Confident Orienteering

 One Year of "Confident Orienteering" A few days ago marked one year since I released my first book on orienteering in digital format. “Confident Orienteering: A Systematic Approach to Minimising Errors. Book 1: Fundamentals” dives into why mistakes happen in orienteering and provides strategies to avoid them.  The upcoming Book 2— Routes Planning and Execution —will focus on putting these strategies into action in real-life scenarios. Though we initially aimed to release it in 2024, it will now be ready by mid-2025 at the earliest. Progress is steady, and the same great team from Book 1 is still with me. We’ve completed about 70% of the text, but we still have a lot of work on illustrations, with over 300 examples planned. I’ll soon share a separate post about the amazing people contributing to this project, as well as one about Book 1 translations, highlighting the fantastic translators who made the book available in other languages. For now, I have two updates to share

    Left, Right, or Straight: Leg Analysis #19 A landscape of this type can be seen in many European countries, such as Italy, Spain, or Portugal, as well as in Turkey. It also resembles Australia. However, this is in North America (USA, California). It’s a vast continent where you can encounter a great variety of landscapes.  Leg 5-6 presented in this analysis is from the C10 distance of the competition CalOFests Stage 3 NRE Long , which took place on  2023-07-19 . link for GPS tracks  The route choice is significantly influenced by the amount of climb. Moreover, a climb that follows a gentle road is much easier than one on a steep slope. Therefore, this factor should also be considered. The right-hand route seems too complicated and physically demanding. The easier approach to the control point is not worth it. (The red sectons represent areas with a climb). After excluding the right-hand route, we are left to consider "straight" or "left" options. The straight

  Become a Better Orienteer with Personalised Online Coaching! I am a political refugee from Belarus, currently living in Poland, offering personalised online training in orienteering.  Whether you're an intermediate or advanced orienteer, I can help you enhance your navigation skills and overall performance. The number of available spots is limited. Here’s what I can offer: Flexible Training Plans: I create customised programs focused on the technical aspects of orienteering, taking into account your strengths and weaknesses in navigation. This approach allows us to prioritise the improvement of your weakest areas first, ensuring more effective progress in your skills.  Please note that my services do not include physical training plans. Terrain Workouts : I plan sessions on the terrain to enhance your navigational abilities.  On-Table Exercises : I provide and evaluate technical exercises that you can complete from home to improve your

    Left, Right, or Straight: Leg Analysis #18 Presented  leg 6-7 from the middle distance of the Norwegian Masters Championship 2024 (15.09. 2024; M65 class). Of the possible three routes, the left route goes over the hill and has almost the same lengthening as the right route (which has no climb).  So we're not considering left route for execution. On the direct route there is a very steep slope to climb up. It takes a lot of time.  See a comparison drawing of the best routes of straight and right. The right route turns out to be the fastest, while it is possible to see other legs ahead on the road. However, it is important to take the shortest route to the road from control 6.  See a comparison drawing of two right routes on this leg ( best time on the leg and the course leader who only had 7th time on this leg). See also all routes of M65 class on this leg  Source: https://www.livelox.com/Viewer/Veteranmesterskapet-mellom/H65-?classId=841625&tab=table Aleksndr Alekseyonok,

    Left, Right, or Straight: Leg Analysis #17 Today, we're going to explore a few legs from an area near the city of Daugavpils, Latvia. This is where the traditional Latvian multi-day event   Kāpas 3 Days , was recently held on June 28 -30th. Kāpas is organised annually by the Kapa OK club in different parts of Latvia, typically in the middle of summer. This year, the first day took place in the sand dunes of pine Forest. In such a unique area, you could also meet in Lithuania, Belarus, and Russia. The origin of such a landscape is most likely connected to the movement of a glacier in the distant past. The visibility in the mature forest is excellent, and the ground is hard (the moss is not very soft). This is evident from the athletes' routes, as they tend to stay as close to the line as possible. Even on those legs where there was a clearing or path near the line, the athletes did not use it. Additionally, some paths and rides can be sandy, which slows down the running sp

Analysis of the terrain for the upcoming competition #1 I found an advertisement online today for an upcoming event "Alaska Orienteering Festival" in Alaska. The event  will take place on the 3rd and 4th of August, 2024. Event's Website The first day will feature a very challenging map called Willow Creek , as presented on the competition website. Here are several key observations about this terrain that I can highlight based on the map analysis: Judging by the photo next to the map on the competition website, visibility in the forest is quite limited for open forest.  The terrain is very gentle, with a relief (it is looks like contour interval 2.5 on this map). However, the main difficulty lies in the fact that the terrain does not provide clear, long navigational lines that can be followed on the leg to more easily keep to the planned direction of travel. In the example below, you can see how short and oriented in different directions the navigational lines of the s