How long is the rope?

Around 16 junior orienteers and 9 or so parents from the east of Scotland went to St Magdalene’s Hill in Perth last weekend for a morning of coaching. This involved being put through their paces and answering the question: How long is the rope?

Stepping in to take the lead on the day at very short notice was coach Matthew Clark from KFO who said:

“Our east area coaches Judy, Rona and Roger brought their considerable experience into play. They designed some great exercises to develop skills on distance estimation, which is a really important skill for getting faster in races.

“The juniors started with pace-counting, checking their estimates against a 50 metre rope along paths and then in terrain.

“We covered some map work with controls helpfully located 150 metres apart to help us find them using pace-counting.

“The accompanying parents also got a taste of the lessons too, with Roger. This makes the east area coaching a worthwhile day out for family members.”

The day was run in parallel with a session for the members of host club Tayside, so the hill was busy with orienteers.

This east area junior session followed on from the first of the year at Corstorphine Hill in Edinburgh. The next stop will be Saturday 20th May near Plean in Stirlingshire for a session combined with the west area team.

Big thanks to Judy Bell from ESOC stepping in to support Matthew, Rona Molloy, supporting pupils from her school, for leading the warm up and Roger Scrutton from ESOC for fitting this into an already busy period controlling other events.

Without coaches it is difficult to provide these great sessions.

If you are a junior at orange and above standard and want to join in the fun – contact your club about training for juniors.