Map Reading on the Run – A way to start

I was taught early on in my orienteering life that reading the map whilst running was a really good thing to do – and it so obviously is. If you don’t believe this, the next time you go for a run with someone, let them keep running while you stand still for five seconds. (Five seconds is not a long time to stand and read the map). After your five seconds are up, start running as before and just look how far you are behind. That’s a lot to catch up. It is very easy to stop to look at the map for five seconds several times on a single leg. It is easily possible to spend much more than five seconds standing looking at the map. This can add up to several minutes very easily. This is why reading the map whilst running is very important.

But it’s also very difficult – especially in rough terrain.

I was having this discussion with a fellow orienteer the other day (having beaten him mostly because he kept stopping) and was thinking about what to do about it. I’ll come back to this whole topic of map reading on the run in a later blog, but I think that the easiest way to start is to try and look ahead at just one thing. Before you arrive at any control, decide which way you will leave it. Don’t hang around at the control flag. As well as wasting your own time, by the way, you’re also making it easier for your rivals by advertising the flag to them.

So, at some time during each leg decide on the way out; this decision can take several forms: you might just say to yourself “run north” or it might be “run uphill” or perhaps “continue along the path”. If you like you can say it out loud before you punch, and do what you say. You’ve now saved 5 seconds per control. If there are 24 controls, you’ve saved 2 minutes. Easy. Give it a try.