winning. This is true however on a great day the best athlete will run faster than the next best.

Lets say even that there are 5 athletes on the same level at the top. It would make sense that if I set a 10% goal behind the winners that one of them would have a great race and If I had my best race it would put me at 10% behind. But what if they don't, are you still going to settle for 10% behind the winner if they have bad days. In my mind that would give me an opportunity to step up and be 5-8% behind the winner.

In the example above we have the best athlete in a race and 10% behind the best athlete. Between those two there is some overlap, so if the best athlete did not have a great day the person with times 10% away could potentially beat the best athlete. How can they do this? Because they know they can run or navigate at certain pace.

If you set a goal, for JWOC or WOC 6 months from now saying I want to run within 10% of the winners, what are you training for, how do you know what 10% behind the winners will be? You may show up and be capable of running faster than 10% or you may show up under-trained and not have a chance to run within 10% of the winners. If you say potentially the winners can run 15min 5k and navigate at 5-6min pace then you have something to reach for in your training leading up to the race. It also leaves the possibility open for you to move up or down. If you say I want to be 10% behind the leader and everyone has a bad day and you end up 10% behind are you going to be happy with that race? You reached your Goal. It goes both ways however if you know you can do something so fast it would make sense that you could replicate that over and over a least within a small spectrum. Lets say give or take 20-seconds. The stronger you are the more the error will decrease and the potential for faster times will come.

This is a bit long winded but I wanted to go step by step through the thought process of the idea of setting goals and approaching goal setting in a new way. I am hoping that people will respond, not from their personal opinion but from logically what makes sense or not.

Hmm...

I have definitely used the %-back metric before. For example, I once managed to run a sprint course along with a deep field of world elites. I finished 33% slower than the winners. At that point in my career, I was able to run a typical road race about 33% slower than a world elite athlete. Assuming that the world elites who won that race have near-optimal speed, used good technique, and were running near their limits, I concluded that I had also managed to use clean technique and was approaching my physical threshold in that race.

This was reassuring to me at the time, because during the technical forest races, I was getting clobbered (the elites were running nearly twice my speed). This good result gave me the confidence that I had the ability to put together a clean race. It reassured me that my fundamental technique was not total garbage, and that I could eventually expect better results if I kept training.

Thanks bl, I couldn't read the initial post because there were too many words crammed together without any respite.

I decided not to read your post either though so this whole thread has failed.

Four points:

1. safer than "10% behind the winner" would be to say "10% behind the average time of the top 3 (or 5) runners". This removes some, though not all, of the noise.

2. I think you're merging the concepts of outcome goals and process goals. "10% behind the winner" is an outcome goal. You need to focus on process goals on a daily timescale ("I will run intervals every week", "I will choose good attackpoints", "I will run a 10:30 3k", e.g.). If you choose intelligent process goals, achieving the process goals will achieve the performance goals.

3. I think it is important to have a series of concurrent goals when goal-setting with juniors. So, you may have a % back goal, but you may also have a placement goal, and a time goal, and a series of process goals for that specific race. This helps a junior understand that A) there are many ways to measure success, and B) helps them to better decide how "good" a race was.

4. I'd add that an important part of this is that even before seeing results, an athlete evaluates their race based on their own perceptions. This will allow them to have an honest evaluation of the race, untainted by knowing what the results say. Especially in a sport like orienteering, where there are so many different factors, this is crucial.

Good luck!

If all of the top orienteers "have a bad day", did they have a bad day, or was it a difficult course? Perhaps a better possibility is to set a goal of being a within a certain percentage of the "superman" time consisting of the sum of all of the best splits.

Just have fun. Maybe you should aim to be within 10% of the fun factor of the person who had the most fun out there.

I would ask them what sort of race they intend to have, on they day they set out to accomplish their goal.

Do they want to accomplish this goal in a race where they go conservative, keep in control, and cruise to a solid finish? Or do they intend to meet that goal by pushing themselves to the edge on that day and seeing where the chips fall?

Will they be satisfied if they meet that goal by skirting the edge, losing map contact occasionally, and getting lucky? Would they still be satisfied if they beat their goal pace on 10 of 12 splits, but then explode on one control and lose the race?

Percent Behind Leaders (average of top 3 times, as per acjospe) is currently the standard metric for performance of US orienteers at world championship events.

Combine alex's note about process goals versus outcome goals and GuyO's use of the term 'metric'. Have good process goals. Measure them qualitatively, sure, but also use metrics like %back.

Finnish ranking is based on the % behind the average time of the top 5 runners. (and point average of 7 best ranked starters).

My 5 best runs/points this season are withing 1%. Just by luck I guess, but there must be some consistency in play there.

I assume that you want to set up some standard training process with appropriate milestones to measure the progress on a long term no matter who is responsible for the junior team.

At the start it is good to know what motivate juniors to train and how much time and energy they want to put in this process. When you have some historical data (standard form) about their training process so far (weekly/monthly trainings, km per week, long runs, intervals, ..) you could set up athletic and orienteering program for each of them.

But normaly you have goals also to make better selection process and to motivate them along the road. I found out that our juniors have high motivation to participate at 2-3 days orienteering camps but most of them don't like athletic program. We don't have large pool of juniors so most of them start with the basic program. National trainer has set 3K times as one part of the selection process for major championships. 3K time is used just to see their physical fitness and juniors can see where are in comparision to other juniors from other countries. Only a few of them understand this as a good motivation to start with real athletic trainings.

What is still open and what I wanted to be part of the junior selection rules is minimal 3K time for age classes 16, 18, 20. If you can reach this goal you will have chance to be selected for the team. It is a very clear goal. Most of them don't want to put so much time into trainings but in the same time they still want to be part of the team and to maintain chances to attend and experience championship at least once. What is better: A) to send a team and try next year with a better team and so on or B) to set up the goals and send only those who make it thru?

If you look on orienteering from competitive perspective you would probably chose B) but when you realise that you work in a recrational sport where most of parents are working hard for orienteering than I understand their wish for A).

question: isnt it easier to be closer to the top times when the course is less technical...therefore making the % back score easier to attain? I notice that times compress the "easier" the technical nature of the course...

I would like to thank everyone who shared. It helped me to understand two thought processes that are behind goal setting. One being subjective and the other being objective. Thanks.

There is also a difference between "process" and "outcome" goals as acjospe points out.

Process: training hours, visiting N controls in a year, logging, going to training camps, teaching others, ...

Outcome: 5k time, OUSA ranking, fraction of splits within x% of superman at A meets, ...

(And all of those are objectively measurable.)