Discussion: What is Your Favorite O-Discipline?

I did my first Goat this past weekend and my first Rogaine last month. I was just curious what types of orienteering people liked most? I think personally I like sprints best, but I also had a good time at the Rogaine. You really get to cover some ground during those events and see some amazing sights.

Goat events rock!

QOC holds cool events.

Goats.

Sprints.

In order of preference:

Middle, Sprint, Farsta/O-Cross, Adventure Run, Goat, Relay, Catching Features, Long, Rogaine, 2-day classic.

Haha, my preferences are basically identical to Hammer's, except remove "Adventure Run" - i've never done one. Relays rock. The US needs more of them.

Night.

Regular O-meets for now. I have not done relays in ages but first leg in Relay is fun.

Long, Goat, Farsta, 2-day classic, Middle, Rogaine, Sprint. The fewer sprints held, the better. :)

In order of preference:

Night, Middle, Sprint, Goat, Relay, Classic, CF

In order of dispreference:

Street-O, Score-O, Long

Haven't tried:

Rogaine

I like regular O-meets the best. so i guess thats middle or classic? mostly becuase that is basicly the only kind i do.

then comes: Night, Score-O, Photo-O, Canno-O, CF(not sure if photo-o and canno-o count but they were fun!)

haven't tried:
Street-O (but get to do one in scotland in about a week), long, sprint, goat, Relay, Rogaine.

and what is farsta/O-cross?

middle, classic, relay, farsta, night, goat, rogaine, sprint

I HATE score-o!

goat, relay/farsta, long, middle, sprint, rogaine

There isn't much serparation between my enjoyment of these. I don't see "classic" as a separate discipline, but one of the above with a different WT. I'd rather clean toilets than do a night O.

OCIN's description of a farsta

I'm debating between either a relay or a farsta for the Saturday of the sprint championships, depending on opinions posted here, and my general lazyness and time.

long, sprint, middle, farsta, relay, goat

Rogaine.

It's fun solving an instance of an NP-complete problem. Selecting the order of controls to visit is a nice layer of having-to-think, on top of the route planning of individual legs. I like the challenge of not just having a static route, but planning for change - you might go farther, or not as far, as you originally thought. Shorter score-Os give you some feeling for that, but a rogaine takes it to a much more interesting level, with many more possibilities.

I like that *thinking* has more of an impact on your relative performance in rogaining than in shorter orienteering.

I love the time when it starts to get light, at the end of that long night, and the renewal of my energy.

I like feeling how different the temperature is in the cold gullies and warmer hilltops, at night. I love being out at night, and feeling safe because I have a friend with me.

I like the mental weirdnesses, the trippy stuff, like when I'm trudging along next to my partner in the middle of the night, and I lose any sense of their identity; they become this presence, but not so much of another person, and sometimes I don't remember who it is, exactly, just some fellow spirit - and then sometimes I choose to call them back to mind, all their human quirks and characteristics.

I like becoming intimate with the area, the land, the terrain, smells, birdcalls, sounds. I like being able to go slowly enough to take it all in.

I like not having to go at top speed. I like conserving energy.

I like getting those hiking highs on the first day.

I like being done. I like the feeling of accomplishment. I like how I forget how bad it was at the time, and sign up for another one. Like childbirth.

I love the teamwork, the companionship. Orienteering is so solo, otherwise. I like strategizing, and the feeling of improving. I like feeling closer to my partner afterward, because of this shared experience. I watch the kids I'm coaching in orienteering, and they are having some great experiences working together - I wish there were more official formats for orienteering teamwork for kids.

Oh, and I like being able to be out in the woods more time than it takes to travel to and from the event. It seems pretty silly to spend hours and hours traveling, and then one hour racing.

long, goat, relay, middle, sprint...

the longer the better

Relay, Ski-O, farsta, Sprint, Middle, Adventure Run, Goat, Long and don't forget a THOMASS.

The classic "middle" distance by far is #1. Haven't done enough sprint O' to say I like it more than others. Relays are OK, but I've blown too many runs. No. 2 would be ski-O - when was the last time I did that - 1980s? Then night O, but bad eyesight makes it strictly for fun.
Dislike score O, never fit enough for goats or long Os. Street-O is strictly for training and a summer time diversion even though that's all I've promoted the last 4 years.

Barb has done a perfect job of describing the joys of rogaining. I agree completely. (Maybe it's a "Barb" thing.)

I also like Barb's statements - although I'd add that Rogaines done right also involve some pretty serious destruction of the body - which is why I don't do too many of them. I'm not sure the problem really is NP-complete, though. The distance (measured as time - which is the only cost function that matters) between any two points is heavily dependent on the time at which that function is invoked. That introduces some nasty non-linear terms.

Well, even the simplification to where you have all the edge lengths, the route between any control is obvious, the controls all have the same value, the speed is constant, etc. results in an NP-complete problem. So it's NP-complete with a bunch of other really ugly considerations thrown in on top of it. Although doing well at a Rogaine doesn't really require finding the optimum solution to that problem. Coming up with a decent route is sufficient, executing it well is the real challenge.

Randy, how about a sprint relay like the one held at the Intercollegiates (NEOC A-Meet) this year? That was definitely a blast.

Middle, Relay, Sprint, Classic, Rogaine, Night

I enjoy a chance to run fast, even though I'm much stronger technically than speed wise. Middle is best because it's fast AND technical. I enjoy Rogaines for the chance to go with someone else, but I like to take a nap in the middle. I've only done one goat, but it wasn't my favorite. I prefer either a shorter course that I can run harder on or something long enough that I can have fun just hiking. I did the San Francisco metrogaine. That would be awesome if only the sidewalks were grass instead of concrete.

I'd have to disagree with Barb on one thing: "I like that *thinking* has more of an impact on your relative performance in rogaining than in shorter orienteering."

I'd agree that there is a lot more room for strategy and route planning etc. during a Rogaine, but I think it's more about enduring than thinking. In the Big Muddy we would have had to basically clean the map to win, so there's not really any strategy involved if you can get every control. Granted you still need to be efficient in route choices, but It's more about being able to hammer for 24hrs.

I consider myself a pretty good "thinker" however; I don't consider myself a fast "thinker" therefore, Rogaine is much easier on my brain than any shorter orienteering event because I don't have to think so quickly. I would still argue that "thinking" is just as important during shorter events, if not more important. Sprints are won by seconds right? So fast thinking equals better time right?

Rogaines should be designed so that it's impossible for the winners to get every control. But even in events where you can get every control, you need to think about choosing the sequence of controls, avoiding elevation gain, planning the best area to travel at night, determining which direction to go around your loop(s), deciding whether you want to return to the Hash House for some sleep, etc. Endurance is important, but you won't be one of the top teams in a rogaine if that's your only strength.

However, I won't dispute the fact that top sprinters are great thinkers too!

Actually, I prefer a course design where a sweep is possible, but very risky (typically involving going a lot of extra distance to get a low-pointer). Then teams are torn between taking the safe route and hoping nobody can sweep or laying it all on the line.

It's very difficult to design a course that accurately for 24 hours, though. Certainly an unsweepable course is preferable to one where the top 10 teams are all in early.

Footnote on my NP Complete statement that would only be of interest to math geeks: I guess I wrote that wrong. What I meant was that any "solution" to the problem derived in the time allowed for planning would not be NP Complete, because the non-linear terms are intractible. That is, you may have solved the problem to within a satisfactory margin of error (as JJ suggests), but you didn't solve the NP Complete problem. There's a fair bit of literature on polynomial-time algorithms that give nearly optimal solutions to this type of thing. Producing a proveably optimal solution is most certainly NP Complete.

I'm just waiting for an orienteer to come up with a suitable P=NP solution based on a rogaine completion algorithm. Won't be me. ;-) But when it happens, maybe then we'd get all these chubby, bald, computer science theorists out on orienteering courses.

Hmmm, back when I was doing theory I was lighter than I am now and had quite a bit more hair!

Okay, so I only had one theory professor who was chubby and bald, but enough so to make up for the fact that the rest were sort of gangly and hairy.

Ain't nothin' wrong with gangly and hairy.

Unless you're a woman.

Is it ok to be ungangly but hairy? If so, what if you're ungangly, hairy, and just happen to be in, say, Finland for a week?

Then you better be running Jukola leg 5 for team CSU!

I Like rogaines best, but I am better at medium distance. I've never done sprints or night-O, but I think I would like them.

My favorite kind of orienteering is the kind where the controls are in the right places, and the map is adequate for the task.