How to find your way around orienteering
When you go for a run, you need a supportive pair of running shoes, some comfortable, sweat-wicking kit and perhaps a GPS running watch if you want to track your stats. You’ll likely follow a known, pre-planned route and use the run to disengage your mind, destress your senses and let your body just go.
But what if you were to add a touch more adventure, some strategic thinking and plenty more twists and turns to the mix – and a physical map and compass to guide you from A to B? (No, we’re not talking about Google Maps.) Welcome to orienteering.
But, if you’ve never tried it before, how do you plot your entry into orienteering? You’d be forgiven for lacking direction – but it’s easier to get up to speed with it than you think. We spoke with two accomplished GB orienteering competitors, Megan Carter-Davies and Ralph Street, to discover what orienteering involves, what makes it special and why this year’s World Orienteering Championships, taking place in Edinburgh from 11-16 July, will offer seasoned elites and first-time amateurs alike the chance to give this sport their best shot.
What is orienteering?
Orienteering is an adventure sport where you navigate between various checkpoints, known as controls, using a special orienteering map and traditional compass. Often held on technical terrain or in complex environments, orienteering employs both your mind and body so you can shift your way from start to finish, via each control, as quickly as possible.
Controls are clearly marked on orienteering maps and distinguished in the terrain by white and orange flags, and competitors must usually visit these controls in a preset order. In races, for fairness, a competitor won’t receive their unique orienteering map until they start, with starts themselves normally staggered at one-minute intervals or more. The fastest route is not necessary the shortest, nor is it the most straightforward to find.
In fact, orienteering is deliberately intended to test your thinking skills as much as your speed. Born in Sweden in the late nineteenth century, it was originally used as a training exercise in land navigation for military officers. The first orienteering competition for civilians was then held in Norway in 1897, with the sport later growing in popularity across Scandinavia and other parts of Europe and the UK.
What are the different types of orienteering?
While orienteering actually comprises four official disciplines – foot orienteering (FootO), mountain bike orienteering (MTBO), ski orienteering (SkiO) and trail orienteering (TrailO) – foot orienteering is the subject of discussion here. Why? Because it is the oldest and most popular version of the sport – and it involves plenty of running.
Orienteering takes several formats, too, just as running diversely entails track sprints, trail ultramarathons, road races and cross-country, for example.
For a start, orienteering events can be held at day or at night, where competitors use headlamps to search for controls, covered with reflective markers, in the dark. Classic – or ‘long’ – orienteering competitions last anywhere between 75 and 90 minutes for elite participants, while ‘middle’ competitions can be won in around 30 minutes and ‘sprint’ events in 12-15 minutes.
What’s more, competitors can compete in individual events, team contests or relay races. Great Britain won silver in the mixed sprint relay at the 2022 World Orienteering Championships in Denmark, the four-strong team consisting of Carter-Davies, Street, Charlotte Ward and Kris Jones.
Where does orienteering take place?
While most orienteering events take place outside in natural, rural environments – think forests, fells, moorland and heathland – you can also do sprint orienteering races in urban spaces like city parks, university campuses and even indoor venues. The annual World Orienteering Championships alternate each time, with even years hosting urban sprint events and odd years hosting forest events. As such, the 2024 World Orienteering Championships, held in the historic Scottish capital of Edinburgh, will adopt an urban sprint format.
Carter-Davies – who also won individual sprint gold at the 2022 World Orienteering Championships – lives in South Wales, where she has the nearby fells of the Brecon Beacons as an orienteering training ground.
Street, meanwhile, resides in Scandinavia – orienteering’s motherland – since the training environments are even wilder, the orienteering clubs are even bigger and the competition is, currently, that bit higher. ‘There’s more status to orienteering here,’ he notes, speaking from his home in Norway, having previously lived in Sweden. ‘You’re working with more people in the field at your level, and it does encourage you to work harder.
‘To explain it to runners, perhaps – you know that most elite runners have gone to Kenya to train at some point. Coming to Scandinavia for orienteering is the same sort of thing.’
How much running does orienteering involve?
As noted, being a keen and consistent runner – or someone who is ready to start running for the first time – is extremely helpful for orienteering, as you’ll be covering ground on foot as fast as you can.
Elite-level orienteer competitors can run a great deal faster than you might imagine. Carter-Davies can run 5K in under 17 minutes and 10K in just over 35 minutes, and Street’s 10K PB is a super-swift 31:23. With Carter-Davies and Street both confirmed, again, for the GB squad at this year’s World Orienteering Championships, it makes sense that running still plays an enormous part of their training.
‘I run seven days a week and some of those running sessions are orienteering, so you’re in the forest with a map, looking for controls,’ says Street. ‘And that’s the technical training – and sometimes it’s slow and sometimes it’s fast. I try to do three sessions a week, which might involve two sessions of intervals and maybe a race at the weekend.’
Carter-Davies, too, likes to mix up her orienteering training with some straight running races on the track, road or trails wherever she can.
What other skills do you need for orienteering?
In orienteering you, quite literally, need to think on your feet and be willing to use and hone your problem-solving skills. But perhaps the most important skill to master is learning how to read an orienteering map. After all, the last thing you want is to be a confident and competent runner who then gets lost due to navigational mishaps.
‘Try and find someone who can help you with navigation – because I think navigation is quite a scary thing,’ says Street, highlighting the value of orienteering coaches and clubs in helping you to become map-literate. ‘Maybe they’ll walk you through some simple steps, follow you around the course and point out some things. But part of the enjoyment of orienteering is the success of finding the control and doing it properly – and chasing that.’
And since orienteering maps follow the same format across the world, learning how to read them has universal benefit. ‘It’s like learning a new language, because you have to learn all these symbols,’ says Street. ‘But what’s really cool is that you can then go and do orienteering in Japan – because the language of the map is exactly the same.
‘Orienteering is a running sport with navigation,’ he adds. ‘And the sad thing is, if you go and ask ChatGPT to generate an AI photo of orienteering, you’ll get the backpack and the walking poles. And that’s just so far away from the truth. Basically, you’re runners with extra special skills.’
Do you need special orienteering kit?
An orienteering kit list will encompass, yes, a compass, along with a real-life, physical orienteering map and possibly a whistle for safety purposes. It goes without saying that GPS and other navigational devices are banned from orienteering competitions – so put away your phone.
In terms of apparel, any well-fitting, breathable running kit that suits the weather and season will serve you well. And when it comes to shoes, choose a comfortable, supportive pair that suits your chosen orienteering terrain – trail shoes will serve you best on rural or forested courses, while daily trainers or carbon plate running shoes could be a better choice for urban sprint events.
For the more extreme environments of Sweden, however, Street often opts for shoes that are a little more robust.
‘You can get special orienteering shoes which have tiny metal spikes in the middle of studs at the bottom of the soles,’ he says. ‘We call them dobs. They give you better grip on, say, wet rock or wet wood – so, they’re a bit like spikes in trail shoes.’
But that doesn’t mean you need to rush out to locate a pair of these unusual shoes before you start orienteering. ‘In Britain, you probably don’t need the metal – it’s just a Scandinavian thing,’ continues Street.
What exactly are the World Orienteering Championships?
Taking place from 11-16 July, the 2024 World Orienteering Championships will see international teams descend upon the host city of Edinburgh to compete in a series of individual and relay urban sprint orienteering races.
Here, elites including Carter-Davies and Davies will tackle complicated urban courses that weave through the city’s historic and cultural hotspots, while spectators can watch the action for free.
But, if spectating is not enough, amateurs of all generations experience levels will be able to take part in orienteering races and activities as part of the wider WOC Tour, which will run simultaneously and encompass the World Orienteering Championships. As such, the WOC Tour is an orienteering festival for all, where juniors, masters, novices and elites alike can partake in the sport together.
‘It’s a really special opportunity to get to run a home World Championships,’ says Carter-Davies, looking ahead to the elite competitions. ‘Being able to compete in front of everyone who has helped you along the way to get to where you are now is something really special! I think Edinburgh will be a great host city and it will be a lot of fun to have so many friends and supporters there.
‘And while it felt like we had luck on our side [at the 2022 World Orienteering Championships] in Denmark, I think it’s very possible for the GB team to be just as successful in this World Championships, too.’
You can learn more and find out how to get involved in the 2024 WOC Tour here.
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