Discussion: What does it take to get to the Elite Level?

Reading the discussion about coaching got me wondering about getting to elite level orienteering. I've been orienteering for about 2 years now and I was wondering what I could do to advance my level?

Let me give you a brief background and maybe some of you wise folk could give a rookie some training advice?

I am 28yrs old. I have been a distance runner all of my life. My PRs in High School were 4:20 for 1600m and 1:54.55 for 800m. I went on to compete in college where I dropped my 800 PR to 1:52.21 and my 1500 PR was 3:59 back in 2000. After I graduated I tried the local road running scene recreationally (since I'm working full time) and I had my best performances in 2003 where I ran 43:24 (12k) at Bloomsday and a 27:54 8k. When I got into orienteering in 2004 I learned very quickly that physical fitness doesn't take you very far in this sport, it depends a lot more on knowledge and experience and quick decision making. I suddenly realized I wished my parents got me involved in the sport when I was 5.

Other than the physical distance running aspect of the sport, what are some good ways to train for orienteering? Is it beneficial to run on the roads with a map and study it while running even if it's not the map that I'm currently on? I have been doing some "Armchair-O" studying various maps that I can find on the web and planning the routes I would take. Unfortunately I don't live real close to a mapped area to train on a daily basis, so my only opportunities to get out on an actual map are probably during the weekends. When I do get on an actual map, what are some good drills/exercises to do? Should I just run around and pick various features to go to? Should I make up a course to run in advance? I appreciate any advice you can give.

There are probably as many opinions on this as there are people reading this thread, so I'll just tell you one thing that I know helped me. The best way to start having your physical fitness become an advantage in orienteering is (obviously) to spend less time standing around and more time running, preferably in the right direction. In my mind, the main skill necessary for taking a step towards the "elite" level is learning to read the map on the run. It is amazing how quickly you lose time if you have to stop every time you need to make a route-choice decision or figure out where you are. So, if you have only limited time you can spend on maps, I would recommend having a few workouts where you are just running with the map, trying to keep map contact at all (or most) times without having to stop. This is a lot easier to do if the forest is reasonably nice, so I'd recommend getting out to a nice area. (Where do you live, anyway? What sort of maps do you have around you?) After doing a few of these map runs, you'll see your technique improve pretty quickly, and then you can start working on more specific skills. Good luck, and i hope this advice comes in useful!

What does it take to get to the Elite Level?

My short answer will be very generic - dedication and love of the sport. It’s a fundamental cliché that is true for any sport.

Unless you are extreme prodigy there are no shortcuts to success. Any sport (and this is not limited just to sport) requires years of training and dedication to become elite athlete.

Based on your background I suggest you mentally scratch off your past running success and consider yourself as total newbie to the sport. I have seen many good runners assuming that their running background will propel them into orienteering stardom in no time. It is true that fast feet are required to be elite orienteer. Check John Fredrickson's log for example (AP ID jfredrickson) and you will see that he run as fast as you do.

But in orienteering you cannot run faster then you can think or it is useless. Your brain uses the same oxygen your legs do when you run. I am always perfect in my route choices when I am "armchair orienteering". My brain gets 100% of oxygen supply since I am not running. However different story is when you run. Your brain is fighting for the same oxygen your legs are using. Sufficient supply of oxygen is required for good decision making. (By the way – this applies not just to orienteering but to any sport involving decision making. Have you ever watched football game when one of the players would make a “dumb” mistake and you think that how could he make such a dumb mistake? It’s the same principle. While performing something physical full speed players brain does not get as much oxygen supply as us – coach quarterbacks)

What’s a remedy for it? Many years ago my coach told me following I have used as motto not just for orienteering as for anything I do in my life. He told the group he was training: “Develop and work on your good and proper habits”. Human beings are creatures of habit. When it becomes your habit then zero effort is required from your brain to execute something you do out of habit. For example – do we think that to walk or run we constantly have to put one leg in front of another? When you run through the woods and see the tree in your way – how much brain power you use to decide which way you are going to around the tree? When you become experienced driver – do you ever think how much you steering wheel you have to turn to make a turn, how much you have to slow down, how to adjust to changing speed limit, etc. All those are decisions your brain has to make because of experience they become second nature for you.

Now – the problem you might be faced with – what are the proper habits of orienteering. I am afraid that you will not be able to learn them on your own nor any orienteering book is going to help you with that. My suggestion would be is to try to go to many A-meets as possible and gain experience as much as you can at high level meets.

I guess it depends on what you mean by elite. Elite in Scandinavia I can't answer. That's a different level altogether. If you mean one of the better orienteers in North America...
I started about 6 years ago and come from a running background, too. This is what I wrote for someone starting out. I think a lot of it is applicable to you.
http://dl1.yukoncollege.yk.ca/brent/newsItems/view...

TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN and then train some more.
Orienteer in lots of events......get on maps as often as you can.....read maps whenever you can......

and then RUN RUN RUN......I am not an elite orienteer but this is what I hear. You need to have desire to progress to become great....as with anything in life I suppose.

To answer part of your question, under the "Training" Tab above is a workout archive that should give you many ideas for developing skills.

"Garderud described the secret formula of sport success as 2x7x52x10... train twice a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year for ten years. Then you will be successful."

It has nothing to do with orienteering on the surface, but check out this Scientific American article
And thanks for reminding me, I need to do a run today.

>>>2x7x52x10...Then you will be successful.

2x7x52x10 - then you will have the BASE to be successful. Well, that's what a Swedish guy told me :-)

but dont forget about proper rest - very important in a long run.

I'd only add to the above advice to put as much of that training as possible in the terrain. 500 hours a year total with 200 in the woods is surely better than 600 hours a year with only 100 in the woods. Of course, if you can do 600 AND get 200 in the woods, that's better still, but still no guarantee. I've been doing about that for about 10 years now and, while I've had my moments, I don't consider myself "elite" in orienteering. You're starting younger - that will help.

That habbit thing is so true. It is also easier to learn things right from the start than years later trying to forget old bad habbits and trying to learn new ways to do same things. When you are tired and out of oxygene, you don't hink much - you do what you are used to do. So you better be used to do right things.

So what are the right things and wrong things? I don't think anyone can teach you these things, you need to learnd it by yourself. Thinking about it a lot and learning it is part of it. Elite runner does right things and he/she also knows he does things because he/she has been thinking of it a lot. Mental recovery after bad races is faster, becouse there is no doubt you have the skills. Also learning never ends, improving and thinking of these things never stop, so you need to learn to think and learn these things.

But there is some guidelines to start with and some common bad habbits you should not learn.
1. thinking ahead. You should alway know where you will be / what you will see after 100-500 meters. If this works, you don't so often need to figure our where you are, becouse you are at the very spot you just two minutes ago was thinking about as near target.
Trainings for building this habit:
- Run by memory. Run a course, read always map for minutes to remeber 500 m ahad. Ten run that 500m without lokin at the map at all, stop when you have reached the destination and you still know where you are. You plan trainig for this with short legs, so you can run each leg without lookin at the map. This is also a good interval training, you can run hard and you'll get some rest.
- Running slow, but thinking / reading map as in a race. If you do a lot of training wth map, you can not always run hard. But if you run slowly, you have too much time to read map and read all the detail. When you race, you don't have time for it, so if you have build habbit for reading everything and looking at map all the time, it slows you down or causes mistakes. So if this is problem, avoid reading too much details around you while running. Try to read dealils and maps first, then while running through the area try to pick the details without having to look at the map.

Common bad habbit here is trying to know all the time where you are and what direction you should run to, and being satisfied with it. Wrong. Orientering like that is like driving a car and not looking ahead but looking only at rearview mirror. You can run like that if you are slow enough, but if you try to oick up speed you will fail. My experience is this is common difference between a hobbyist even with decades of experience) and a true elite runner.

2. route choices. Elite runners does not usually use much time to make route choices. They just feel a route is good enough, I guess it is based on habbits. You must firs learn what are the right kind of choices and then try to learn makinig these decissions fast.
- get a lot of paper maps. Get a transparent and draw a random course on it (you can use water proof pen). Put it on random map and draw your route choices as fast as you can (don't use water proof pen here). Then take look how you draw it and figure out how good your choice was and why you didn't see the better one if there was one. The just wipe you choices away and put the transparent on an other map or on same map using different position/rotation.

3. Learn to keep your thumb by the spot you are. This sound like very novice advice, but I have seen so many funny cases, usually thumb compass runners who are used to run with not very detailed maps. With detailed maps they make a lot of parallel mistakes just because the start to look at the wrong spot of the map. When you get so far you'll be able to everything described above without having to stop at all, you'll need this habbit.

And there is lot more, but there is somethig to start with. Some of these thing are releated closely what orienteering is like in Scadinavian forests and maps, but I guess it should be much difference.

My philosophy is that there are three levels of orienteering skills. You need to do well at the first level before you can succeed at the next.

Level 1: You need to be able to transfer map to reality and reality to map, in your head. That is, you need to know what the different symbols mean and how they will look when you see them in the forest. Most importantly, you need to be able to build a mental 3D model from the contours on the map and vice versa.

Training for level 1: Spend a lot of time in the forest with a map. Keep the speed down (you may even walk) and look at every feature in the terrain. A good way is to draw a curved line on the map, which you try to follow as close as possible.

Level 2: Planning. You must be able to make a successful strategy for how to get between one point and another.

Training for level 2: Try to memorize a leg and run it without looking at the map. Note that it is not memorizing the map you are training, but this will force you to make a plan ahead. Armchair O is another good exercise for this level.

Level 3: Execute! This should be simple if you have a good plan and can interpret the map and terrain fast and correctly. But add a tired brain and stress during competition and it is not really as simple anymore...

Training for level 3: Running courses at the same speed or even faster than during competitions. Important is to practice self-discipline and stay focused during this exercise.

You can make faster progress in the route choice and execution areas if you have some one to go over your routes with, like a coach. Lacking them, take a look at routes on line (Peter Gagarin's site is one) and ask questions of why did he go that way, what was he looking for , would there be a better way?

If you want to know what it takes to become really elite... you can't do better than this blog...

http://www.tero.fr/