Discussion: Senior Team Questions

Now that the junior team has been roasted over the coals, let's have a look at the senior team.

Not that I'm looking to toast you guys over the flames, but I am genuinely curious about some things.

I don't think that the US team has a real sense of camaderie that I have seen on other teams. Maybe this is because you are spread out all over the place. I think that it is an important part of getting better as a team. I know the Norwegians think that it is very important. However, I can't explain why.
Does it matter?
Why or why not?
How often do you get together for training camps?
Do any of you train together?

I started orienteering about 3.5 years ago. This is about the same time that Annabel Fernandez Valledor (San Diego), Randy Hall (DVOA), and Anneli Widen (Jarfalla OK in Stockholm) all started as well. In terms of the quality of training I would rank Anneli at the top followed by Randy, and then a tie between Annabel and myself. In terms of our current orienteering ability, it would be the same rank. Anneli must have found 1000s more controls than I have over these past few years. I have started tracking the number of controls in my training just to try and quantify things alla Mike Eglinski.
How many controls do you find per year?
How many controls do your peers in Scandanavia find per year?
How much orienteering specific training do you do per year?

I pretty much coach myself, which is probably a big reason why I suck. I do a lot of reading, scan the web for any orienteering tips I can find, and pick up ideas from some of you. I know the UK spent big bucks to have a Swedish coach come in to take them to the next level.
Is there an official US team coach?
Do you have a personal coach?
Do you review your training and competition results with anyone?

Most of the top runners at WOC all run for a Scandanavian club. I can't think of any who don't.
Do you have a Scandanavian club?
How much time have you spent in Europe the past few years doing orienteering?
For those of you planning to go to WOC2003, did you go to Switzerland this year?
Do you plan to go to Switzerland anytime before WOC?

Kent Olsson used to incorporate some mapping into his training.
Do you do any mapping?
What kind of map contact training do you do?

This should be enough to stir things up a bit.

Jeff

Jeff, these are all good questions.

I've got a few minutes over my lunch hour, so I'll give you my answers for some of them.

I'll begin with the questions about camraderie/team feeling...

I don't feel much of a sense of camraderie on the team. I've been on the team most of the last 15 years. It has always been that way, though there have been times when it has felt a bit stronger or weaker.

Being spread out doesn't help.

I think there are other "causes." Orienteering is an individual sport and we are all competing against each other most of the time. Success by a competitor (a fellow team member) might mean you can't reach your own goals. O' attracts strong personalities -- some of them are difficult to be around. I don't think the team has goals that everyone accepts or agrees on. Without a common purpose, it is hard to develop a team feeling. The team doesn't have strong leadership that would bring it together.

Another factor is that most team members haven't had much experience dealing with team/group dynamics. It is harder for a group to get along if the individuals don't have experience getting along.

An example might illustrate my point. In the week before the WOC in Finland last year, there were lots of opportunities for training. The team had a couple of cars and access to a bunch of different maps. We'd have to make decisions about where to go, when to go and what to do. Team members are good at saying what they think they should do. But, they (I guess I should say "we") aren't as good at making sure every voice is heard -- making sure that nobody is left out of the discussion. Nobody should leave a discussion feeling like they weren't heard or given the opportunity to be heard. "Stronger" personalities tend to dominate discussions and decision-making. "Weaker" personalities feel left out. That hurts the team feeling.

I described the 2001 WOC team as a loose knit collection of individuals. I think that is a fair way to characterize the senior team.

Does it matter? Why or why not?

Probably. It matters more if the goals are team-based (like good performance in the WOC relay), it matters less if the goals are individual-based (like qualifying for a final).

Even if a good team feeling doesn't improve performance, I'm sure it doesn't hurt performance and it makes everything more pleasant. It might also encourage people to work harder to help the organization. Ex-team members would probably be more likely to help the organization if they felt like the team was a strong organization.

How often do you get together for training camps?
Do any of you train together?

I haven't been to anything that I'd call a team training event in years and years. I train regularly with my club (which includes a couple of team members and former team members). We have training camps both around Lawrence/Kansas City and at more exotic locales (we've had camps in the Bay Area and at Laramie).

I sent the Team a list of proposed activities for 2002-2003 via e-mail. In the e-mail, I also asked a question of what goals we'd like to see accomplished in the short term and in the long term. To date, I received no replies or comments. The only conclusion I can make is that most, if not all, Team members don't really care about setting Team goals at this point. I would not try to impose any, as it isn't within my position description.

I am sure that Team members have individial goals.
As a strictly personal view, it appears that the goals of some recent Team members of participating in the WOC at any cost interfere in many cases with the possible Team and USOF goals. This is just a personal opinion.

Much of the criticism expressed towards the Jr team applies, in my view, to the "Senior" Team in equal or greater amount. The Jr Team is easier to roast as its members are young enough so that there is a chance that not everything is lost yet, and they have a better chance of regenerating the skin lost in the process of the roasting. (This is a joke.)

I think it would benefit all of the Team members if we had a clear list of goals to achieve, and some agreement as to how we plan to get there. It would also benefit us if members would show initiative in organizing the process; I personally feel quite guilty for not being able to contribute much in the recent years; such was my situation and I'm sure the circumstances of work, family, and local club commitments may not allow a large portion of the members to be as active as they'd like to be.

Now, to answer some of Jeff's specific questions:

The last Team training camp I was at was in 1999 at Joe B's place. It was well attended although I got a feeling we were woefully short on time to get anything significant accomplished.

I was out of the loop between the end of 1999 and the middle of 2001. There were several offers to organize training camps from Stanislav, including on location in SUI, which weren't met with much enthusiasm, in 2001 and 2002. Stanislav will not put on a camp unless there will be enough people attending to make it worthwhile (he's had bad experiences in the mid-1990's).

Of the recent WOC Team members, only James S comes to mind as someone with a regular Scandinavian club affiliation. Others have trained in Scandinavia extensively at different times vwith various clubs. Personally, I do not think it is that important to train specifically in Scandinavia; any locale with good maps and good competition is acceptable. I would classify the Bay Area and DVOA land as perfectly acceptable places for O-training.

Most recent WOC Team members have done extensive mapping.

Vladimir/Team Administrator

"How many controls do you find per year?"

Probably about 1,000 a year. For the 2001 spring season, I found 487.

"How many controls do your peers in Scandanavia find per year?"

When I was living in Sweden, I'd probably be doing a little bit more than I was in 2001. But, it wouldn't have been a lot more (maybe 1500 a year?). Some probably do a lot more, some probably do a lot less.

"How much orienteering specific training do you do per year?"

I try to do as much as I can. In the season (around KC the O' season runs from the end of September through the end of April), I do one or two technique sessions most weekends. I also do some mid-week training (often night O'). I also do a few training camps.

"Is there an official US team coach?"

I don't know. Stanislaw might be the coach.

"Do you have a personal coach?"

The short answer is, not now but I have in the past. I wrote a bunch about this in another discussion thread.

"Do you review your training and competition results with anyone?"

Not really. When I've worked with a coach/advisor, I did. I often keep notes about my races. I find writing about a race a good way to think through and evaluate what I did.

"Do you have a Scandanavian club? How much time have you spent in Europe the past few years doing orienteering?"

When I was serious (1984-1992), I spent a lot of time in Scandinavia and ran for a couple of different clubs. I spent several weeks in Scandinavia in 1984, 1986 and 1987. I moved to Sweden in 1988 and moved back to the U.S. in 1992.


I've got to go make dinner...I'll probably add more another day...

To say that I am more than willing to lend in some Scandinavia's club is like to say nothing, but considering my financial situation, Scandinavia looks like a dream lend to me.

I've never been on a US Team for anything, so some may disregard my comments out of hand. The closest I came was going to Veteran's Worlds in track cycling, but that was a pay your own fair and wear your normal team colors deal rather than a US Cycling sponsored arrangement.

However, I was a regular on the Pro-1-2 cycling circuit from 1985 - 1993 and did get a pretty good look at how the top end of amateur athletics works. This was the period when US Cycling started to develop pro's in decent numbers, Armstrong and Hincape being the two most notable graduates.

The thing that is different about the orienteering team is that we have nobody taking it seriously when they are in their prime. I don't know that this has always been the case, but it is now. We have some college kids who are showing promising training habits and some older guys who train a lot, but nobody is making a career of it. You'll be hard pressed to find a guy at Cycling Nationals who has a job. No way will you find a national team member who does.

I used to work 7-8 months a year and then ride full-time (30-35 hours a week in the saddle) the rest of the year. That got me marginally into the top 100 riders in the country (if you accept Nationals results to be a reasonable ranking - others might argue that I was considerably further down the list). Now I'm in the top 100 orienteers on around 10 hours a week and I'm not even a good runner.

I know this sounds hideously condescending, but that's not really my intent. I'm not implying that I'm a better athlete than our US team members. I could train all day long and still not make the current US team. But give a decent runner the training discipline typical of national team members in other sports and they'll mop the floor with the current crop.

The simple truth is that the US national team is composed of what would be considered club competitors in just about any other sport. To ask or expect them to behave like world-class athletes is unrealistic. How do you get an American world-class athlete interested in orienteering? I have no idea, but that's a different thread.

I like Eric's comments! He is right principally - we would not have a single world-class orienteerer without dedication to the sport as full time responsibility and financial support from the federation and sponsors. We are unfortunately lacking all three these elements. Only one person at NA is capable of running at world O elite level right now. He is Mike Waddington from Canada (Hammer). Please consider his 1000 minutes training weeks! I think he spends an average 2-3 hours per day on basic and special training. Consistency and hard work pays off. He is the leading example for our juniors!

"Kent Olsson used to incorporate some mapping into his training. Do you do any mapping?"

I do some mapping every year. When I was most serious, I did a lot of mapping. I did some fieldchecking when I first went to Sweden as a way to pay my expenses (I was paid room, board and pocket money).

At times I've done a lot of slow map walks (which is very similar to mapping).

"What kind of map contact training do you do?"

Most of my technique training is running regular courses, keeping map contact the way I would during a race. Once and a while I do a map walk -- just going slowly and reading every feature.

While I’m glad Sergey appreciated my comments, I think the main point may have been missed. The support from the federation and/or sponsors (if it comes at all) is the result of world-class training behavior, not the cause of it. How can one train full-time without these things? It’s not as hard as one might imagine.

Let’s start with the assumption that basic living expenses can be covered on $10 grand a year. Grad students do this all the time (one of the reasons I had no problem with the low standard of living as a cyclist was that I got serious right out of grad school). An A-meet weekend costs around $400 so ten of those adds $4K. Add in a month in Europe for about $2-3K and you can fund a world-class training regime for about $16,000 per year.

Enough expenses, where’s the income? If you have a contract skill, you could do what I did and work half the year. It works best if you can tie this work to orienteering because then you can deduct your race expenses. I did this by sponsoring my own cycling team. The contract income was offset as an advertising expense which then got used to pay my mileage and expenses on the road. Thus, a good chunk of my income was essentially tax free.

In orienteering, there’s an even easier way to pull this off: become a mapper! Now everything can be written off. Meet fees, travel, living expenses (just never live at your home address and it’s all job-related). This is totally legal because a good mapper needs to attend meets to see what other mappers are doing and to get feedback on their own work. A mapper working 20-25 hours per week could easily make $16K in a year. That's more than I'd normally recommend, but the time spent at work is directly benefiting your development so it doesn't interfere the way a normal job does.

If I was a potential sponsor of the US Team, the first thing I’d ask is why nobody is doing this. Until some initiative is taken on the part of the athletes who have the most to gain, there’s not much chance of a third party kicking in funding. And USOF is way too small to start shelling out the kind of money required to run a top-tier team.

Make no mistake, the life of a semi-pro athlete is very hard. You’re constantly on the road, living in near-poverty conditions. You hurt all the time. Very few people care that you’re good at what you do. Most think you’re wasting your life. But it’s also very rewarding. I highly recommend it to anyone willing to take the step. But, it’s a step you take alone. If that’s too hard for you, you’re not the one.

And, as much as this can be arguable, one doesn't really need more than 15 hours per week of training to be a top-class orienteer. O is quite different from cycling in the time investment part; O event series don't last 4 hours per stage for 2 weeks, they are 1.2 hours for 5 days. Training for that is proportional.

15 hours per week can be easily found by someone working 45 hour weeks if her priorities are straight. People at some places work 70-75 hour weeks for years and years. So the nomadic lifestyle advocated by Eric isn't really necessary. Again, it's a question of life priorities.

What great comments!

With regards to 15 hours of training, I think that this is a bit much. I was just looking at Pasi Ikonen's training journal, and he does about 8-10 hours per week. Also, training time is only one piece of the puzzle. You have to get to your good maps as well. Depending on where you live, it could mean a bit of driving unless yoga is a big part of the training plan. :)

There are some orienteers in North America with no visible means of support (sort of like Kramer). A couple I can think of are Pam James and Mikell Platt. Sure enough they are always at the top of the results list. If you look at Pam's splits from the last WOC she is the *only* North American competitor who even had a chance of getting into the final.

Reading the bios of the top competitors in Sweden, most of them have real jobs. I don't know if they work 40-hour weeks though. They certainly have much less travel time to training maps.

15 hours is 10 hours plus some reasonable overhead. You've got to get to the park/gym/track soccer field somehow, and I like to shower after I run.

While the top orienteers may get by with less than 15 hours of physical training, I gather they also spend a fair bit of time spent doing other O-related stuff. Also, since North American orienteers do not have the coaching infrastructure, it is reasonable to expect that a domestic competitor would have to spend more time in the woods to achieve the same level of technical proficiency.

Given the size of the contient and relative paucity of quality meets, extensive travel is required.

There is also the intrusion of a job into life outside the job. Spike has written a fair bit on this in his blog. In my own case, I had to skip the 1000-day at the last minute because of things at work.

I find it unlikely that a North American could break into the top 25 in the world within the confines of a normal 5-day a week job.

Reading the bios of the top competitors in Sweden, most of them have real jobs. I don't know if they work 40-hour weeks though.

When I was living in Sweden, it seemed like most of the national team was working part-time or studying. I think it is fairly common for top Swedish orienteers to work full-time part of the year. Kent Olsson, for example, seems to have worked full-time but taken leaves of absence. Some of the top orienteers were teachers who had time off in the summer. Marita Skogum was a gym teacher and was able to take leaves of absence (even during the school year).

Employers in Sweden give people a lot more time off. Six weeks of vacation a year is common.

I think there are a couple of "professional orienteers" in Scandinavia these days. Jorgen Rostrup and Frederick Lowegren are the ones I'm thinking of. My understanding is that they are both living on sponsor money. I think they are both scraping by (I think, for example, that Jorgen had his phone service cut off when he couldn't afford to pay the bill). A Swedish newspaper published a list of salaries of top Swedish athletes and Lowegren was way down on the list, making something like $18,000 a year.

Bjornar Valstad and Hanne Staff both have part time jobs.

Simone Luder is a student.

They certainly have much less travel time to training maps.

Not always.

In Stockholm, we regularly drove 40-60 minutes to get to a training session. We met at a common point and you had to add travel time to get to the meeting point.

From my home in Kansas City, I can get to five maps within a 30 minute drive.

Does anyone know what Ted De St. Croix was doing when he was at his peak (top ten at WOC 1985)?

Ted de st croix wrote the Canadian Orienteering Level 3 Coaching Certification Manual. you can find out a lot about his methods and philosophy. While he didn't actually include anything about himself (e.g. "this is what I did") you can assume that much of the information is from his own experience. in any case I recommend reading it.

I hardly believe that top orienteerers spend less than 15 hours per week. Look at their published training logs with some sceptism as they don't want to publish what they are actually doing. They most likely don't log all the stuff they are doing. I may say that most male athletes at top 100 are doing at least 60 miles/week average only running that alone takes 7-8 hours. You have to add special O training and recovery training to that - that easily adds to 15 hours. If you run 3x10K as usual speed training or 15K just "to relax" before the next day morning start - it just shows at what level you are doing your regular training. If the one runs 20-30 miles/week - this person not even close to this level.

Look at their published training logs with some sceptism as they don't want to publish what they are actually doing. They most likely don't log all the stuff they are doing.

Sergey, can we believe what you put in your log? :-)

Of course, I don't put everything into my logs :) For example, work on my home (such as lawn mowing) is clearly ommited :) As well as some other non-essentual stuff (working with maps without physical involvement, for example).