Adventure Racing Part 2: Orienteering

Orienteering is what separates adventure races from triathlons or other multi-sport endurance races. That’s the second topic that weighs on my mind.

For added adventure or because organizers have a psychotic sense of humor, much of the orienteering is done at night in the thick stuff. Conditions disorient easily but the compass never lies.

Unless there is a clear landmark near the checkpoint, use a compass bearing to ensure your heading stays true.

It seems to me that this is where being a repeat competitor comes in handy. Race organizers have a tendency to put their markers in similar places and if you recognize that, it’ll benefit you. 

You can spot the tendencies as the race goes on, but in early stages not knowing them can be confusing. 

In a race this summer, the hint was “creek” so when we rode over the creek and didn’t find a marker we got off our bikes to look. Still finding no marker, we thought we were lost and perused the entire road looking for another creek.
 

Eventually, we figured some of the locals we'd seen driving around had stolen the marker so we moved on. We ran into another team at the next checkpoint who assured us that the marker was too far into the woods to be stolen.

We never thought to look 25 yards off trail for a marker on the biking section. This lesson took a few hours of our time.

For beginners, it may be helpful to see if the company that put together the race has a class or orienteering race too.