Does it differ in anyway from the hill walkers skills. Obviously the same techniques are used, but does fell running require a different way in which you use those skills because of moving at a faster pace ?Cheers
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Does it differ in anyway from the hill walkers skills. Obviously the same techniques are used, but does fell running require a different way in which you use those skills because of moving at a faster pace ?Cheers
if you have a good grounding in hill craft and navigation then you are 90% there, Obviously route choice and pacing/timing is different. As a walker you will choose a more comfortable line where as a running will want a quicker more direct line but the basic principles are the same..Quote:
Originally Posted by The Hat
Agree with Ian, same skills but may be applied differently.
Even more so with orienteering type events, where there may be 3 or 4 different choices of route. You need to decide quickly which suits the conditions on the day and your style of running, do you go a slightly longer, safer and possibly faster way, or do you red line it?
There's more of a focus on route choice, more of a focus on relocation when running, you normally only look at a map when lost or unsure.. more gambling in general. When walking you have time to be precice, in a race you have 1 point of reference, can't see anything else, just go with it, and see. When walking you'd maybe spend more time getting it right. Well I tend to gamble a lot racing, opting to follow people at times,Quote:
Originally Posted by The Hat
ability to map-read whilst maintaining a descent running pace.
Catching your mistake early and strong relocation, as mentioned above
Knowing when to follow others in the race and when not to - a current sore point :o
Apologies for slightly hijacking the thread but I've just seen the WFRA offering a one day nav course for £23. As a map reading "novice" I'm thinking about doing this - any opinions on it?
We, well Sarah mainly, runs them. They are for novices really, or limited experience. morning in the classroom, then out on the fell all afternoon going through exercises. 1 day isn't much so you'd need to commit to getting out practicing soon after to get the value of the day, if not it'd all be forgotten,,Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyndon
Assuming these are the North Wales ones.. I think there's also SOuth wales..
Thumb on your current position; possibly the most useful thing you can do when running to a map. Also it's acceptable to rotate the map, even if you're not a girl;)Quote:
Originally Posted by The Hat
"They are for novices really, or limited experience" sounds like me :)
It is the one in Llanberis I'd spotted so I'll try and make that.
Cheers
Lyndon
I'm so conditioned to 'moving my body round the map' I now can't handle a road atlas without it being pointed in roughly the correct direction!Quote:
Originally Posted by AndyA
Whilst I'm capable of using a map properly, a lot of the time I rely on instinct. This is usually pretty accurate but has been known to go fairly wrong at times. My nav method when running is - 1] when following rights of way I stop often and make sure I'm on the right route (more because I don't want to trespass than anything else) - 2] when on open access land I strike an almost direct line to where I'm heading unless there's an obvious problem with that (such as a cliff) and adapt my route depending on terrain as I go. I rely usually on line of sight or a very rough compass bearing in the general direction I want to go and nothing more than that. I'm confident that in poor situations I could navigate much more accurately but I so far haven't really needed to. I'm getting a lot better at it but the best way to learn is simply to plot a rough route over serious terrain and get out there and do it. If it's an area you're not overly familiar with then all the better.
It's not acceptable, it's Cardinal! Set the map to the north and move round the map, better still be "in" the map and visualize.Quote:
Originally Posted by AndyA
Agreed, for walking and for high mountain nav where you're mainly using distant features and/or bearings but for orienteering it's best to rotate the map as you're usually following track/path junctions and vegetation/enclosure boundaries and you need to make rapid decisions.Quote:
Originally Posted by IanDarkpeak
Each to their own though.
I always always have the map orientated. It's the way I was taught in the Army and on my ML training. Can't see why you would have it any other way for fell running.
Thats what I have been doing wrong. Holding the map in me hand.Quote:
Originally Posted by IanDarkpeak
I should have been putting the map on the floor and standing in it.;) Thanks IanDP
Mountain navigation for runners is worth a look http://www.lakesrunner.com/welcome-t...6_315_314.html
In my opinion this is poor advice.Quote:
Originally Posted by IainR
Run and hope is not navigation
relocation is the act of finding yourself once you have got lost, which is a failure of navigation.
If there is a need to navigate then you need to maintain contact with where you are and to know where next, the more consistently you do this the quicker you will move overall.
you need to think ahead and plan ahead and you need to be able to do this as you run along at your race pace.
maintaining map orientation and thumb on your position are valuable techniques that you would not typically use when walking.
If navigating when running there is a need to maintain a constant flow of navigational awareness and information if you are to progress at optimum speed.
I like to spend a few minutes plotting the route & making a list of bearings the night before.Quote:
Originally Posted by andy k
Its called racing.... of course you don't know where you are all the time in a race in bad conditions. You gamble, you make calls, educated guesses. Well I do. In awful conditions and not knowing the terrain that technique took me to third at the road in Jura Fell race (Alasdair Anthony got me on the road). Also won the Peris in very poor vis..Quote:
Originally Posted by andy k
You plan ahead, you visualise you see if things fit, if they don't see what else you can see, sometimes just hold your nerve, trust your judgement.
Of course getting lost isn't failed navigation, not finding out where you are again is failed nav, what a rediculous notion that one can't make errors. That's how it is on your ML assessment too (by the way)..how many teams say they navigate succesfully around the HPM? How many of them do it without going wrong at alll...our team makes the odd mistake and our navigator probably knows Bleaklow better than any man alive..
Too many runners are too scared of getting lost and pushing the boundaries of their nav so don't progress.
Note I also said unsure too... so you get on a ridge descend down until the memory becomes patchy, you've past most of your ticks, you look at the map and see what's around you to make sure the next call is the right one...
Racing is about racing, positions and times. It's not for safe slow runs. That's what I do the other 300 days of the year.
Because if you're in a situation where the terrain is dense on features (paths, boundaries, streams, contour variations etc) it takes extra time to mentally rotate the map, time you need to be watching your feet. It's less of a problem in open featureless moorland (e.g Kinder) but get somewhere full of walls and paths and you can soon be in a mess. In these situations a compass is rarely used (you'd spend most of your time setting bearings instead of looking where you're going) so orienting the map to north is a pointless exercise.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Hat
Don't hold the Army/ML up as an example, they're training for a significantly different situation, one where pinpoint accuracy, possibly in bad weather is much more important than speed. High speed navigation when running is often more akin to 'stepping stones' as you use all the features available to 'jump' your way across the map.
Don't dismiss it; try it next time you doing an orienteering/MM event, see if it works.
if you get a map on a 1:1 scale it works really well, try it...;)Quote:
Originally Posted by sbrt
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Hat
it might be me but aren't we talking about the same thing?Quote:
Originally Posted by AndyA
Map is orienteered to the land so it is pointing north. if we turn left 90 degrees, map stays still and we move round to the right side of the map and face it and start running..... maps stays orienteered and we have moved round it...? I think we are saying the same thing but using different words?
I quite like using a thumb compass at some more events, when you can just quickly keep the map orientated to north and go off rough bearings.
It's all about choosing the right level of fuzziness for the occassion..there are times when a few minutes of fine nav, just forgetting about the race, makes sense and is worth it. On the HPM there are a few sections we'll walk slowly and try to get it spot on, whereas others you can run a bit more blindly if you know there is a catchment feature which you can handrail you into your next point.
map, compass, tssk cheating surely
Yes Ian, I think everyone is saying the same thing. As far as I can see, no-one is advocating the alternative, which might be summed up as 'always hold the map so the writing is the right way up'. To return to the original question, I do most of my running on my own, but most of my walking with the family, so I am more careful with the nav when walking as there are others to complain when I get it wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by IanDarkpeak
That sounds more like it ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by IainR
To me your post implied "run and hope "
which would not be good advoce to a race navigation novice, as the OP appears to be.
I still maintain that getting lost is a failure of navigation
I'd define navigation as the process of finding your way via an unknown route
If you are in a race this needs to be done as quickly as possible.
If you make an error, get lost and lose time then you have failed to go as fast as possible.
Agreed you can be unsure and not knowing where you are is not the same as being lost.
Being lost starts when the not knowing where you are begins to lose you time.
In a race I aim to make no errors - to lose no time through error/failed navigation.
safe is not slow
perfect is not slow
You may scoff at the idea of no errors but any top orienteer aspires to this, they will analyse their navigation and log any time loss as an error/failure
and not in terms of a minute or 30 seconds
Frenchman Thierry Gueogiou inroduced the concept of "total orienteering" taking the errors down to a single second
If he could have done it one second faster then its an error.
Gueorgiou is 2011 World Champion in 3 out of the 4 disciplines (he did not contest the 4th)
This is partly down to this absolute perfectionist approach.
Geourgiou has taken this to the limit - no errorsQuote:
Too many runners are too scared of getting lost and pushing the boundaries of their nav so don't progress.
time to push your boundaries ?
(sorry that was cheeky, I know ;) )
Interesting point about orienteering.
Often, I find no need to navigate in a fell race, I just follow the crowd. Sometimes the map stays in the bum bag all the way round.
In orienteering, however, it's a full time business staying on top of the nav. In the inevitable post mortem, I'll always find a string of errors where I've lost time. This means I've had very few orienteering experiences that I could describe as entirely happy and satisfactory. Fell running, though, tends to be more enjoyable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brotherton Lad
:)) so you enjoy it more when you don't know where you are.
blissfull ignorance, I think they call it
Not exactly, me ol' flower. I always study the map for several hours before a race, often in conjunction with Google Earth to see the trods, and I have a pile of race notes from an old mucker. In some cases, I'll recce difficult parts of a course if I'm in the area. All that comes in useful in bad vis, but if the weather is fine, there's little need to navigate in a race. Local knowledge is more important.Quote:
Originally Posted by IanDarkpeak
In orienteering, there's much more need for full on navigation.
Hat,
I think the conclusion is:
- That the principles of navigation are the same.
- When walking you can forget the map for longish periods as it's going to take some time to get to the next handrail/collection point. When running it pays to hold the map with the thumb at your approximate location and keep the map oriented to the ground.
- Navigation to a point and knowing which is the quickest way to a point (ie route choice) are not exactly the same thing. You can be very good at the first, but hopeless at the latter!
That's surely the same as any event though? I'm never happy. There's a race I'll never do again as I was so ashamed as to how I ran and hated it..I won.. but there was 0 pride in having done so as I knew I'd had a shocker... my time compared to the record showed that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brotherton Lad
However normally realistic post race analysis is good...
I like doing the score events though and the MMM's. I can navigate well, as in A to B and well enough that it doesn't seem to hinder my racing, but when I do MM's it reminds me how much I can improve. I'm not fluid enough in route choice, when you run with top MM's they are quicker on their calls.
It's about 20 years since I've been right up at the front in races (and that was marathon), so I can still enjoy a steady plod on the fells. With orienteering, there's always an error to annoy me.
Thanks, all basic common sense stuff.
For me part of navigation during races is recognition of the fact that they are a game we play for fun - therefore its part of that game to try different things that are actually a bit of a gamble. You can try different lines, direct routes, longer flatter sections instead of climbs etc and they might or might not get you a bit of time or a few places depending on the day and other peoples own choices. In 3 Shires I know a place where crossing back over to the 'wrong side' of the ridge on the descent to the 3 Shires stone usually gets me a few places - I tried it this year and it didn't because others on the usual path were running more quickly and confidently in better visibility and I actually crossed about 200 yards too early. So I made a mess of it - but like a lot of things it didn't really matter because this is all just a game.
:thumbup:True. Its not just fun, it can be funny. If you ever see me trying to read a map, you will probably pish yourself laughing.:oQuote:
Originally Posted by Mark G