Opportunities and Risks

Gene Beveridge - Oct 2016

Weighing up the opportunities and risks is a key part of being a successful navigator in orienteering and investing the time to planning as early as possible has significant benefits. Let’s take a look at a leg 11 on Red 1 at AOS 11 a few weeks ago. This is a tough leg with areas of poor runability that can be avoided but no route choice is clearly the best at first glance so we need to think about this one systematically. Take a look at this leg for yourself and list all of the risks (anything that could slow you down or make navigation more difficult) and then the opportunities (anything that could speed you up or make navigation easier)

 Some significant risks are:

·      The exit from 19 is mostly surrounded by poor runnability.

·      The areas of dark green in the middle of the leg will be very slow to cross and make navigation very difficult.

·      The areas of green stripe close to 20 will also be slow to cross.

·      The areas of rough open close to the beach are also hilly and will be slow to cross.

·      There is a lot of contour detail in the white forest with nothing particularly distinctive.

·      The entry into 20 isn’t marked by anything distinctive.

The most significant opportunities are:

·      The road to the north east provides very good runnability

·      The small path through the white forest provides good runnability

·      The open flat sand along the beach provides good runnability

·      The white strip to the southeast of the 19 provides a reliable exit towards the small path

·      The open sand blowout southwest of 19 provides a reliable way to the beach

·      The open sand blowout west of 20 provides a reliable entry into 20

It is now up to you to way up these facts and chose the fastest way. Here is my choice.

So when is the best time to crunch through this process in a race? I would recommend planning as early in the course as possible. If you do not need to navigate finely on the current leg, then invest your efforts into future challenges. Running on the road from 15 to 16 is a great time to assess the opportunities and risk of a more challenging leg like 19 and 20.

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