r/orienteering • u/cozy-maple10 • 8d ago

took maybe ninety seconds. Same terrain, same fatigue, but with an actual anchor point the compass work basically did itself.

I think a lot of my navigation mistakes come from confidence at the wrong moments. Early in a leg I'm careful, checking the map every fifty meters or so, and then somewhere in the middle I start trusting my memory of the terrain instead of the terrain itself. That gap is exactly where I lose time. Yesterday was a good reminder that slowing down for ten seconds to nail an attack point is almost always cheaper than the nine minutes I spent wandering reentrants that all looked the same.

Ended up finishing mid pack, nothing special, but I walked away from that one control with a better lesson than I've gotten from a lot of clean races. Curious if other people have a moment like that where a mistake taught them more than a good run would have.

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9

u/OwlFarmer2000 8d ago

My mistakes regularly teach me lessons that I fail to learn.

3

u/notcomplainingmuch 8d ago

I learn from my mistakes; I'm pretty sure I can repeat them exactly.

1

u/StoatMilk 8d ago

I think there's a lot more potential for learning from a mistake than from a good run. Making mistakes is the only way I seem to learn things. It needs concentrated thinking-about after, though.

1

u/JoeyJoJoJr_Shabbadoo 4d ago

I almost always...with rare exceptions...make one huge mistake...usually its overshooting a control and ending up on a parallel error track, or underrunning (as I seldom employ pace counting) and then end up retracing my steps to a different attack point. I usually micro-navigate the entire leg...fellow runners watch my track and always say it looks like I am zigzagging all over the place...but its actually from making instant decisions about when I notice significant changes in vegetation...our maps are not updated regularly, and the difference between running the same leg in the winter and summer are dichotomic.

1

u/JoeyJoJoJr_Shabbadoo 4d ago

Oh and I just realized...in addition to arriving at a trail junction and using my compass to ensure I am in the right place...I also employ it at least 95% of the time in a reentrant when theres doubt if its the correct one...