S4E120 Kimberly Stewart- Orienteering What Exactly Is It

#31 Kimberly Stewart- Orienteering What Exactly Is It

Had a very informative chat with my friend Kimberly about Orienteering. She participats in events and recently directed her 1st ever Orienteering event. I actually stopped over to Yellow Creek State Park in PA where she held the event. I've been interested in doing an event so wanted to see things first hand. Then having Kimberly on answered some questions I had.

Very informative for those looking to get into the sport. What makes it fun is you get to explore the woods and be taken to exciting places. The events are super cheap with most being cheaper then a single movie ticket that the whole family participats with for that single ticket price.

I'd describe it as your very own scavenger hunt. Because you decide which way your want to go to get to where you need to be.

Also dont need any fancy equipment. All you need is a compass and be able to read a map which they will teach you how to use for free.

Really to much information to write about. At times I was so interested in the information being provided I forgot to ask my next question.

#Orienteering #mapreading #scavengerhunt #controls #maps #explore #inforamtion #learning #worldwide #mapskills #woods #life #gun #familyfriendly

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Welcome to the Only Eye Athletics podcast, the show The
Vice, hearing your stories. We're living your adventures and
learning information that can help us improve in all aspects
of our lives. I'm your host, Dean Banco, and I
know you enjoyed today's episodeas much as I do.
All right, today I have my friend on Kimberly Stewart.
She recently race directed a orienteering event and she's

(00:32):
into the whole orienteering scene.
I'm probably going to stumble onthat word a bunch today, but I
wanted to get her on, talk aboutit in general, like how to get
into the orienteering. You know what, you need that
sort of thing to give people an idea and also to increase my
knowledge because I am interested in participating at

(00:52):
some point. So thank you for coming on today
and glad to have you on. Hi there.
I'm glad to glad to tell people about orienteering for sure.
So you hear him, him Holland around about it, giving a brief
introduction to yourself. So I'm just going to put you on

(01:12):
the spot and. Do it.
Yeah. OK well I've been doing
orienteering for a couple only acouple of years now, but I have
always been in the woods, trail running, road running,
bicycling, some sort of water sport like canoeing, paddling,

(01:37):
kayaking and so forth, all of which are used in orienteering.
Also, cross country skiing is used in orienteering and I feel
like this sport finally brings together everything I'm
interested in as a as a map nerd.

(01:57):
So it's nice over the past couple years that it really
grabbed my attention and I really put forth a lot of effort
into this. And then it orienteering can
also lead you into other types of sports too.
Adventure racing, which is something that I do, and
expedition racing, which is verylong drawn out races that

(02:20):
include orienteering. So I can talk about those later,
but I've been doing those the past couple years as well and I
love them So, and I'm from Ebensburg, PA.
That's a. Half an hour away.
Yeah. So I guess cuz you said you're

(02:41):
involved in all those other sports and this combines it.
So is that what really got you into orienteering or this is
just the like niche factor of itin the United States?
Yeah, So what got me into orienteering is I, well, I saw
an advertisement for an adventure race.

(03:04):
I was looking at triathlon type races.
I did a a basic triathlon the the West pen that has like a 5K
and a Six Mile canoe and a 15 mile bike.
And it was very casual. Or if you wanted to, you know,
compete, you could. And I love that.

(03:27):
And so an adventure race includes orienteering, which
it's not a set course. You choose your own adventure.
So you get a, you get a map and you have to choose your course,
choose which way you want to go.And I love that because I feel

(03:47):
like every year it's the same race, it's the same course, and
you just go and do the same thing every year.
And it's like, OK, I need different.
I needed variety. I needed something new and
exciting. And I saw this adventure race
advertisement, but I didn't knowhow to.
I know how to read a map. I love maps, but I didn't know

(04:08):
how to use a map to set a courseor find controls in the woods,
which is what we call what we look for.
So I took a course from the Prince Kalitzin State Park,
actually had a compass, map reading course and compass using

(04:30):
course. So I hurry up and went and did
that and it was free. So if anybody wants to learn how
to use a map and compass, there's a lot of different
classes throughout the area. I always see a couple advertised
in Johnstown in the state of Pennsylvania.
You can take them online, state parks have them a couple times a
year. Boy Scouts learn how to use

(04:51):
compasses. So I went and did that and I was
pretty excited about it. And then I went and did this 5
hour adventure race and absolutely fell in love with it.
And then I got introduced to thesport of orienteering, which is
taking a map and using a compassto find controls that are marked

(05:18):
in specific locations on the map.
So it's like a scavenger hunt or, you know, like a, a choose
your own adventure. You can get as many controls as
you want. You can get all of them.
What, what kind of questions do you have from this point going

(05:38):
forward? I guess since I there's so much
to talk about it I don't want tokeep rambling.
Well, because you, I think you already just touched on my next
question, what your own word words is orienteering to begin
with. And I think you just said
basically choosing your own adventure and reading a map at
the same time. Would that be accurate then?

(05:59):
Pretty much, yeah. That's what I say to people.
You, you get a map and you get acompass and not, you don't
always have to use the compass, but you, you do want to learn
how to read a map. And what's really cool about
orienteering events, or we call them a meet, you know, an

(06:19):
orienteering meet is they alwaysprovide free instruction.
They will let you use a compass and they'll show you how to use
the compass. So you can go to an orienteering
event completely oblivious aboutusing a mapping compass, and
they'll explain to you how to use it.

(06:39):
Yeah, because like me, as as I told you already, like I
understand, you know, north-south, east, West, and I
can find my way around trails ona map, but.
That's good. That's a start.
That's very important. But to actually like, I guess
get the point A to point B in anorienteering thing and actually

(07:01):
how to read it because IA littleback, little backtracking here.
She's been in, I knew she's beenin the orienteering for a while
and she actually race directed arace this past weekend at Yellow
Creek. And I went over just to be nosy
and just to hang out for a few. And then I was looking at the
maps cuz and they were like completely different from what I
was expecting. And I was just like, well how

(07:22):
the hell do you even read this? Yeah.
So there's can this explain someof the different things on the
maps? Yes, yeah.
So when you go to a State Park and they have a brochure there,
you know, like Yellow Creek Exact, for example.
I have so many Yellow Creek maps.
You open it up and you can, you know, it says you are here in

(07:45):
the parking lot and you can see the thick black lines where the
roads are. And then you see dotted lines,
which are trails. And then you can see some other
different colored, you know, dotted lines that are gravel
roads or forest roads. Water is obviously blue, right?

(08:10):
And it's that's about it. That's all you get.
You get where the restrooms are,you get the beach area, the
playground, all the cool things that you want to see in the
State Park. So if you took that, that
basically, but you added the terrain features, the
topographical features, so you know, the contour lines, the

(08:33):
squiggly lines that are on a mapthat everyone sees when you pull
up AUSGS map, like AUS Geological Survey map, also a
Lidar map, which is what we use.So you can see all of the nooks
and crannies of the earth. So the the mountains that rise

(08:56):
up, you know, the, the valleys that come down the water, the
streams. It, it does take a lot of
practice to read these and understand there's symbols that
mean specific things. I'm still learning that I, I
practice that all the time. I, I feel like I'm pretty good

(09:19):
at it now. But like I said, I've been doing
it probably 3-4 years and it takes a long time to just look
at it and know. But it's just practice just like
anything else. So reading the map, you just,
you basically learn one thing like you start to just fall,
just follow the trails to get topoint a get to get to control.

(09:40):
Number one, you follow the trailand then you want to get to
control #2 you follow the trail.That's pretty much it.
So a beginner's course is very simple.
If for anyone that wants to go out and do an orienteering
event, we they start out with a beginner course and you just
follow the trails to the locations and come back to the

(10:05):
finish and you're done. So you start there.
Yeah, but then what? If you want to advance, then you
have to learn how to read some of the terrain.
Yeah, 'cause it was like a, it was like reading Egyptian.
It was just, I was looking at it.
I was like, man, this is, this is I guess we were, we were
probably looking at the whole map, so it was more in depth.

(10:27):
We were. But I was just like, man, this
is completely foreign to me and I would have to, even though I
know Yellow Creek a little bit, there was just so much more
information on that map and all your orienteering symbols.
I was like, yes, yeah, yeah, I'mgood.
I should have shown you the beginner map and you would have
been like, oh, I can do that 'cause all you had to do was run

(10:49):
down the road and get the first control, run up the trail to the
intersection of the trails and get the second control.
You know, run over a bridge, find the bridge, get that third
control. Very simple locations for a

(11:09):
beginner to find. So I had a friend of mine bring
another friend to this event this past Sunday who has never
done orienteering before and they both absolutely loved it.
And they did perfectly fine on the beginner course.
They even said they wish they would have done the next most

(11:31):
more difficult course. Yeah.
So it is pretty basic for an adult really.
If you know how to just read a regular like park map, you just
focus in on the trails on it. And then once you learn the
trails, then you Start learning what the other symbols mean.

(11:51):
So what does a person actually need to get started?
Nothing. You just need to learn or know
how to. You just need to be able to walk
on trails in the woods. That's it.
Because you can come to an orienteering event and we will
give you the map, we will lend you a compass, we will instruct

(12:15):
you on how to read the map and you just walk out and start
doing it. We do use, they're called SI
cards. They're like a little USB card
that you punch when you get to aa control is an orange and white
flag that's hanging in the woods.

(12:36):
Like you can't miss it. I wish I had an example.
It's almost like a 12 by 12 white and orange flag.
And, and some of them are reflective.
So if you even shined a light onit, you could see it.
It's very easy to spot in the woods, except for in the fall
when the when the leaves are orange and you think every
orange thing is one of those flags.

(12:59):
They are deceiving. But you go to this flag and
there's a little circular devicehanging in there and you put
your punch card punch, you know,USB thing into it and it beeps
and it records the time and number of that location.
So it knows when you were there,you know, to provide evidence.

(13:22):
And then as you walk throughout with your map and you go to each
of these locations and you punchit, you come back to the finish
and you download that and it'll show you how long it took you to
get from like #1 to #2 to #3 andto do the whole course.
And then it will show you at thebottom of the paper the, the

(13:43):
rankings. So it can be a competition.
And that's what's exciting aboutit for trail runners, trail
runners who want to get into something new and want to use
their brain while they're out there and, you know.
Well, I don't know how many of us actually have brains to use.
None of us. Well, at least the ultra

(14:04):
runners, maybe, maybe, maybe like the smaller race, like the
haves or the fools. But us ultra runners?
Yeah. Yeah, it's few and far in
between for brains. Have you ever done a a race
where they had you do a puzzle or a math problem or anything
different? Like put together a Lego set or
anything different. Just anything.

(14:31):
I think the closest thing would be to that would be Spartan
years ago made us remember a number, and if you didn't
remember the number you had to do like the burpees or whatever.
So I forget how they did it, butit was like a number they gave
you. Yeah, we'll just say I think it
was like your bib number. And if you didn't remember, she

(14:52):
had to do burpee. So like you, as you're running,
you're trying to remember the. Yeah.
Like the wording, so you're it, it wasn't a, it was a long
number two. It was like a 9 or 10.
Oh wow, so you had. To sort of put like words to it
to remember but it I was like 8 years ago before they I think
they brought it back now but. Yeah.

(15:12):
It's one of those mental challenges.
Other than that, I think it was really the only offhand that I
can remember. OK, so imagine, imagine that
you're running through the woodsand you're trying to mentally
focus on something else. It's challenging.
It's not just using your physical body, but using your
mental body and you get tired, right?

(15:35):
So some of these courses, the one just for example, the race,
the event that I directed this past Sunday had a beginner's
course which was about, hold on,let me look.
I forget how many we use. We use kilometers.
You don't have to, but it was almost 2 kilometers, which is

(15:56):
like 1.2 miles long. So you, you could just walk
that, you know, over the course of 1.2 miles and collecting 6
control point flags pretty easy,probably would take you 45
minutes, maybe an hour, right? So the longest course there,

(16:19):
there's five courses that I created and we have colors for
them. So it's like white, yellow,
orange, I forget green or brown.And then red was the hardest,
most difficult, the longest. So that one was 7.9 kilometers

(16:43):
over Yellow Creek. So if anybody knows Yellow Creek
and all the mountain bike trails, you had to follow it
almost all the way out to the dam and all the way back.
But what's tricky is if you navigate incorrectly, chances
are you're going to have a lot more distance because you're
going to have to figure out where you are, how to get back

(17:05):
to where I need to be right. And if you are off course, you,
you have to make up time and distance and, and get your brain
right and look past your mistakebecause that's what happens too.
You dwell on your mistake while you're out there.
Like, oh man, I just, I just wasted all this time.
I wasted all this energy and youdon't eat and you don't drink.

(17:31):
The next thing you know, your brain isn't working correctly
and you're like, Oh my gosh, twohours have gone by and I'm just
running through the woods. Random.
Yeah, it's challenge. So people do get lost a lot or.
Everybody gets lost all the time, all the time.
Even the even the experts I had.I'm trying to think of the I

(17:54):
forget how many people did the advanced course.
Hold on, let me look at the results of the last event I had.
Oh wow, there's a lot. There was 10/11, 11 people
participated in the advanced long course, and only one guy

(18:16):
did not get lost. So he said yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, exactly. He had a he, It took him an hour
and 36 minutes to complete that.But everyone else got lost at
some point. Miss the some controls Once you
miss them and you, you're like, you don't want to go back,

(18:38):
you're going to waste time. You can.
That's a choice you make. And usually you have a time
limit, 2 hours, 3 hours. You have to be back by a certain
time. And then there were two people
who didn't finish the course. So it's, yeah, it's more common

(19:00):
to get lost and more common to not finish than it is to
complete it. So then.
Well. That would sort of suck if it's
like a bigger course, like not Yellow Creek, we'll put it that
way. So if you're out like West or in
Europe where there's miles upon miles instead of like a close, I
want to say Yellow Creek's more of like closed course because if

(19:22):
right, you can only go so far before you hit road or houses.
Right, right. Yep.
Stay in the State Park boundaries.
Yeah, so. That's so that would be like the
only danger besides wildlife or stupidity fall and getting hurt
but like it would be getting lost in the middle of nowhere
yes and not being able to correct yourself.

(19:45):
Yes, it happens often. What do you do in those
situations? Like do the bigger events have
spots and stuff? Hopefully you have your cell
phone on you and on the map is the race director's phone
number. And you can, right, same thing

(20:05):
as a, you know, a, a, a running race.
You know what happens if you getlost in a running race?
What do you? What would you do?
Look at my watch, I usually because I usually I always have
to take the map, so I gotta get back to the map and I just
backtrack. Oh, well, you can't do that in
orienteering. So just a note on that you can

(20:29):
use AGPS watch. I do and it mine has adventure
race mode which it it tracks you, but it does not show you
the trails and it will not show you the map.
You have to read the paper map. Yeah.
So what if you didn't have your watch on?

(20:50):
Then what would you do if you got lost?
Hopefully have my phone on me. Yeah, OK.
I mean, so you can, if you truly, truly get lost, yes, you
can pull up your phone and pull up the GPS safety, safety first.
I mean, are you really technically allowed to have a

(21:10):
phone and watch on you since it's more of a navigation event?
Because that could be, yeah, advantageous, I guess.
So some events, ranked events oradventure races, you, it depends
on the race you can't, you may or may not have be allowed to

(21:31):
have your phone on you, and if you do, you have to have it shut
off. There's even some races like the
adventure races, they make you put your phone into a bag and
they seal it and you carry it with you for emergency sake.
And then when you get back you have to show them the phone
still sealed in the bag. But for orienteering races, you
can have your phone on you. You just, it has to be off or,

(21:54):
or most orienteers that are participating in nationally
ranked events don't have anything on them, don't even
have water on them. They're just, they're that
secure in their knowledge and sport that they can just go out
and do what they need to do and get back in a short amount of

(22:16):
time. Yeah.
So beginners take, I take, you know, water and food and snacks
and your phone and your camera and all these all this stuff
like you're going out for a hike.
Yeah. So it's good if you starting out
for and for a while going to local events that don't have all
these rules where you can't takeyour phone.

(22:37):
You can take pictures, take yourtime, you know, enjoy it, learn
about it, talk to other people while you're out there.
But if some people do are very competitive about it, now you're
you, you shouldn't really talk to other people if you're in a
competitive event either. You've you just bypass each
other and you, you don't even look at them.

(22:58):
Yeah, you can't talk you. Don't even want to follow them a
little bit if they know where they're going.
Well, you know, that's a tactic you could do, but but I have
done that. Yes, sometimes it works.
Most of the time it does not work.
Go follow your own. It's your own race.

(23:21):
Do your own thing. Follow your own map.
Humans make humans make errors. I don't want to trust someone
else's navigation. So what would be an instance
that it wouldn't work? Oh, or you follow someone else
and then you got lost. Oh my gosh.

(23:43):
Well, sometimes this has happened many times for me.
Actually. I'm doing an orienteering course
and I did one in the dark. They have night orienteering as
well, which is very difficult. I think this was last year,
maybe the year before that I wasin Virginia and it's night, it's

(24:05):
night time. It's completely, you know, dark
in the woods. You just have your headlamp on
and you have your map and you'relooking for the, the reflective
flag. And then there, there was 2
ladies just standing there superconfused.
They were lost, truly lost. And you know, OK, I'm not trying
to win any money out here. They asked, they were like, do

(24:27):
you know where you are? That's usually the first
question is like, we don't know where we are.
Do you know where we are? So you, you stop, you know, most
people do the stop and point where on the map that you are.
And then, you know, let them tryto figure it out.
But these two ladies were nervous.

(24:47):
It was dark out. So I let them follow me.
But then they started talking and talking about this and
talking about that. Next thing you know, the three
of us were lost. I got off course and I don't
know how long it took till we, I, I don't know.
They at some point I was like, you guys got to figure it out.

(25:10):
I'm going to go. I picked the direction.
I'm just like I'm going to go West because I need to find
number six. I'm going that way.
And I I just used my compass, went W, found the trail, got
back on course, did what I needed to do, but I was way
behind. Yeah.
So you know you do get lost, notby your own F UPS, but other

(25:36):
people's too. It might be a risk that I'd be
willing to take if I was like inthe National, like a
championship falling like, like I like I said, some of the only
guy really knows, like Kelly andJordae.
If I was like following him and I could keep up with him, yeah,
I would probably trust his. That's.

(25:56):
True over other people. That's true.
So once you know, you do this for a while and you get to know
who's who in the orienteering world or in the adventure racing
world and you know. OK, so you know, I see so and so
down there from a distance, you know Johnny, Johnny Mapp, right,
whatever. You know, I'm like, ah, he's

(26:17):
been doing this for a long time.He knows what he's doing.
He's really good navigator. I'm just going to watch where he
goes or watch where he came from.
If he came from a control, wheredid he come from?
Yeah, you can use those tactics for sure.
We do. Then there are people who like,
if you get lost and you ask themwhere you are, they'll

(26:39):
completely ignore you as well. They don't have to help you.
So you can be like, you got to figure it out, man.
That's. I mean, 'cause I, I'm all about
like the sneakiness sometimes, like throwing people off my
scent. But at the same time, I guess, I
guess I wouldn't depend on the situation if they were like
seriously lost or if they were just trying to get an advantage

(27:03):
off of me. Right.
So, OK, so we also do that too. We also do specific things to
try to throw people off whenever, like whenever you get
a punch, you go around a certainway, don't come in the way the

(27:24):
same way you came out. Or if you see or hear other
people, you know, you, you creepoff into the distance and you
try to run away. There's other things that people
do. You, you don't want to give away
clues or locations or trails or the way to do something.

(27:45):
You really don't. It, it can be a competition.
It is a competition. Once you really get into this,
you're like, oh, it's not even acompetition with yourself with
improving, but it is a competition with other people.
So what about people like complete camouflage then?
Because that would seem like it would be a good.
You sure could. I mean, does anybody ever do
that? Probably, probably.

(28:10):
I'll be honest with you. We most of us so clothing wise,
like you have to wear pants and you have to wear long sleeves if
you're going to be bushwhacking,if you're doing a beginner's
course or a, you know, a intermediate course, you might
not go into the woods off trail,maybe a little bit.

(28:35):
So the risks you know, of going off trail are climbing over
logs, running through Jagger bushes, you know, briar thorn
trees, ticks, animal holes. I can't tell you how many animal
holes I've fallen into 'cause you're just you're dashing
through the woods, tripping overlogs, running through fields,

(29:00):
swamps. Next thing you know, you're
going through a bog and you're trying to go through a bog or
you fall into the bog. You climb out of the bog.
The, when you have a map and you're, so you get to like an
intersection or a turn on a trail and you know, the control

(29:22):
flag is 300 meters, you know, northeast and you use your
compass to take a bearing to that location.
You have to follow your compass straight on and just walk
straight towards it. No matter what you encounter.
It could be boulders you have toclimb over trees you have to go

(29:45):
around. It's, it's very difficult to do
that. And how far?
Like if you walked a certain distance, would you know how far
you walked? Not necessarily, but sometimes
you sort of after you ran for somany years, you sort of get a

(30:08):
feeling this should be a 10th. But if you're if you're going
slow, it's kind of hard to judge.
Right. Yeah, you do.
After you you do races for so long, you get an idea of how far
you've gone or how far you need to go.
Especially if you're bushwhacking.
If you're on a trail, would be alot easier to judge.
Right. Yeah, I would say if you're

(30:30):
bushwhacking or not knowing exactly where you're at, it's
definitely a lot harder. Yeah, So we we pace count as
well and that is challenging. A lot of people can't do it or
don't know how to do it, but a lot of people do it very well.
It's just practice. You measure how far just a

(30:50):
casual walk. What is it 100 meters and you
count that like my pace count isaround 70 for 100 meters.
But if you're walking through the woods, you're doing all
these little weird steps. So it's it's hard to judge.

(31:11):
Sometimes you're spot, spot on, sometimes you're not.
Sometimes it's much further. And when you're tired, your
pace, your pace is going to be longer because you're, you know,
the space in between your steps is going to be smaller.
So what? Do you guys have any like tick

(31:33):
checking parties afterwards? We do.
We try to, you know, you want totry to help each other out and
check each other out. Yeah.
Yeah, it just reminds me of thatsong.
I want to check you for Ticks orwhatever.
Who was that? It was like, it's been like 10
years since that song. Yeah, I was going to say I

(31:53):
haven't heard that in a long time.
You better play that as like theintro it.
Might be copyrighted. So the key, the key things that
you were saying people use to check in and out of the the
controls is that standard practice for like every event

(32:16):
just to for like scoring purposes or is there's like
other methods? Yeah.
So it's beginning, it's beginning to be standard before,
you know, electronics came into the world.
Orienteering started in military, you know, in what

(32:36):
probably the early 1900s, could have even been earlier than
that, 1800s. You know, the history of
orienteering is based out of Sweden, mostly other countries.
They take orienteering very seriously.
They learn it in high school. They have orienteering clubs in
high schools or maybe even, you know, younger than that.

(32:59):
It's considered, you know, one of the top sports in other
countries. So, you know, orienteering,
probably the skill of using a map has been around for a
bazillion amount of years and then using a compass has been
around for a bazillion amount ofyears, right?
Just to navigate ships, you know, airplanes, everything in

(33:21):
underwater. You need a there's you can use a
compass underwater, But so they used to do like a paper with a a
punch on it and you would get there or you would just write
down the letter and what time you were there.

(33:44):
Now they have the SI cards that you punch and it's electronic.
What's even cooler is the advanced version of the SI card
is you don't even have to punch it.
If it's they haven't what's called an SI error card where
you just have to run by the control.
You don't even have to stop. So imagine that saving time,

(34:06):
right? Nodding.
You have to stop, find that thing, punch it, pick your map
back up. Which way do I go?
If you have an air card, you just you just keep going.
You keep, you just fly by and itit gets you.
Yeah. But then how do you know if it
actually took then? Yeah, you have to just trust
that it did. Yeah.

(34:28):
Does it give like a light like atap like?
AI hear so I've never used them I've been to events where I've
seen other people using them andI hear that there's a beep that
happens when you but if you're close enough to hear the beep
cool, but if you're not I I forget the distance that it will

(34:49):
pick it up. I know it's on the Internet
there, but I think it's 20 feet don't quote me on that.
I think it's 20 feet. So if you're within 20 feet of
the control, it'll it'll pick itup, but can you hear the beep
within 20 feet? If especially if you're, you
know, pounding trail, you're probably not going to hear that

(35:09):
beep. So you just hope that it did.
Yeah, 'cause that's what I wouldbe worried about.
You did all that work and then you end up missing like 3 and
then you lose by like one or twojust because you didn't actually
do the, you didn't do the work. Yeah, well, once you start using
the SI card I hear. I have a friend that uses it,
the SI Air card. He was worried about that at

(35:31):
first too and he after the firstcouple times he had complete
confidence in it because it never not picked him up and
still has not. I think he's been using it a
year and a half and has never given him any issues so well.
With GPS and stuff in the middleof the woods, I would always
kind of be skeptical, but I mean, they're not going to put

(35:51):
something out there if it's not tested and.
I'm just going to say that, yeah, exactly.
I don't think the orienteering world would be using this if it
wasn't, you know, working Well, yeah, working probably has a
99.999%, you know, rate of working.

(36:13):
So why do you think it hasn't taken off here as much as it has
overseas? Is it just like our culture or
'cause I mean, we are sort of lazy when it comes to that sort
of thing. Yeah, I, I don't like to say
that about Americans, unfortunately, but, well,

(36:35):
reading in general, right? Maybe we're too reliant on our
technology, Yeah, compared to other people.
Exactly. Cultures.
Yes, yeah. And we have it available.
I remember. I mean, whenever I would take a
road trip with my dad and we would have this gigantic Atlas,

(36:56):
right? And you'd flip the pages and it
would have every state in every road.
And we would, he would ask me for directions.
You know, as we're going, it's like, what route do I, what exit
do I need? And what route are we going to
be going on? And you would have to plot all
it out before you would take a trip and have your paper there
and have somebody reading it to you.

(37:17):
If you got lost, you would have to stop and ask for directions.
But now, yeah, I remember when GPS first first started coming
out, we had like the little Garmin things that would set up
on the dash. And now it's super accurate
because we are all using it. And that information is, you
know, we're, we're providing them the information as we use

(37:39):
it. Well, I prefer I prefer the
technology now than compared to old days.
Yeah, yeah. Google Maps thing where you're
trying to drive. Look at a piece of paper, seeing
where your next turn is and thenyour.
Map MapQuest. MapQuest, Right?
Well, yeah. So nobody uses a paper math

(38:00):
anymore, right? And I think when you said that
you looked at that map, it it overwhelmed you and you couldn't
distinguish what all the symbolsmet, right?
So that would deter someone fromusing a map right there, not
understanding what it meant. Yeah, 'cause I think even with
our GPS, we got so many GPS signals or satellites now

(38:25):
compared to some of the other countries.
I don't want to throw a country out there then they have more
than us, but we'll just say likesome backward country, like like
you said, Sweden, like the Alps and stuff like that, where their
signals might not be as strong, so they have to rely on a map
more than we do. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. So I think that's another reason

(38:47):
why it's a lot more widely used sport mapping, navigating in
other countries because of that.Like more it's more rural, more
mountainous. Like if you're out in the

(39:07):
mountains, yeah, there might be satellites in the sky, but you
might not, might not be able to access them.
Just farm lands, you know, And if, if there is, same thing with
war. If a war is going on, you know,
you don't want to be using technology, so you have to have

(39:28):
a map. Well, back in the day, you have
to have a map, yeah. So how do you come up with
locations or waypoints for routes?
Yeah. So creating the courses, that
was a challenge. That was my.
So this is my first time creating an event.
I've participated in AI, participated in a lot of

(39:49):
different orienteering events. I've actually done orienteering
adventure races in Florida, where it's flat and there isn't
a lot of topographical lines. I'm Texas.
The state of Indiana, practically every state on the
East Coast, I have. So sometimes you're in the

(40:11):
mountains, sometimes you're not.So where it's more flat, it's
definitely you think it'd be easier.
You're just following roads and stuff.
So I thought creating these courses would be pretty easy
because I've I've done a good bit of it and I enjoy it and I
understand map reading. But once we have a program

(40:36):
called Purple Pen and you have to upload the map.
So mapping a location has to be done 1st.
And luckily since I belong to the Western Pennsylvania
Orientary Club and they've been around for many years, they have

(40:58):
a lot of locations mapped already.
The president, Jim Wolf, he has done almost all the mapping for
the maps that we have available.So a lot of the state parks,
Yellow Creek, Blue Spruce, Prince Galitzen, a lot of
Pittsburgh parks, Brick North Park, Raccoon Creek State Park,

(41:25):
We have a huge orienteering meetout there in March of every
year. It it's six hours long, covers
so much land. So he uploads those maps into
this program and then you pull it up and you have to say, so
you're creating a basic course. You have to pick like where two

(41:52):
roads meet or like a it's difficult.
It's difficult to pick a spot. What I was told, what I was
taught was pick, try to do it and maybe like a circular course

(42:16):
where they're going, like this way, this way, this way, this
way, this way. Because you don't want people to
just go out and back and out andback and out and back, right?
So and you want them to see coolfeatures.
I spent a lot of time out at Yellow Creek walking all the
trails, learning the trails, mountain biking the trails,

(42:38):
looking at cool features out there.
Some really beautiful trees. I had people go to there's a, a
term called a re entrant where the land curves down into where
the water flows and that's wherethe water reenters the the main

(43:01):
body of water. So all the little streams, you
know, tributaries come into like1 mainstream and then it enters
the reenters the body of water. So it's called a reentrant.
A friend of mine calls it a swell because that's where the
land swells, right? Or what would you call it?
A gully? The I don't know, I probably

(43:25):
have so many different names, whatever it pops in my head that
day. Yeah, so that that Creek down
there, right, that Creek down there, it's always down in
something. Yeah.
So there's some re entrance thatare really cool and beautiful
because there could be waterfalls there, you know, or
big rock formations. So I you try to pick locations

(43:48):
that you want people to see, especially if you're, they're
coming to a new park and you want them to have a good time,
see cool stuff, take them on a tour, take them to all the
locations in the park that are that you think is neat and you
want people to see. So you you pick these and you
try to pick a route that followsit well within the guidelines of

(44:16):
the distance and the time it would take them in that you
know, beginner, intermediate, advanced, you know, distance
wise and length of time. So how many controls usually are
there for a course? Yeah.
So it's different for a beginnercourse.

(44:41):
It could be, you know what, there's a chart for this.
A beginner course could have, I think it's within the, is it
orienteering? National Orienteering
Association has guidelines set for these.
So a white course, I'm just taking a guess here.

(45:02):
I think it's like 5 to 10 controls over a span of I think
it's 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 kilometers, something like that.
And then then there's a yellow course that could be 2 1/2
kilometers and have 12 controls.You know, as you advance in

(45:23):
further and further, it's a little bit more, a couple more
controls and a little bit longerof a distance.
But then a beginner course, you don't go off trail.
And then as you advance on, you go off trail and you have to use
your compass. So you make the controls more

(45:43):
difficult to find as the coursesadvance.
And all the courses they pretty much overlap then say like
beginner. All.
Right. So they're not trying to think
how to word that. So if you have like 4 different
advanced beginner intermediate like the first like we'll say 10

(46:10):
aren't the same for each one they might differ.
Right. They could, you can use some of
the controls you do. So out of the five courses I
created, I had a total of 35 controls throughout the park.
Most of them are pretty centrally located to the start.
And out of those 35, probably 25were pretty centrally located.

(46:35):
I used, I used those for different courses.
So white, yellow, orange, brown,they all use this, some of the
similar controls, but the advanced was way out there and
there was a lot of those that were alone.
So that's how it works. Yeah, they can't overlap, but
you want to also want to try, which was difficult each color

(46:59):
to start at a different control.So you don't want everybody just
going to the same first control.You want people going in
different directions. So it's pretty cool.
And there's a start and people are just shooting off in
different directions, you know, like, do they know where they're
going? You know, hopefully they're
going the right way. There was a control that I used

(47:24):
at Yellow Creek, the duck, I call it the Duck House.
Have you ever seen that house a duck building?
Duck Waterfowl. Yeah, not that I remember.
Oh, OK. It's, yeah, exactly.
So I specifically picked that location because I know a lot of
people have never seen this. And it's a building that's up on

(47:48):
stilts that's kind of out into the marsh where you can walk up
onto it and it's enclosed, like a hunting enclosure, but there's
peepholes so you can watch the birds.
You can't I I don't think you'reallowed to hunt from it.
But you can watch the waterfowl because there's at Yellow Creek.

(48:09):
There's so many different types of waterfowl out there.
It's beautiful. Yeah.
So I had people go to that, but I had most of the courses go to
that location, but from different angles, different
trails. Now, do you have to go from 1:00
to 2:00 or like say if you've missed one, like can you keep,

(48:31):
do you just keep going or do youhave to backtrack or any of that
like set of rules for that? Well, there are different events
that allow to you to visit different controls in different
order. Or like the event that I held,
you had to visit the controls inorder, so you had to go to #1

(48:55):
then #2, and then #3 and then #4and if you miss one, you're
considered DNF. So you do have to backtrack and
find it before you say you missed 4.
So some people missed four and some people missed 6 in the
courses. You do have to backtrack and

(49:16):
find that before you can proceedto 567 and 8.
If you skip it your DNF. But maybe you're just out there
to learn as well and you don't care.
And some people do care like I would.
I used to not care but now I'm like Dang I need to.
You have to get that before you continue on or doesn't count.

(49:40):
Yeah, 'cause that that would sort of suck if you have to go
in order and you get lost and then you end up with you end up
two numbers ahead because you'vegot lost now you have to
backtrack or. Yes, or you do.
So when you go up to a control, you can you check the number of
it and if it's say you're looking for number 7 and it's

(50:02):
#11 like, OK, I am definitely inthe wrong spot This is, but now
you know where you are. So it's kind of bittersweet to
find a different control flag then if if you know, then you're
like, oh, here I am, now I know how to get back to #7 It might
be close by. And then you have to go way out,

(50:23):
get 8910 and come back to 11. Yeah, it sucks.
It sucks a lot. Yeah, 'cause.
That can really add up the mileage pretty quickly.
It does. It does.
Yeah. The course estimates for
mileage. It's an estimate.
It's the map, it's the computer programs estimate of the

(50:46):
distance, but it's always on thelow end.
Pretty much anyone I've ever spoken with has always had, you
know, ended up with longer distance than what the map would
map program would estimate it tobe.

(51:07):
I guess I mean that makes sense because most mapping software
even for running it's, it's hardto get the valleys and the dips
and the turns accurately, especially, yeah, the
topographic stuff making use bigwords here.
GPS can't pick it up that well. So you're dipping down and going

(51:29):
up. It's going to be off the matter.
What? Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. And plus, you might not attack a
control from a good location. Maybe you've just poorly chose

(51:50):
a, which happens all the time. You know, as you get to know the
map, there's things that you don't see.
It's on the map, but it might not have.
You might not have fully thoughtabout it before you attacked it
because you were in such a hurry.
You're like, OK, I'm just going to go to this turn.
Take a bearing, run in, but maybe it would have been easier

(52:11):
to run up to the next intersection and go back in a
little bit. We might have saved time and
distance, but then you're like, oh, you do you come out that way
and you're like, damn, I should have done that.
That happens all the time. But it's a it's a learning
experience. There's so much to learn about
these. So like scoring is basically

(52:31):
whoever gets them all or the most in the allotted time then?
Yeah, in the allotted time or the fastest.
So say for the advanced course, trying to think how many
controls I had, 12 or 13, I forget.
You have to get all of them to say 13.

(52:53):
I don't know. You have to get all 13 to be
considered, you know, official finisher.
But then who got all 13 the fastest?
So then they are ranked #1. So let's just say pretty speedy.
So I get the 1st 11 done in likean hour and then it takes me two

(53:13):
hours to get the last three. So that's three hours total.
But I was I was faster getting 11 done than person B.
Does that matter at all? No, it's your total time.
But you can see that there are, there is a website that those

(53:35):
statistics actually can be uploaded to.
There's probably there might even be two websites, but the
website I use, it's called Attack Point.
There's a lot of different orienteering clubs across the
world, but we have some local ones.
We have a Western Pennsylvania, we have Delaware Valley, we have
Quantico. Ohio has a couple clubs.

(54:00):
So from what I've seen, they canupload their statistics for
everybody and for how long it took them to go from #1 to #2 to
#3 and you can pull up a graph and compare yourself to other
people and be like, OK, I was the fastest going from 2:00 to
3:00, but I might have been the slowest going from 7:00 to 8:00

(54:22):
and I may have finished, you know, middle of the road.
How did and then you can see howlong it, how did number one do
so well right and how fast they were going from each one to each
one. Sometimes you do faster than the
than the number one person. So it's overall like an average

(54:43):
of your time, a total of your time.
Yeah, not everybody navigates 100% correctly all the time.
Yeah. Well, then things happen in the
woods. You go to the bathroom, you need
a snack. Yes.
But having that statistic, I think it would be beneficial
especially for learning or for beginners, because then you

(55:04):
could judge be like, all right, I know what I was doing here.
Then I made a mistake here and this is what this is where I
would have finished what cost meso.
Yeah, that would. Makes.
That would make pretty good sense I guess.
It's really cool. I love looking at those
statistics. Yes, and and it helped.
That. Yeah, me too.
But it helps you improve, doesn't it?

(55:24):
You're like, OK, so I took 10 minutes here because I couldn't
open my bag of gummies, right? And I had to stop and fiddle
with it or a zipper or who knowswhat, right?
You're like, OK, so next time I'm gonna have my bag of gummies
opened already. All I gotta do is pull it out
and put, you know, eat it, whichis what I.

(55:44):
Want I just feel like I should have.
I definitely should have went this way instead of should have
used the trail instead of bushwhacking.
Yeah, so what's really cool about adventure racing is they
have trackers on usually the bigger races, they have trackers
on everyone and it is live tracking.

(56:07):
There's a few companies that do that and one of the most popular
ones, the one I, I've raced for this guy a couple times, it's
called enabled tracking. So you wear a tracker on you and
every 5 minutes it updates your location so you can actually see
on a map where everyone is and how they attack that control and

(56:28):
which trail they took. It is everything it is.
So it's interesting, frustratingwhen you're watching it.
Somebody's going the wrong way, you're just yelling at the
screen. I've had people tell me that
they've watched me race on Teamsand we were going the wrong way

(56:49):
and they were just screaming at us.
But then you know they're in. You're cheering for people when
you see them going the right wayand you see what the top teams
did and how they attacked thingsand you learn.
Oh. Crap, I know I should have
remembered this the movie. Oh.

(57:10):
Crap. Oh, I forget the name of it with
Mark. Goldberg, yeah.
And it just came out. Hold on.
Were they in part of the movie? Where they got to a valley and
then they got, they tried to save time but it was like a zip
line. Yeah, so it was about the dog.
Yes, right. Oh, my God.

(57:31):
Our Arthur the King. Yes, which was actually a
really. Good movie.
It was about the dog. Great movie.
Love that movie. Yeah.
So if anybody wants a good semi good example of what Expedition
racing is like, very long drawn out adventure racing and very,

(57:54):
very, very long orienteering, then that that's definitely a
good movie to watch. Yeah.
So they're tracked in that and you can actually in the movie, I
think his wife is and daughter are watching him on the TV and
they say there's daddy's dot, right.
So a friend of mine has a dot watching thing now.

(58:17):
Oh, he's going to kill me for saying that, but it's called, I
think I forget what I forget what it's called, but dot
watching. So that's what we do when we're
watching other teams compete in adventure and expedition
racings. We're watching their dot.
But it's really it's really, really cool.
You can get caught up in it so hard it.

(58:43):
It'd be worse than watching a live Ultra.
It yeah, exactly. It's way worse than that yeah.
So people have the option of going whatever direction they
want to they're not following a course right.
And people make mistakes yeah, and sometimes they don't the top
teams always make mistakes navigating.

(59:10):
They just have a lot of experience and like, say one
person on the team is is a navigator and you know, they're
experienced in that. So yeah, they do.
They do really well with a lot of experience.
I've definitely improved significantly.
I love it. I love it.

(59:35):
Yeah, yeah, I was there, not there for a second.
Like what are the cost for events?
Yeah. So for a local orienteering
event, it's $5. That's it for for a map.
So you you can register or show up on a day and pay $5 is.

(59:57):
That Is that pretty standard then?
Yeah, pretty standard to be honest with you.
I just registered for a nationally ranked event in York
in about a month from now and because it's a nationally ranked
event it it's only costing me $20.
How much cheaper is that than trail races, right?

(01:00:19):
Or even a 5K. Yeah.
Can't even find a 5K now. You're 20 bucks or $5, right?
Yeah. And, and you're going to be out
there covering the same distanceI paid.
Actually, I paid $36 for two races, one on a Saturday and one

(01:00:41):
on a Sunday. So I'm going to be covering
probably 1617 kilometers, maybe 20K over the course of two days.
And I paid 36 dollars, Yeah. So it's pretty cheap.
That's right, 20K, about 1/2 marathon.
Right. Yeah.
Making me do math though. So, OK, OK, I was going to say

(01:01:07):
it's very cost efficient for kids and families too.
So that is, oh, I'd say half of the people that attend the
orienteering events is families.You know, there's been fella and
his daughters coming to our lastcouple of events and they just
love it. Boy Scouts, Girl Scout troops,

(01:01:32):
you know, they even have a badgefor orienteering, for compass
and they come out we, this last event, I can't tell you how many
Boy Scout troop showed up. Probably probably 20-30 kids,
you know, with the adults at my event, which was great.
I was so excited to have all these kids out there learning

(01:01:53):
the maps and they had a good time.
Everybody had such a great time.It's fun.
Well, I think is it's even I would say since it's it's a
competition, but it's not a cutthroat competition.
So there's not as much stress orangst I guess at the start or
finish. Like you're there doing your own

(01:02:15):
thing than. Anything you need, you need to
be there whenever people are starting and see the stress.
Well, I'm sure there's a few, but I mean like it just seems
like it's more of a laid back. It it, it, it is.
It can be. Yeah.
A nationally ranked event. Oh, I've been to a few of those.

(01:02:41):
It's stressful, very stressful. Because you do.
The thing about those events is you are not allowed to see the
map ahead of time. Same with adventure racing.
Most of the time you're not allowed to see the map ahead of
time. You get the map at the start and
you boom, go read the map immediately.

(01:03:03):
There's no for planning. But the local events that we
have, we're not trying to, you know, hurt people or kill
people. We want people to come back and
we want people to have fun. So you can see the map and you
can plan your route ahead of time.
We want you to learn. Yeah.
So for kids, yeah, take the map and figure it out.

(01:03:26):
Figure out what your route's going to be.
Now, how early do you get to seethe math then for local events?
Yeah, well, say, say the event starts at 11.
You can show up at 11 and get the map and then take as long as
you need pretty much up until a certain point.
You have to start by a certain time to be able to finish by a

(01:03:47):
certain time. Say our event goes from 11:00 AM
to 3:00 PM. You can get the map and study it
for an hour, an hour and a half if you wanted to.
But you're not. You're not releasing like days
in advance. Correct.
Not releasing days in advance, correct.
Yeah, that would. Yeah, that would lead to some

(01:04:07):
cheating and on the watches and drawing up.
It would. That's what I was kind.
Of wondering. It probably would, yeah, Yeah.
So with it being so cheap, like what are prizes or awards or
anything like that? Yeah, there's, there's have been
different prizes and awards of, you know, all sorts.

(01:04:31):
You know, like when you do trailraces, you get homemade awards,
monetary awards. I've won money at a few I've won
earlier this year. I was first in my category and I
want a really cool orienteering flag that the president of the

(01:04:52):
club's wife made, which is unique because not a lot of
people have this. You have to get first place to
win this. And it's super cute, you know?
So I was, I'm very lucky to havethat award.
Miniature versions of the flags,all kinds of stuff, you know,
you know, like trail races. Do you, you roll in and some

(01:05:15):
people give out medals, ribbons at the end of it.
Some of them have finisher medals for everybody.
And then they announce the winners afterwards.
And then they get, you know, specific prizes or some of a
couple that I've done, they'll give you money towards the next

(01:05:36):
race. I mean, yeah.
And and bragging rights, man, Bragging rights.
I know, but you know me. I like my prizes.
Yeah, I think you like bragging rights.
No, that's true. Yeah, I try to stay humble.
It can be hard. Sure.

(01:05:59):
So how did your first race directing experience go and what
can you improve on or do you want to improve on for the next
one? Yeah, it went amazing.
It it took me a couple months todesign the courses.
You have to go out and learn thetrails in the area and design

(01:06:19):
the course and go back and forthwith I, the president helped me,
the president of the club helpedme design the courses.
I created them, submitted them to him.
And then he came back with me and said, yes, this is good.
No, this isn't good. Let's talk about this.
You, you know, This is why you did this wrong.

(01:06:41):
So it's a learning experience that took, oh boy, 4-5 weeks, I
think. And then once the courses were
finalized, I go out and hang up ribbons in each of the
locations. Then to check for accuracy, we

(01:07:03):
have someone that's called a course vetter, like a veteran,
that goes out and finds all the pink ribbons to check that I put
them in the right location. I'll tell ya, there were two
that I did not put in the correct location because I read
the map wrong. I know.
Yeah. So that is why we have someone

(01:07:26):
to check it. So once he checks them and
everything's agreed upon and plus he gives feedback to like
you're just there are descriptions for each of the
controls. It it could be like trail
intersection or bridge or a Cairn, a cops, which is a
grouping of trees, a re entrant,a boulder, different thing, a

(01:07:51):
ruin. There's a lot of ruins out there
in the woods. So he could give a feedback on
OK, I didn't I don't like your description for this, you know,
trail junction, re entrant thing.
So we, you know, we change things around, we talk about it
why and such and such. So then the the president

(01:08:11):
finalized the map to set things right to be readable for the
public. So I would say it took me about
3 months from start to finish, although experienced people I
would think would be sooner. But the day of the day of the
event was amazing. The weather was beautiful,

(01:08:33):
perfectly warm like low 70s, nice warm breeze coming off the
lake. It didn't rain until way at the
end when we had to pick up the controls, but all the
participants didn't and you know, have to involve any rain
and everyone was happy. I got lots of good feedback.

(01:08:56):
People who have a lot of experience gave me a couple
suggestions, but overall it was great.
We we had I don't know how many participants, probably close to
50, but 36 maps were purchased. So groups come and they buy one
map and share it, but, and that's pretty good for a little

(01:09:21):
Pennsylvania park pretty good. It was a great day.
Yeah, you, you seemed the good spirits when I was there.
Yeah, it was great. Nothing went wrong and every
control was in the correct location on the map.
There weren't any issues, Peoplecoming back saying this was
wrong, everything was good. Yeah, I think when I was there,

(01:09:41):
there was a mixed bag of people.When I say mixed bag, I mean
there's like the beginners, the advanced, you know,
intermediate, like coming and going and just you can see
people like hustling and bustling because they're
sweating. And then you just see people
like casually walking in. So it was, I think it was a
almost a perfect time to show up, except for maybe the start,

(01:10:05):
but then you're you only get to see like.
Yeah. It the start would be kind of a
little weird place I guess. Yeah, you showed up at the right
time because you saw people coming in and their facial
expressions, right? You saw a couple people who had
to have been running the entire time and they were exhausted.
Couple of dudes sitting in the grass.

(01:10:25):
The one guy was huffing and puffing.
A couple guys were huffing and puffing.
They when they were coming in, coming in.
And you know, you know, it is when you come back from a race
and you can't talk and you're thirsty and you're like, OK, let
me catch my breath here. And then there are people who
just went out. They wanted to hike in the
woods. They just wanted a fun day in
the woods. You know, I had a couple friends
that found some chicken in the woods.

(01:10:47):
Mushrooms told me about some cool things.
They saw the trees, you know, the duck house.
That's what I wanted. I wanted happiness when they
come back. And they were all very happy to
have had a good time in the woods.
No matter what it is your goal is if you're out for exercise,

(01:11:08):
you're out to run. You're out to compete against
yourself, to improve. You just want to enjoy your your
group of people, your family, you know, learn something new,
use your, you know, challenge your brain while you're out in
the woods breathing the fresh air with the sunshine.
Yeah, it's it's absolutely lovely.
Yeah, that's, I guess you you said it better than I did when I

(01:11:30):
said mixed bag, but that that's sort of what I meant.
Like you had all walks, like allwalks of life Slash.
Ages, abilities, desires of whatthey wanted out of the day.
Yes, absolutely. And then I, I had discussions
with people that couldn't find aspecific control and what they

(01:11:51):
did wrong. And now I know from my point of
view when I F something up and Ican't find something, I come in,
I'm like, where was this? And you know, what did I do
wrong? And you're frustrated in that
about it. You want to talk with someone
about it. So you talk with the event
director, the person who createdthe courses, you know, and now I

(01:12:13):
see it from that point of view. It's great.
It does bring things full circle, like I know it's running
my races. It just makes things so much
easier. Yeah, yeah.
You're like, oh, this is what it's like on the other side.
And you, you think when you're, when you're coming in mad about
something, right? And then you, you complain to

(01:12:36):
the the director and they're just in and they're nodding
their head at you now. You know, you're like you're
crazy, 'cause you're probably the only one, maybe maybe the
only one complaining about that.Or unless there's a group of
people that complain, then they'll say, Oh yeah, I heard
about that already, we'll fix that next time kind of thing

(01:12:57):
that happens. Yeah, so.
Is there any rules people shouldknow beforehand?
No GPS. No GPS.
Yeah, unless you want to cheat or you get lost.
Can't use GPS. I mean, you could try to ask for

(01:13:24):
help from people, but you know you don't weren't they're not
obligated to help you. So don't get mad if someone
doesn't help you, someone ignores you.
It's, you know, you don't have to help people.
In the old 90s, give them the 90s.
Right. Like I'm not talking to you.
Yeah, Yep. And I that happens.

(01:13:46):
That happens and there are some roles sometimes, specifically in
regards to different types of courses, like the ones I
created, you have to follow themin order one through 10.
Some of the other ones, the different types of courses
there's I think it's called likea score orienteering where each

(01:14:13):
control point is worth differentpoints.
So you get to get the map and try to design your route to
obtain the most amount of pointsin like an hour and a half.
So that I did that one of those three weeks ago.
I didn't do too shabby. So but you the only rules with

(01:14:36):
that one. You don't have to find them in
order, but you do have to be back within an hour and a half.
And if for every the way that one worked, for every minute
you're late, you were deducted 7points.
It's pretty significant point deduction.
If you are late, do not be late.Yep.

(01:14:59):
What about finding out events? Yeah, so the of course we have
Facebook. We have a a Facebook page for
the Western Pennsylvania Orienteering club.
Pretty much all orienteering clubs have Facebook pages and
events you can type in, you know, orienteering or maps.

(01:15:20):
You can find a map instruction class.
That's what I did. Compass, you know, state parks.
Then we also have a website and sometimes we put out Flyers and

(01:15:40):
yeah, advertise any way we possibly can.
State Park websites, Friends of the Parks, they have an event
calendar. Sometimes we're included in
that. Word of mouth is a big one.
You could become a member of theOrienteering Club.
It's not. It's $12.00 for an individual.
It's pretty cheap. And then you get a discount for

(01:16:03):
every time you want to orienteer.
Jesus. Christ.
Yeah. Guys got to like help your game
a little bit and start charging.People.
Well, you know what, though? There's people, what do I say,
donate a lot of money actually to these.
There's a lot of people who are members who don't even show up
to meet. So like we're a nonprofit or

(01:16:27):
they're, you know, the OrientaryClub is nonprofit organization,
but they're doing fine. Yep, they're not trying to make
money, but they and then they donate money as well.
So it's a very charitable organization.
That's nice to hear because mostother races are not so much.
Some of them are not, Yeah. Do you have any tips for new

(01:16:52):
people or a tip in general you want to share?
Yeah, talk to people about it when like don't be afraid to try
it. It's not difficult even if you
don't know how to read a map. That's what I usually hear from
people when I suggest this. They say I don't know how to
read a map. OK, that's all the more reason

(01:17:13):
you should go. And it's much easier than
reading an at like a road Atlas or sometimes even looking at the
GPS. There's so much going on on
there. One of these maps is actually
more simpler than AGPS map. So don't be afraid to try it.

(01:17:35):
It's very easy and and most of the people standing around are
very happy that you're there andvery glad they they are very
glad to help you. So you know, I would love to
take someone to an orienteering meet and have them come along
with me. That would be wonderful.

(01:17:56):
So if anybody out there wants todo that, let me know.
I will gladly take you with me. Any anything else you wanted to
add? Bring water.
Don't get dehydrated out there. We have water stops.
But Pete, what happens if you get lost, right?

(01:18:17):
You're screwed. Yeah, yeah, bring water.
That's my tip. I think that's about it.
I know my head's like, I don't want to say my head's hurting,
but it's 'cause like the whole time, like I might not have been
engaged as much because I was trying to like learn as you're.

(01:18:38):
Understand. Yes.
Like and soak it in. So like I'm not wasn't as
engaged with you as maybe some other people because like I'm
trying to learn. And understand.
Yeah, I hope people don't get that impression if they're
listening to this, like, becausethis was actually like a
learning experience for me more than like.
A. Podcast, like I was doing a

(01:18:58):
podcast, but I wanted to learn. So like I'm trying to soak it up
in a little bit. So, well, hopefully I said some
words that will lead you into directions to learn more about
it. It can be very complicated if
you get very competitive with it.
Obviously that's any sport. There's so many intricate things

(01:19:23):
to learn. But basically it's it's a walk
in the woods. It's a scavenger hunt.
Well, my competitive nature sortof kept me from doing it.
Like you said, well, come with you.
But then I don't want to be yelling at you in the middle of
the woods. What the hell did you do?
You got us lost. We're going along.
With you. That's OK.
That's OK. Yeah, that happens.

(01:19:45):
We all get lost. What was I going to say?
I forget. It's hard for trail runners,
actually, because you want to bemoving fast.
Sometimes you have to move slower to pay attention to your

(01:20:05):
surroundings and read the map. So imagine trying to reading,
read that map and run on trails,too.
It can be difficult. Yeah.
So sometimes I have to. I try not to stop completely,
but slow down and read the map. As I'm looking and watching

(01:20:25):
where I'm going. So you have to watch where
you're going and watch where you're going.
That makes sense. I always like the I like the
trip in the middle of the woods so I don't I look at my watch
more than I should. Uh huh.
I think that's about it. That's pretty good stopping
point I guess, unless you have something else to add.

(01:20:49):
Oh, that's a lot. Yes, yes, it definitely is,
Yeah. I don't want to overwhelm
anybody. Yeah, but if anybody has any
questions, feel free to contact me.
You know, I'm on Facebook. Kimberly Stewart.
Pretty basic. Just holler at me like, hey, I
want to do this. Come, come along.
For sure. No matter.
We can run, we can walk. Doesn't matter.

(01:21:13):
I will be glad to take you out there and show you orienteering.
All right, well, it was nice chatting with you and I was
happy that I actually got to come Sunday for a little bit
because it helped me understand a little bit and I was able to
ask some more questions. I think better questions today

(01:21:33):
than I would have if I didn't come.
So very happy I got to see it first hand before attempting.
Yes, I'm yeah, I'm glad you got to see that it it's a lot to
take in. So all right, I'll let you go
and oh, sure, I'll see you soon.Thank you.
Yes. Thank you so much.

(01:21:56):
Thank you for listening to the episode today.
If you or anyone you know has any amazing stories, adventures,
or interesting information you or they may want to share,
please reach out to me anytime. On the next screen you could
scan the QR code or type in the Linktree website to easily find
all the social media locations only iathletics is located.

(01:22:17):
Take a second and hit the followbutton as you visit each one.