Discussion: Mental aspects of orienteering

I am currently reading "Lore of Running", by Tim Noakes. There is an interesting chapter about mental preparation for racing that got me thinking about how much and in what way emotions, stress, and expectations affect performance in orienteering. What follows below is not so much a question, or even a set of questions, but rather just a bunch of somewhat related observations. Comments are most welcome!

Noakes mentions that the best runners "associate" while they run, meaning that they focus on how they are feeling and the physical effects they are experiencing, whereas novice runners tend to disassociate - they will try to distract themselves from the "pain" of running by focusing on others around them or on the scenery. Obviously, orienteering is a thinking sport and we are constantly distracted by the map and by our surroundings. But (at least for me), this never happens to the extent that I completely forget everything else. So what do you think about in the brief moments when you aren't actively reading the map or interpreting the terrain? Are you thinking about other people? About the result you're likely to wind up with? About how tired you feel?

In my case, as soon as I realize my mind is starting to wander, I usually force myself to cut that train of thought off and concentrate on my orienteering. Sometimes, though, when I am very, very tired I just feel like running. I no longer care if I am heading in the right direction - I am tired of thinking and just want to run. What helps me in these cases (when appropriate) is to just allow myself to run for 5-10 seconds without looking at my map at all, just focusing on my breathing, and giving my mind a short break. Then I look at the map again and focus. (Of course, this is only possible when running along a path or something similar). Is this a good thing? I'm not sure. But for me it's better to take ten seconds off and then concentrate rather than keep struggling even when I don't feel my mind is together enough to function properly.

Another thing Noakes mentions is the importance of knowing the course you will run before actually racing on it. This way you can be mentally prepared for what it is going to take to finish in your goal time. This is especially important in long races such as marathons, where you do not want to be surprised in the last few miles by a hill. I'm sure every runner/orienteer has at some point experienced this. You've been running for what feels like forever, you are tired, and you know you are almost done. All of a sudden you turn a blind corner only to realize that there is a really huge steep hill. For many people, this brings on a feeling of despair and all of a sudden they feel weaker and slow down. As Noakes says, it's as if the conscious mind balks - "But you didn't tell me about this hill!"

Well, in running, it's quite easy to get to know the course. For cross country races, most serious athletes will walk/jog parts of it to get an idea of what it will be like. Marathoners often run their marathon course in several segments (spread out over a week or two) or have the course videotaped so they can watch it at home before the race. But what about orienteering? Even though we may look at old maps of the areas we will race on to get some idea of the terrain, we never know exactly what the course will be like. There are different types of woods and different styles of mapping, as well as differences in course-setting. Thus, it is quite tricky for us to really prepare properly. We all do our best, but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

One of my recent races was the Oxford v. Cambridge Varsity Match. I looked at an old version of that map practically every night for a week before the race. I knew the map inside out. Why then did I make over twenty minutes of mistakes? The problem was I didn't know the terrain. I saw white on the map, and I expected it to be runnable (or at least reasonably so). In fact, there were brambles everywhere and running in the woods was highly unpleasant. The constant tripping and struggling to get through the thorns discouraged me and this was definitely part of the reason I did so badly in that race. Had I known ahead of time that the area would be thorny, I could have mentally prepared for that and therefore would have had a more positive attitude. It wouldn't have made the race any less painful, but it would have been easier psychologically.

So I have concluded that although looking at past maps might be a good idea, it is important to remain flexible in your considerations and not make any concrete decisions based solely on the map. The key is to consider what things you *might* use to help you in your decision-making during the race. For example, when looking at a map that has lots of route choice possibility, you may draw yourself some legs and consider the possible routes you may take. Instead of trying to identify an optimal route just from looking at the map, it is wiser to instead come up with several alternatives, something along the lines of, "if the forest is runnable, then I will go straight through here...but if it is not, it would be better to go around on this path...."

Another thing which interests me is how competitive drive affects orienteering. For many people, starting an orienteering race by thinking about beating so-and-so is motivating, but leads to pressure, stress, and mistakes. So, instead, it might be better to focus on being technically accurate, blocking out all thoughts of results and competition. But to what degree? It is true that overzealousness can cause mistakes, but on the other hand, sometimes competitiveness and enthusiasm are necessary to provide a bit of encouragement. In the last race I ran, I made a three minute mistake on the first control. This was huge and even though I didn't actively feel very upset (I'm used to making mistakes), I pretty much gave up any hope of catching Helen. Then, near #9, I thought I saw a glimpse of her and all of a sudden my motivation was back. I sped up and started concentrating more. I didn't see her at all after that, but I did wind up beating her, so in this case, my competitiveness led to a better result.

I guess the central thought I keep coming back to is that even though concentration is important in orienteering, it can be good to have some other thoughts in your head as well. The important thing is to not let these thoughts become distracting. Allow yourself to have them only if they are having a positive effect, otherwise cut them off and concentrate solely on the navigation. Allow yourself to feel competitive before the race, after the race, and in the very brief moments during the race when you need some motivation, but not when you are doing very fine navigation and need to concentrate. Try to start each race with an open mind, reminding yourself that the terrain can be very different from what you expect from the map. If you feel yourself losing control, take a few moments to just breathe and then refocus. If you make a mistake, remind yourself that anything can happen in the woods and put it past you, focusing on the rest of the course. Always stay positive.

There are a lot of other interesting thoughts I have, but I've written enough for now. I am really interested in seeing what other people think about this, so hit the reply button and talk to me! :)

I just read an article in Runner's World about Christopher Bergland, and it mentions his theory about what he calls "bliss" - that you can wire your brain to enter a state of euphoria while running and racing. So today when I was orienteering here in NC, I tried to tune into that. Something like "Wow, it's so great to be running through these woods with the sun shining and the breeze blowing and the smell of dry leaves!"

One way to achieve [blissful thinking], says Bergland, is to learn to guide your thoughts. "When I race, I swing from positive thought to positive thought," he says. "I scan the horizon for any potential thought that might bombard me. I only attach to a thought that hums of positive emotions. When that stops humming, I look for something else to latch onto. If a negative thought enters my mind, I make it very slippery. Happy thoughts are covered in Velcro, magnets, and superglue."

Of course, runners have a lot more time to accommodate those stray thoughts than orienteers do. I do daydream some when I'm orienteering. But maybe it's better, if you're not thinking about the navigation, to try and focus your thoughts on the woods around you and how your body feels, than to get too far off in the past or future. Sort of like how they try and make me do in yoga.

I have often thought that orienteers have a tendency to over-analyse everything they do and make what is a very simple activity incredibly complicated.

In orienteering, like most sports, it is important to be process-focussed, thinking about what you are doing rather than thinking about a result or outcome. If you are process-focussed and disciplined enough to follow your plan for a leg completely you will be a consistent and successful orienteer.

I constantly compare my orienteering style to my running style. When I race the 1600 on the track, I do best when I focus entirely on how my body is feeling. I am used to feeling a certain way during a certain part of the race, and when I do think about things like the weather, it's only in the context of how it makes my legs or breathing feel. As long as I don't have to worry about getting out ahead of the pack, I don't worry about my competition until the end of the race, when I want to be going the absolute fastest I can. Last season I improved by leaps and bounds, but I don't know if it was because of this new racing mentality or despite it.

Anyway, I think the important part was that I was focused and had a consistent routine that I was comfortable with. That way, during the race I didn't have to worry at all about if I was doing the right thing; I just did it as well as I could. After each race, I would be able to envision how I would feel during the next race, regardless of what my competition would be doing.

Some of this applies to orienteering, and some of it does not. I also have my best orienteering races when I'm only thinking of myself and not my competition, but my focus is primarily on my navigation and not my running. Sometimes I wait until I know my plan to decide where to run how fast, and sometimes I don't pay any attention to it at all.

Also, with orienteering, I have more experience with what not to do. I make mistakes when I have a song in my head, when I try to make up for lost time--ugh!--and when I focus on running fast. When I get into a routine of reading ahead and paying really close attention, I tend to think of nothing else. When I'm not actively navigating, I just think about when I should start thinking again and pay attention to the terrain I'm running through.

With the possible exception of mass start races, I think it's best to "race the course, not the competitors." I rarely think about what others are doing, except to remind myself that everybody makes mistakes and I shouldn't stop trying just because I've boomed a control.

As for focus - I try to keep it on the navigation. I find that speed pretty much takes care of itself. This is much different from running and cycing events where if I turn my attention away from my pace, it invariably drops. Orienteering requires you to run a notch below max so you still can think about what you're doing, so the chance of losing your pace just because you're not forcing it is less.

There are several things that were touched on above that I think are key for me to visualize while orienteering.

1) Everyone makes mistakes, so don't get down on yourself if you screw up a control. This is pretty hard to put into practice sometimes on the course. I find myself getting really upset and not following through 100% after a mistake. I have to force myself to forget about it and move on.

2) I have slowly learned to run a "notch below max" to allow my brain to function on navigation. I came to o'ing from a track background and this has been a hard thing for me to learn because my body automaticlly goes into race mode and it's hard to hold back. It is very critical for me to not try to push the pace too hard and risk mental errors. I've found that the errors far outweigh any time you can make up running fast. If I'm on an easy leg, I do sometimes remind myself to crank up the pace, but most of the time I have to focus on navigation 1st and running takes a back seat.

3) I try to survey the land prior to the race and imagine what the map will look like, particulary the area around the start. If I have run on the map before, I visualize the prior races, perhaps even dream about them before hand. I try to remember where I had problems and try not to repeat them next time. In track, I always had my best races after dreaming about how they would go the night before my race.

In race mode, I never have any thoughts outside of the task at hand. When I'm training I do think about other things, but I never run with music or try to distract my attention from the training. Training is my outlet, so it's nice to not think about anything and just run. One last thought, pressure is good for every athlete to some extent. But the minute that pressure starts cutting into confidence and mental focus, then weakness comes through. I think the reason a lot of professional athletes seem cocky is because they are very confident in themselves. Don't neglect the mental training, it's 80% of the package...

"Still as a mountain; move like a river."

If you can master that, you've got it made. (at least on the mental side; you still need to be fit!)

I don't really tune myself psychologically for a race. I've been through the process a lot of times and know exactly what I need to do, warm up, grab the map and go.
If I know anything about the terrain, something like too thorny or too green, I would remember to look for more trail routes. If it's too hilly, I would remember to look for 'go around' routes. If I don't know anything, take it a bit slowly from the start to see what fist couple of legs look like.
I also don't think my mind wonders when I orienteer, I always read the map ahead and am focused on finding that next feature. Once in a while I find myself thinking about how the race is progressing for me, and I know that this is the time I should be looking at the map again thus I taught myself to keep my focus on the map and not on folks around me :)

Last autumn GHO interviewed Adam van Koeverden (double medallist at Athens in kayaking) to compare the physical and mentals aspects of orienteering (he ran a couple of orienteering races last autumn) and international kayak racing.

I also liked his take on goals and racing.

Look part way down this article for his take on physical/mental and the end of the article about goals.

http://ghocanadagho.blogspot.com/2007/01/adam-van-...

I've found that the errors far outweigh any time you can make up running fast.

I can still recall showing up at the start of my first foot-O event (Yellow, 3K) and thinking, "This should take about 12 minutes." It took a bit longer than that.

What always reminds me that navigation is taking much of the time is looking at my splits, and noticing the vastly faster TPKs on sections that have no navigation, such as the run to the finish, or a first control that had a long streamered run to the start triangle...even when the footing is the same in the finish chute as in the forest (such as the Colorado-like terrain near Nisa, Portugal a week ago, where the finish chute was off trail, and the footing was good throughout the terrain).

Then I start musing how much faster I could be if I could think faster.

I am with Z-man on this one.

- About that "notch below max" and focus on running fast vs. focus on navigating. Trying to run as fast as possible can be part of the navigation process. Just Like Z-man, I always read the map ahead and I am focused on finding that next feature. But not only finding it: I am focusing on getting to that next feature as fast as possible. This binds focusing on speed together with your navigation work - Focusing on getting to the next hill/reentrant/crossroads/whatever as fast as you can. What slows you down is the fact you need to find the target and figure out next target before/when you reach the current one. But if you are "getting to that spot fast" instead of just "running fast" you don't get lost. And difference isn't big, most of the time during race is usually spent on this "getting there fast".

How much time is lost there and how much faster you could go? The difference should not be big. You can try it by running same short course (~2 km) two or three times in a row with some rest in between. After fist loop you know the course and you don't need to use as time on navigating. It depends on terrain and course, but think it should be less that 5% faster. If you try this remember to take splits or run with GPS.

- Like Z-man wrote, if you are "there" it's pretty simple. You grab the map and go, and you don't actually need to think much, lot of the navigation work is automated. The thing is how do you get there? You first need to learn navigate/think in a "good way" and then just do it a lot, hours and hours of training, until it will eventually burn to your nerve system and you don't know any other way to do it. This ensures you will be doing right things even if you are under pressure or tired.

As for the thorny woods, I think the best thing you can do in that situation is say to yourself: "Its the same for everyone". Works wonders, at least for me (assuming its the best route, of course ...).

I think it is good to warm up before the race with an old map of the area with the same scale, to tune your mind to it.

I sing when I race. Usually to myself. There is always some sort of music playing in my head when I race. I find this a good thing. I find listening to loud music before a race to be a good thing. I think listening to music and other thought are in different parts of the brain, so it is not a distraction (at least that is the case for me), and the rhythm helps.

If I find my mind wandering during a race, I say "wrong thought" to myself. That usually works for me. I think it is bad to be thinking of something other than orienteering problems during a race. Sometimes I think of past legs and wonder if I made the right route choice or not. I think this is bad, but can't help it. I try to forget booms -- I think you don't want to be thinking about booms. I think you do not want to be thinking of lost time, how much you lost, or trying to "make it up". When injured, I think about the injury during the race, I think this is bad, but unavoidable, at least for me.

I think it is good to get juiced, nervous, etc., before a big race with lots of competition. However, I find looking at a start list, seeing a competitor in the woods, etc., unhelpful distractions.

How much time is lost there and how much faster you could go? The difference should not be big. You can try it by running same short course (~2 km) two or three times in a row with some rest in between.

I'm not convinced that this is a good comparison. The navigation will be faster, but I think you'll still be navigating more than you think on the second and third loops. A better comparison would be to navigate the course once (or twice), then have someone streamer it, and run it again streamered. (Or just run a streamered course, or a bearing, through woods, and see if your TPK is similar to your O TPK.)

Then I start musing how much faster I could be if I could think faster.

Well, I wasn't trying to find out how much faster you could go if you don't think at all, just how much faster you could be if you could think/navigate really, really fast.

...and noticing the vastly faster TPKs on sections that have no navigation, such as the run to the finish, or a first control that had a long streamered run to the start ...

If the whole course would be streamered, could you really keep all the time the same intensity you have in the finish chute or with fresh legs to the start triangle? I guess you know you are on a short streamered section and you may try to run harder than your average intensity can be during one hour race. At least I tend to do so.

I have a test loop that I run pretty regularly (probably 5-6 times a year for the last 3 years). A good competitive effort would be around 37-38 minutes. Since I've run it so many times, I can consistently run it under 35. I've done it as fast as 33. I am reading the map, but only to remind myself of the general flow of the course, not for fine navigation.

I think it's the fine navigation where most people (certainly me) lose the time. It's just too hard to read the details in the circle at full speed. Once I get near my attack point, I slow down quite a bit and make sure I really understand what to expect around the control. Maybe it's different for those with younger/better eyes, but even at 1:10,000, I find myself having to slow down to read small features accurately.

I think too often we break orienteering down into two sepearte aspects which we treat as unrelated skills: navigation and running. But, orienteering isn't the sum of two unrelated things... rather it is their combintation... their intersection.

I feel that when it's working right it's not that there are two different things happening, navigation and running, and both happen to be going well. Rather, they feel like they are part of the same process. When orienteering fast, you are constantly responding to and anticipating new information about the terrain ahead of you and your movement through it, which in turn affects the way you move. This information comes from the map, from the ground in front of your feet, from what you can see ahead of you.

Part of training is to break things down into the components.... to focus sometimes on running, sometimes on navigation, sometimes on both for short periods of time, sometimes on both for longer periods of time in different ways. But when it comes down to it, it's not like biathlon where there are two seperate pieces, skiing and shooting while breathing hard, that you alternate.

I think the clearest intersection of the skills is in the micro-decisions. This includes making nearly instantaneous choices about the best way to move through the terrain that will also get you closer to your goal. I'm often impressed watching great orienteerers as they pick their line through the woods-- they are making hundreds of tiny decisions that are both related to running fast in terrain and to getting where they need to go.

I also think that navigation is more than just knowing where you are or not going the wrong way. Clearly both of those are important... this year I've spent my fair share of time standing in a Swedish swamp wondering which bit of blue on the map is the is making my feet cold. But a mistake isn't just going the wrong direction... it's also hesitating in going the right direction or going in the right direction but not in the best way.

And as much as you can lose lot of time with mistakes in navigation that can't be made up by running fast, you can also lose a lot of time by not running fast enough that you can't make up with navigation. You can do alright and certainly have lots of fun racing hard by being a decent runner and great navigator or a fast runner and a decent navigator. But, to be truly great orienteer requires running very fast through terrain as you constantly pick the most efficient way to get from where you are to where you need to be next, on both the macro and micro scale. It's hard for me to exactly explain why I feel like it's more than two seperate skills that are done well at the same time. It just feels like there is something in the intersection that is more than just a sum of two different parts.

And about competition-- I think it's great. If I'm feeling good about my training and my general ability and my race, then seeing other people can bring out an extra sharpness to my focus (which I often have trouble with). If I'm doubting myself, then seeing other people can get in my head and discourage me... or it can get me out of my head and remind me to get moving and focussed again. In general though, competition is fun.

Suzanne, well said.

I agree with the above comment about orienteering being a definite, and rather limitless, combination of both running and map-reading.

In theory the best orienteer would be the one who could manage a course with no mistakes and always make the right route choices - in addition to constantly running at maximum speed. She/he will never exist (or that is my guess) so the solution is to fine-tune both sides and reach an individual optimal mix.

It is commonly known that some orienteers thrive more on their running than their map reading skills and there are also many that benefit from the opposite - good map reading but relatively poor running.

Today I would say that Tero is the one closest to technical perfection (at least in the middle) but he still has something to do running-wise both in sprint and long distance. He´s definitely not a bad runner, but there are still others that are better.
Simone on the other hand is an extremely strong runner and can use that very much to her advantage - I don´t think that she is a bad orienteer technically, but mistakes do occur so I guess that should be her focus to eliminate (they may be more of a mental than technical problem?).

One interesting way of checking how big the difference is between pure running and the combination of running and map reading has already been mentioned above, i.e. running a 'streamered O-course' or running the same course on several occasions.

Spike has in his blog recently discussed the number of times you (have to) look on the map while orienteering.
Again - in theory - the best would be to be able to glance shortly on your map leaving a control and then run the whole next leg on map memory - thus making it possible to run faster (and this is already basically what you do when you run the same course again)... But maybe this mental side could be developed even more with map memory exercises (~see who gets the furthest without looking on the map) on a previously unknown course?

There are more sides to orienteering´s mental aspects than the ones mentioned above, but these are a few thoughts that came to mind...

looking at split times from wocs etc, (esp the analyses of Tero), all the top runners are technically brilliant enough to run most legs "perfectly"... Tero manages to run "all" legs "perfectly". Like people have said, it's a question of wiring the brain... I think it must take Tero less effort to concentrate to run a leg perfectly and or require less concentration.

Another point, it was enlightening running WUOC in Slovakia with elephant tracks in the Classic; they took amazingly good lines through the trees. I underestimate(d) how much one can gain in energy or speed with a good line. Choosing a good line and similarly learning to run efficiently in a particular terrain type are technical (mental) skills which need to get wired... I think this might be a reason home advantage is so great.

Yeah, I keep noticing this in Sweden. Very often, I will lose time to home-grown Swedes who 'magically' (that is, as far as I can tell, there is no scientific way to do this) always pick really good lines through terrain, even when the visibility is really low. It's like the forest just parts, ala Moses and the Red Sea, for the Swedish orienteer.

Also, my vote for 'closest to technical perfection' in today's elite orienteering might go to Tanya Ryabkina. I have virtually never seen a boom of more than 30 seconds from her in any races that i've seen routes and split times from.

tero in sweden was within maybe 7 seconds of fastest time on all bar a small few splits and I think the worst was 14s off the pace. he has shown (small) signs of mortality since.
i'll take your word on tanya - she has the results anyhow...

Great strand. Even at my slower pace, much of this applies. A surprising number of quotes from an education blog I received today seem appropriate here.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."
(Aristotle)

"I am not afraid of tomorrow for I have seen yesterday and I love today."
(Unknown - seen on TGI Fridays bulletin board)

"Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that's one of the hardest things to do because you don't always know exactly where you're going, and you shouldn't."
(George Lucas, American film director/producer)
("Hi Zan!"

"In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."
(Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the U.S.)

"Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical."
(Yogi Berra, Former major league baseball player)

"Math is the second most exciting thing."
(John Benson, mathematics teacher, Evanston, IL)
(I know John, but didn't know that he was an orienteer :) )

Well, while we're on the subject of Armstrongs and math, I loved Zan's post, but how does this statement come from a math major?

It just feels like there is something in the intersection that is more than just a sum of two different parts.

Just what sort of stuff are they teaching you over there in Sweden?

She was probably alluding to the blowup of the point of intersection which is a whole tangent space of the directions you can go while running and thinking...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_up
isn't that right, Zan? ahh inside mathS jokes...

Nerds. :)

You should see the discussion of "geeks in orienteering" on nopesport that Dids started. There was a hypothesis claiming a negative correlation between "geekiness" and orienteering results. This was laughed off with the obvious examples of the likes of Mats (brought up by Jagge, himself a pretty damn impressive geek and orienteer) and Tero, among others.

and last year's billygoat ;p