Fundamentals of Navigation for Adventure RacingGetting Where You Want To GoThis is where you put all the pieces of navigation together so you can actually find the checkpoints. Getting to each of the CPs in a race will require a combination of map reading, compass usage, calculating distances, and selecting which route to take. Navigating is a mentally challenging task and gets harder the longer the race goes on. It gets exponentially harder when it gets dark... and you're cold.. and hungry... and tired. With practice, it does get easier.
Route ChoicesTake a look at the map below. How can you get from CP1 to CP2? There's more than one way to get there. You could go straight from CP1 to CP2. This would require you to bushwhack through some woods and cross a river, but it would be the shortest way to get there. Always remember that "shortest" doesn't always mean "quickest". Another way to get to CP2 would be to head southeast until you hit the road. Then cross the river on the road where the map says "Ford". This would be a low-water crossing that vehicles can actually use to cross the river. Then, you could follow the road south until you come to the first unimproved road and head east on this road. A little ways down the road, you will come to a Jeep trail. At this point, you could calculate a bearing from the corner of the unimproved road and the Jeep trail and that would tell you which direction you should head to find the checkpoint. This route would be longer, but you would be on roads and trails the whole time, which means your team may be able to travel faster. The bushwhacking route may lead your team through some rough and thorny brush, which could be very slow-going.
When selecting a route, consider the terrain you'll have to travel and the distance you'll have to travel. Make notes of major landmarks along the way. Make notes of backstops, or features that let you know you've gone too far. Let your teammates know about your plan. For example, tell your teammates that your next CP is about 10 miles away. You're going to ride down a dirt road for about 2.5 miles. At that point you'll cross a pipeline. Keep going on the dirt road for another mile and then you'll come to a paved road. You'll take a right on the paved road and ride for 6 miles. You'll pass a cemetery on the left-hand side of the road at 3 miles. At 5 miles, you'll drop your bikes by a creek and hike down the creek for about half a mile (800 meters) to get to the checkpoint. If you hit the railroad tracks on the road, we've gone past the creek where we need to drop our bikes. By telling your teammates the plan, they (and you) know what to be looking out for. If you start riding and at 2.5 miles you haven't seen a pipeline, you might be traveling the wrong way, or you may not be in the place you thought you were. This kind of planning and teamwork can save you hours out on the race course.
Keeping Track of Where You Are on the MapThis is often called "staying found" because if you always keep track of which way you've travelled and how far you've travelled, you'll always know where you are on the map and in the real-world. How do you keep track of how far you've travelled in the real-world?We use a method called "pace counting", which is where you count how many paces (kind of like a step) we've taken. A pace is counted each time a specified foot hits the ground. For example, you may count a pace each time your left foot hits the ground. If you walked left, right, left, right – you have taken 4 steps, but only 2 paces. You can calibrate your pace count by walking a 100 meter course and counting your paces. For most people, it's about 60-65 paces to walk 100 meters. Your running pace count will be different from your walking pace count. For most people, it's about 40-45 paces per 100 meters. Each person is different. And to make it tougher, it's different if you walk slowly, quickly, run, go up-hill or down-hill, or go through mud or brush. If you are zig-zagging through brush while bushwhacking, your pace count will be a bit off. So, pace count is only an estimate and you will have to modify it a bit depending on the terrain. It's good to have at least 2 members of the team keeping pace count. At 100 meter intervals, let everyone know that you're at 100 (200, 300, etc.) meters. That way if your teammate has a different count, you can discuss how you got off count. When biking, you can't keep a "pace count", but you need to track your distance. You can do this easily with a bike computer. Every team member should have one in case one breaks during the race. You'll reset this computer many times during a race, so you won't really know how far you biked during the entire race. Let one of your other teammates keep a running total if you want. As navigator, your job is to get your team where you need to go and you do this by watching your distance carefully. When you're paddling, you can't keep a "pace count" either. You can estimate how far you've travelled by using the amount of time you've been paddling. A typical team can paddle on flat water or a slow moving river at a rate of about 4 miles per hour. That means you're travelling about 1600 meters (1 mile) every 15 minutes, or about 800 meters (1/2 mile) every 7.5 minutes. If the water is moving faster, you'll have to estimate how fast you're going. If you're paddling up-stream, you'll need to estimate how much slower you're going. Go to the next Topic: Sample Race Copyright 2008 by Ross Willis |