Rogaine Planning
Geoff Mead
Hints and tips on planning a rogaine run
Rogaine is the sport of cross country navigation in which individuals or teams visit as many check points as possible within a given time. The NWOC rogaine series run in the April-June period each year and features three or four 90 minutes events (details and enter online at: http://rogaineseries.co.nz/).
Competing in a rogaine will: use your orienteering map reading and navigational skills; be a great 90 minute physical workout; be fun and social, everyone starts and finishes at the same time and you can compete as an individual or a team; challenge your route planning and decision making skills.
A rogaine is very different from a traditional orienteering event in that you have to work out what check points to visit and the routes between them to maximize your check point score within the 90 minutes. Competitors have about 30 minutes planning time with the event map before the start time to plan their route and what check points to visit. How do you plan your rogaine route during this planning stage? Here are some hints and tips:
Homework before the event
Look at some of your previous rogaine and orienteering event maps and results, and calculate your average number of minutes taken to complete a km of an event (mins/km). You will likely need a piece of string to measure your actual distance travelled (not the straight line on the map) and remember that in a rogaine you are likely to be faster than in a traditional O event (2/3 of rogaine controls are easy or moderate navigation and there is likely to be more people to “follow” in a rogaine). Do this for a range of terrain types as your mins per km is likely to vary between a flat “fast” Woodhill map and a green, hilly Riverhead map. A sleek M21E runner about to head off to the World Orienteering Champs is likely to be running 5 mins/km on a Woodhill map, while a decaying and broken veteran might be stumbling along at 15 to 20 mins/km on the same map? If you wear a GPS you will already have a good idea of your km rates in different terrain.
Bring to the rogaine
- A piece of string that is the length of how many km’s (at the map scale) you have calculated you will run in the 90 minutes. For example if your estimated km rate for the 28 May Stoneybrook event is 10 min kms then your plan is to cover 9 km in the 90 minutes. So you will have a 90 cm piece of string. (Map scale is 1:10,000, so 1cm on the map = 100m on the ground, so 10cm on the map = 1 km.)
- A highlighter pen.
- A watch (amazing how many people forget one).
Rogaine planning time
- Ignore the buzz of the crowd and advice provided by your “friends” like let’s go for all the controls.
- On the map look for any “easy clusters” of check points that are close together and easy to connect up (eg no big hills, no green terrain, etc). Highlight these check points.
- Then use your length of string overlaid on the map to figure out a route that covers the “easy clusters” of check points and as many other check points as well. Try different options and add up the check point score for each option. Watch out for excessive climb and slow terrain that may destroy your expected mins/km rate of travel.
- This process should give you a route that is likely to maximise your check point score for the distance you can travel in 90 minutes.
Then fine tune the route
- From about the half-way point of your course plan a short way (less check points) back to the finish and a long way back (extra check points) to the finish. During the event when you get to this half way point, if you are under 45 minutes take the long version home, conversely if over 45 minutes take the short way home.
- Leave a low value check point (or two) close to the finish “spare”. If you are nearing the finish with a minute or two in hand pick up the “spare” check point, if you are out of time miss it out. Ideally you will get to the finish in about 88 or 89 minutes. Don’t go over 90 minutes and suffer penalty (negative) points.
- Highlight your planned route on the map. Including attack points for the more challenging (50 point) check points.
- I also draw on my map an arc that is one km from the finish. This is to help in the decision making for the last 15 minutes of the event, when the brain is lacking oxygen and the legs are shot. It is very easy to wreck a good rogaine score in this last 15 minutes by coming back to the finish too early or too late. I use this 1 km arc to ensure I am on or inside this line at the 80 minute mark of the event.
Good luck with the rogaine run. At home after the event review how your plan worked out and refine your techniques for the next rogaine.
Further reading
Route planning for a rogaine is an example of the well-known mathematical travelling salesman problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem
You can play an online rogaine game http://rogopuzzle.co.nz
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