Making Decisions at the Right Time

The map above is the beginning of the elite mass start event held as the finale of the recent Queens Birthday event. The terrain is a plantation of pine trees on top of steep ridge and gully systems. The bogs were horendous. A track system remains principally from when the area was farmland in a previous generation.

In this blog one of the themes has been making navigation decisions at the right time. Staying ahead of the game. Attempting to orienteer like Georgiou. You know 100metres in the future or whatever. So I thought I would reflect on where on this course I was making key decisions, feedback welcome if you agree/disagree or have any other ideas or strategies...my course went 1-7-8-9-6-12-13-14-10-3-4-5-15-16.

It is easier to read the map running or walking up hill. If you attempt to read the map on a sharp downhill it will affect your running speed and leave you vulnerable to making hasty decisions. Before the control 1 I had a good idea of the shape of the first loop. 7 was easy but the pack hesitated coming into 8, not knowing which way to turn. In retrospect the key moment here was the track crossing adjacent to the earth bank halfway along the leg. A few seconds here confirming our location and we would have attacked the control with a lot more confidence.

The next two loops followed a similar pattern investing time early, specifically when walking (it was that sort of terrain) up the hills and you reaped the rewards in preparedness for series of shorter downhill controls followed by route choice. There was plenty of planning time on the hill up to 11, and again immediately before 13. But you had to be two legs in advance because 14 was downhill and easy and there was time to be gained by optimising the route choice to 15.

Likewise the hill to 3 was followed by three quick downhill controls 4-5-15 and a crucial route choice to 16. The short controls would look after themselves with bearings so I used the hill to make my route choice decision (right). While I lost some time to the guys chasing me up the hill I am comfortable that it was time well invested.

I'm thinking when you are analysing your mistakes maybe don't look so much at where you went but when you made that mistake. Was there a moment you didn't master. A decision you didn't make at the right time? Or was there a part of the course during which you could have planned ahead more to give yourself a better chance? We had a quote up a few days ago which I quite liked "chance favours the prepared mind..."

Analysis: When do you actually make your mistakes

Anyone who has listened to me rant at an orienteering camp, or about orienteering in general, will be familiar with Jamie's theory of "moments"...an orienteering race is a collection of individual little moments you have to master. The key being to identify those moments when they occure, not after they occur.

Mistake analysis, is about looking back and seeing which moments got the better of you, when you should have slowed down, looked up, made sure of a compass, come up with a detailed plan or basically done anything to kick the butt of that particular moment.

A common mistake is looking at the outcome of your mistake as the mistake, rather than as the stupid, idiotic running around in circles, crazy man routine you done after you've let yourself down further back in the leg. To embarass myself I have a couple of examples from the weekend below (you can't make mistakes like these and beat Bill Edwards of sanddune terrain no matter how fast you run the rest of the course.

Leg No 3: Heading out of 2 my bearing was only very rough. I hit the track and raced over it trying to find a good path through the very rough terrain. I didn't give myself a chance. I was running along a slope, but I actually thought I was further to the right, running along a parallel slope, hence when I came to a low point in the ridge I headed hard left, only swerving back right when I saw the road fast approaching. The latter mistakes in the leg are there for your amusement but arose largely because I had lost all confidence in my angles and exactly where I was. The major mistake that wrecked the leg for me was very early on crossing the track and not making 100% certain at this very easy point. I had a chance to correct myself at the 2nd x but again failed to do so. I got mastered by the moments.

Leg No 17: I had decided in the route choice before clipping 16 and creamed it down the hill to the clearing and round the track, swinging wildly onto the ridge, I made connection with it briefly, but thought that the control was a bit further off the ridge lines direction than it actually was. It turned to custard out there in the flatter stuff and my recovery was poor. Again I made my mistake the best part of 200 metres from the control circle where I lacked the discipline to hug the linear feature and work out a clear plan for attacking the circle. The mistake wasn't where things started looking uncertain within 100metres of the control. It was where they felt so easy and in control where I have marked the X.

If you are into it, have a look at a recent map or two and try to identify where you really made your mistake, not what the outcome was. When was the moment that you could have put a plan in place or exercised some discipline to prevent the mistake from happening?