Orienteering: Top Tips for Course Planners by Martin Bagness

A well-planned course can transform a mediocre area into something special; a badly-planned course is not only to some extent a waste of an area, it is also a waste of all the effort that goes into event organisation: access, mapping, results and so on, as well being a disappointment to the many competitors who have travelled to the event.

So a great deal depends on the course planner. But don’t be put off! Planning a good course is not especially difficult, and anyone with a reasonable level of experience as a competitor should be able to come up with the goods, provided they follow a few basic guidelines.

This article is limited to the creative process of course planning, in particular to planning courses at the upper level of difficulty. It does not include information on recommended winning times, difficulty levels, class combinations, planning for young juniors, differences between long / middle / sprint distance courses: these are all well-described on the BOF website.

Aims.

The most important thing is to have a good idea of what you want to achieve. What are the elements that make up a good course? Here are the main things, more or less in order of importance, that the ideal course on the ideal area would provide:

Enjoyment!

Fairness

Interest

The best use of the area

A test of rough-o skills (executing longer legs quickly and accurately)

A test of fine-o skills (finding controls)

A test of route-choice

A minimum of track / handrail-running

Variety of leg lengths

Constant changes of leg direction

A sustained challenge

A minimum of long, steep climbs

Changing terrain types

Stage 1: The Overview.

Have a good look at a blank map (on paper, not on the computer screen where you cannot view the whole map in one go). Draw on the known constraints; e.g. finish field, crossing points, out-of-bounds. How can you make the best of this area? Scribble down a list of the good things about the area in terms of its potential for a course that is interesting, fair and fun. Some of these will appear on the list above. There may be scope for compass legs, slope legs, legs in green, changes of terrain type etc.

Stage 2: Long Legs.

Every course should have a variety of leg lengths, therefore it is preferable to include at least one long leg (say twice as long as the average). Good long legs are usually hard to find: there may only be one or two possibilities on the map. Therefore it is best to find these first, then to plan the rest of the course around them. Make a collection of long legs, marking them down in pencil (see example).

A good long leg may offer a route-choice problem or it may be a test of rough-orienteering in a straightish line, i.e. the ability to cover the ground quickly and accurately using simplification and rough compass, ideally with little track-running.

Longer legs should not be confined to full-length courses: they can add variety to Middle and Sprint-length courses.

Stage 3: The Twiddly Bits. Identify and highlight detailed or interesting areas where you can site controls that will test fine-orienteering, i.e. the ability to use accurate compass and continuous-contact map-reading close to the control. You can set shorter-than-average legs in these areas, or even a series of very short legs to test quick-fire orienteering and direction change. Again, this will serve to create variety in leg length. Many areas have a twiddly bit, eg old diggings, or areas of well-mapped rhodies, or a mass of small paths / pits / ditches.

Stage 4: Start and Finish. The finish should, of course, be in the assembly field where everyone can see it. If the area is hilly then consider placing the start as high as possible: every course will then have several hundred metres less climb and as a result will be faster, more challenging and more enjoyable. If the best terrain is at the far end of the area, then a far-flung start may be the only way of getting the short courses over there. Otherwise, there is no reason why the start shouldn’t be right on the edge of the assembly field.

Stage 5: Putting it together. Now you have your start, finish, long legs and twiddley bits, you can start to assemble everything into a course of the desired length. Plan shorter legs in the twiddly bits. Link them to the long leg(s) in the most interesting way. Try to minimise duff legs (e.g. simple track runs) though some may be inevitable. Creative flair, patience and puzzle-solving skills all come in handy! Keep working away with a pencil and rubber. As well as variations in leg length, aim for changes in direction at each control. Cross-overs help with this, as well as enabling you to pack more legs into the better bits of the area. Don’t worry if your course length is out by 10% or so: its better to have an interesting course well-suited to the size of the area than one which is the correct length but dull. Avoid excessive climb, especially very steep climbs (a good orienteer will use those minutes of uphill walking to plan out the remainder of the course).

Stage 6: Leaving the Armchair. If your mapper has done a good job there may be very little to do in the forest except jog around tagging control sites. Make sure the map is up to date. All maps have a few mistakes: make sure you don’t put a control on one of these! Make sure your control markers are visible only on arrival at the right side of the right feature, not from miles away. On open areas, the leg ahead should be obscured by the lie of the land as much as possible. Of course, avoid bingo controls that can only be located by luck.

Stage 6 may sound a bit late to be getting out into the forest: this is because it is preferable to plan a course on the map rather than from the ground. However if you are unfamiliar with the area it is a good idea to have a recce run before Stage 1 in order to get a feel for the terrain.

Stage 7: Frills and Gimmickry. Spectator controls, clover-leaf courses, butterfly loops etc can add a great deal in terms of excitement, head-to-head racing or (in the case of major races) media-friendliness. However they are by no means essential to a good course. It can be a drag for the runners who have to visit the same control 3 times, say, or have to run to and fro across the same piece of terrain adjacent to the finish field. The priority should always be well-planned legs deep in the forest, with enjoyment coming from the orienteering itself rather than from the add-ons.

Examples of other novelty elements are changes of map scale to include a sprint-style section, a map exchange to a contour-only section, mass-start one-man-relay type courses. If used carefully, these can make all the difference to an area that is too small or otherwise lacking in quality.

 

COMPASS SPORT COURSE PLANNING COMP. To download copies of the map to supplement the map printed in Compass Sport: Right Click the map to save it to your PC (its a jpeg file). North lines should be 25mm apart for 1:10000 scale.