Fit to be tried: Orienteering
November 1, 2011 – 11:12 amEVER got lost? Most of us have, and it can be a humiliating or even frightening experience, especially if you are on a lonely road and a thick fog descends.
In some countries, such as Australia, losing your way can be fatal. For example there was the tragic case involving a schoolboy who died of dehydration just metres from a main road after he got confused and disorientated.
So if you’ve ever envied those types with infallible sense of direction, now is your chance to have a bit of fun and get fit. Orienteering is a growing fitness activity with meets organised regularly across the country, often with the help of the Reserve Defense Force (RDF).
“Orienteering can either be a race, or a casual recreational activity, depending on your own attitude towards the event,” says Captain Marie Morgan from Clare, who, like other RDF volunteers, regularly helps organise these navigational events, often to raise money for local charities.
But while the focus is on fun, many participants take the challenge seriously and set off at a run, armed with a map and compass to track down each clue or marker leading you around a set course.
There are different levels for adults and children but I found myself offering bribes to Zac, 11, and his sister Abbey, nine, two orienteering regulars taking part in a recent 60-minute course set in the grounds of the Falls Hotel in Ennistymon, Co Clare.
“You’re holding the map the wrong way; that way is north,” Zac explains with weary patience, but only after extracting a promise I’d give him a Snickers bar.
Whether you are a beginner or experienced, orienteering soon has you learning to look at familiar terrain with a new perspective by clocking useful markers and unusual landmarks.
A lot of the running is on muddy paths and up and down hills, so good clothes and shoes are important, and the serious types have studded footwear and flash compasses, although it’s good not to get too dependent on these tools. Better to learn to navigate by looking at the features of the land, who knows when your compass might break?
Clambering through woods, across fields and getting stumped time-after-time by the same dead end until you learn to negotiate a path around it is a fun fitness challenge.
“People come alone or with family and you get to have a bit of craic and admire some lovely views, even at this time of year,” says Captain Morgan.
If you want to make your orienteering experience a good one, here are some tips:
?Build up your leg strength. A lot of the course can be on rough ground or hills. A good exercise to improve balance is throwing a medicine ball back and forth with a friend while standing on one leg.
?Learn to keep looking at your map. Orienteering world champion Graham Gristwood points out running and map reading simultaneously is tough.
“Take the maximum amount of information from the map each time you look at it,” he says. “It should always be orientated in the direction you’re running, using a compass, and you should stay ‘in contact’ with your map, looking at it every 10 seconds or so, and keeping your thumb over your current position.”
Once you’ve completed the challenge a bit of post-race analysis is a key way to improve for the next time.
As for me, I survived my first orienteering challenge. And OK, it might have been the children’s route, but at least I made it. Those Snickers bars sure came in handy.
We tried: Orienteering
Did it work: Had us reading a map
Pluses: Improving navigation skills and getting fit at the same time
Minuses: Having children beat you around a 60-minute course
Cost: Approx €10 to take part in orienteering events run regularly across the country
Contact: www.orienteering.ie for a list of monthly events
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