How much time do you spend looking at the map during an O' meet? (To make the answers consistent, assume the course takes you 60 minutes to complete).

When I was out running a few nights ago, I started thinking about how much time I spend actually looking at the map during an orienteering course. I haven't really tried to figure it out (yet) but it seems like it is not really very much time.

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), March 26, 2000

Answers

This seems like a difficult thing to determine. Certainly I look at the map at the beginning of every leg. There will be several looks at it during each leg. I'll guess that I look at it 5-10 times during each leg, but sometimes I take a series of very short glances at it, which add up to one "look". It depends on the terrain and course obviously. I will guess that I spend 10-15 seconds looking at the map each leg. If it is a 10km course over 1 hour, it may have 12-15 legs, typically. Roughly I would spend 3 minutes with my eyes on the map. I suppose I think about the map and the terrain a lot more of the time... I sure hope so!

If the race is in complex terrain I would have to maintain almost constant contact with the map, even if this slows me down. In such a case I would make it a habit to look at the map, in some cases take seemingly unecessary looks at the map to stay focussed on the course.

Last evening I ran about 3 miles on the streets map in hand. It was in fact the 1:10,000 map used by SMOC for the '95 US chumps. I didn't have a good run, but recall the area as a fun place to run. There were something like 22 controls on the map. I examined and picked routes for all of them within 5-10 minutes. That wasn't really like orienteering, but, whatever... I suppose I've rambled on long enough... by the way, I think that a well-drafted map requires a lot less time to "look" at. That's something to consider.

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), March 27, 2000.