- Which feedback can you get from different tools for o-technical analysis, and how useful are they for trainers and runners? This was the question asked in a scientific study performed by Hans Jørgen Kvåle and Kim André Sveen in a study they did as part of the course “Pedagogics with Sport focus” at the Dalarne high school this spring. Hans Jørgen Kvåle is one of the best Norwegian ski-orienteers.

The study is quite extensive – resulting in a 77-page report – including all the background material. Unfortunately for international readers the report is in Norwegian language. If you understand Norwegian, it is well worth a read, though.

Evaluation methods

The study looks at several different evaluation methods,

• Split time analysis
• Drawing your own route on the map after the training/competition
• Analyzing GPS-track
• Headcam-video worn by the runner (analyzed along with GPS-track)
• Headcam-video by somebody running behind the runner (analyzed along with GPS-track)
• Mapreading analysis with automatic mapreading device (accelerometer) – also called AMRD

The report concludes that the use of headcam-video synchronized with GPS-track was the most useful for o-technical analysis. 3DRerun was used for the headcam-synchronization in the study. The report also concluded that it is important to always draw your route after the training/competition as the first part of the analysis. The automatic mapreading detection is evaluated as very promising, but there were some problems with accuracy of the method in the study (this might be due to how the equipment was used).

You find the report in the “Overview articles” section of o-training.net – along with among other Thierry Gueorgiou’s “Full speed – no mistake”, Martin Lerjen’s “Analyzing your mapreading” and Ultimate Orienteering’s report from the International Coach Conference 2009:

• Full PDF-file: Hjelpemidler for O-teknisk analyse – Hvilken feedback kan man få fra ulike hjelpemidler for o-teknisk analyse og hvor anvendelige er disse for løpere og trener?

Note! The author of this article (Jan Kocbach) contributed to the study as a representative for the Norwegian Orienteering Federation by reading the report and giving comments and tips on the procedure used.

This Norwegian text HowTo-presentation about GPS-analysis might be interesting for some of the readers of o-training.net. The presentation was held June 12th at a Training seminar in Løten, Norway with 80-100 attendees.

In addition there was also a very interesting presentation by Kenneth Buch about “the athlete conversation” – how he speaks to and guides his athletes.

• Story about the seminar at orientering.no (also Norwegian text)
• The GPS-analysis presentation (on orientering.no server)
• Kenneth Buch’s presentation (on orientering.no server)

For both cases the slides only tell part of the story, but it might still be instructive to take a look at them.

Comparison of the two top teams in the Jukola and Venla relays – meter by meter. Study how the runners on the winning team performed and how the forkings worked using very illustrating autOanalysis figures. This autOanalysis functionality is planned to be included in 3DRerun eventually, to make it possible for YOU to make similar illustrations for your own competitions and trainings.

I won’t include a full analysis of the Jukola and Venla relays here, but just point at some interesting information you can find from these kind of illustrations. Similar illustrations from all legs in both Jukola and Venla are included below for you to enjoy.

• Example 1: Comparison of first leg and second leg for Halden and Kalevan Rasti. The upper part of the illustration is the first leg with Kalevan Rasti in red/green and Halden in blue. The second one is the second leg with opposite coloring. As you can see, Halden looses significantly more time than KR for this forking (mostly due to mistake at the second control).
  
• Example 2: Again 1st versus 2nd leg for Halden and KR – same coloring. This time the second long forking. This time KR looses a lot more time due to big mistake at 20th control.
  
• 2nd leg only. See how all the fast times of the GPS-tracked legs run along Halden’s route.
  
• The biggest time losses of Olav Lundanes (Halden) on the last leg compared to Fabian Hertner (Kalevan Rasti). Overall Lundanes did not loose time to Hertner on many sections – mostly a maximum of a few seconds. There is however one significant time loss by Lundanes to the 11th control (62 seconds) compared to Hertner – if Hertner would have had a little bit better day, this could have been enough to catch Lundanes.
  
• First two Venla legs compared for top teams Domnarvets GoIF and Tampereen Pyrintö. The upper one is leg 1 with Domnarvet blue and TP red/green. The lower one is leg 2 with opposite coloring. The same pattern for both cases – but TP looses less time overall on this forking for both legs compared. The significant time loss for Domnarvet is just ahead and after the the second control.
  
  Note! This stuff should have been published Tuesday morning, but a certain forking mistake made it necessary to push it a few days. Hope you still enjoy it…

  Jukola 2011

  • Jukola leg 1: Halden vs Kalevan Rasti – All routes as colorplot
  • Jukola leg 2: Halden vs Kalevan Rasti – All routes as colorplot
  • Jukola leg 3: Halden vs Kalevan Rasti – All routes as colorplot
  • Jukola leg 4: Halden vs Kalevan Rasti – All routes as colorplot
  • Jukola leg 5: Halden vs Kalevan Rasti – All routes as colorplot
  • Jukola leg 6: Halden vs Kalevan Rasti – All routes as colorplot
  • Jukola leg 7: Halden vs Kalevan Rasti – All routes as colorplot

  Venla 2011

  • Venla leg 1: Domnarvet vs Tampereen Pyrintö – All routes as colorplot
  • Venla leg 2: Domnarvet vs Tampereen Pyrintö – All routes as colorplot
  • Venla leg 3: Domnarvet vs Tampereen Pyrintö – All routes as colorplot
  • Venla leg 4: Domnarvet vs Tampereen Pyrintö – All routes as colorplot

See all forked controls for Jukola 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006 – and Venla 2010 and 2009 – in one page – and try to understand what will meet you on the Jukola relay on Saturday. If you were searching for an easy answer, I got to disappoint you.

It is good preparation for Jukola to take a look at the forking schemes for the last editions of the relay

The answer on the above question: It is totally unpredictable. Forking varies a lot from year to year in the Jukola relay. The year of 2008 was a year with a lot of forking – most controls on the first leg where forked in 2008. In 2009 there was a lot less forking – and 2010 was also far from the standard set in 2008. It may seem like the amount of forking in Jukola has been going down the last year. However, as stated above it is totally unpredictable, so you won’t know until you have the map in your hand on Saturday or early Sunday morning.

Good preparation for Jukola

On the other hand, it is good preparation for Jukola to take a look at the forking schemes for the last editions of the relay. As you can see, there are a lot of different types of forkings used. The main types of forkings can be categorized into three types:

• Type 1: One single forked control, for example
  • Start – 1 – A – 3 versus
  • Start – 1- B – 3
  • … and up to four variants
• Type 2: A forked leg, for example
  • Start – 1 – A1 – A2 – 4 versus
  • Start – 1 – B1 – B2 – 4
  • … and up to four variants
• Type 3: A group of two forked legs, for example
  • Start – 1 – A1 – A2 – A3 – 4 versus
  • Start – 1 – B1 – B2 – B3 – 4
  • … and up to four variants

The ones defined as type 3 are the most complex ones, and especially if the legs are long and the variants are crossing each other these may lead to significant mistakes and confusion for the runners. The ones defined as type 1 are the ones giving the least spreading, but they may still be tricky. It looks like we have been getting more of type 1 and type 2 forkings and less of type 3 forkings the last years.

Enjoy the forkings of the last editions of Jukola below!

Jukola 2010 – Leg 1 & 2

Jukola 2010 – Leg 3

Jukola 2010 – Leg 4

Jukola 2010 – Leg 5

Jukola 2010 – Leg 6

Jukola 2010 – Leg 7

Jukola 2009 – Leg 1

Jukola 2009 – Leg 2

Jukola 2009 – Leg 3

Jukola 2009 – Leg 4 & 5

Jukola 2009 – Leg 6

Jukola 2009 – Leg 7

Jukola 2008 – Leg 1

Jukola 2008 – Leg 2

Jukola 2008 – Leg 3

Jukola 2008 – Leg 4 & 5

Jukola 2008 – Leg 6

Jukola 2008 – Leg 7

Jukola 2007 – Leg 1 & 2

Jukola 2007 – Leg 3

Jukola 2007 – Leg 4 & 5

Jukola 2007 – Leg 6

Jukola 2007 – Leg 7

Jukola 2006 – Leg 1, 2 & 3

Note! Some forking controls missing here for the 2006 case.

Jukola 2006 – Leg 4 & 5

Note! Some forking controls missing here for the 2006 case.

Jukola 2006 – Leg 6 & 7

Note! Some forking controls missing here for the 2006 case.

Venla 2010 – Leg 1 & 2

Venla 2010 – Leg 3

Venla 2010 – Leg 4

Venla 2009 – Leg 1 & 2

Venla 2009 – Leg 3

Venla 2009 – Leg 4

3DRerun is mostly a tool for analysis after races, but it does also have some interesting functionality which can be useful for pre-race preparation. One of these functions is “Measure lines”, where you can draw imaginary routes on an old map of the competition area, and compare route lengths and running times for the routes. The other is to replay competitions and trainings of competitions close to the race area.

The screencast below shows you how to do pre-race preparation in 3DRerun – it does not give you the actual preparation though. If you’ll rather help yourself, you can go directly to 3DRerun for the maps which are discussed in the screencast:

• Map Jukola 1992 in 3DRerun (all controls) (partly overlapping with Jukola 2011 terrain)
• Map Jukola 1992 in 3DRerun (with 6th leg course) (partly overlapping with Jukola 2011 terrain)
• Map from neighbour terrain of Jukola 2011 in 3DRerun

To get full insight into how to use 3DRerun for pre-race analysis, my tips is to take a look at the 10 minute screencast below though. It won’t give you any specific info for Jukola 2011, but it will help you to use 3DRerun more effectively.

This HeadCam video with accompanying map from the neighbor terrain of Jukola 2011 is a nice way to prepare for Jukola 2011. The Häppilä map featured in this video is one of the Jukola 2011 training maps. The video is from a national race in this terrain in early May this year.

Sit back and enjoy – the video is 37 minutes long… By comparing map and video you can understand how the map and the terrain compares – and get prepared for the challenges you will meet at Jukola 2011.

The video is made by Jarkko “Mr. Routegadget” Ryyppö. This is probably one of the most advanced HeadCam videos from orienteering events made yet. Follow the Routegadget page on Facebook to get updates from Jarkko.

Here is another HeadCam video from the same terrain – but without map. This is from May 29th – so the vegetation is closer to what you can expect at Jukola 2011:

Häppilä, training 29.5.2011 from Jarkko Ryyppö on Vimeo.

Jukola 2011 webpage

• Jukola 2011 webpage
• Extra tip: Take a look at the theoretical Jukola exercises prepared by Eva Jurenikova (number one here – the rest to be found at the Webroute index page, scroll a bit down to spot them)

This video compares the performance of Hubmann, Gueorgiou, Rollier and the other top runners in Sunday’s event on Le Revard by analyzing the Performance Index in WinSplits Pro. In this era of GPS analysis, many forget the value of analyzing the split times. There is however a lot of useful information hidden in the splits.

The motivation behind this screencast is to show how the Performance Index can give you insight into the potential of different runners based on their current abilities – both running speed and o-technical abilities. This can be useful to assess the potential of yourself or somebody you coach if you are a trainer. The analysis is done in the program Winsplits Pro (which comes at a price of around 60 Euro) – a very useful tool by Mats Troeng – the man behind QuickRoute. I am no expert on either WinSplits Pro or the Performance index – if I missed something important, please add a comment below to let me know.

PS! Screencasts is new to me – and I consider this as a test. Is this something which I should continue making at o-training.net for other topics as well? Does the format work? Too slow and boring? Warning: If you are not above average interested in orienteering analysis, this is probably nothing for you! No fancy moving stuff to keep your attention.

February and March is training camp time in the warm & sunny countries, and now a lot of interesting maps have started to pop up daily at omaps.worldofo.com by various runners from training camps the last weeks and months. Some of these maps are collected below. Take a look at the maps – map study is always good technical training!

Looking at the webpages of the runners and in their map archives, a lot of runners have chosen Barbate, Spain for their training camps this February. Also, some of the maps posted below are from Turkey and from Slovenia. Enjoy!

World Champs Cross Country Skiing coming up!

World of O’s sister-site for cross country skiing, World of XC is organizing WhoWins for the Cross Country Skiing World Cup. With the World Champs coming up, it is time to get ready for some exciting days with Cross Country Skiing. Why not start by setting up your predictions for the races in Drammen the weekend ahead of the World Champs?

You don’t often get to see Thierry Gueorigou in action for 15 minutes – followed by a camera. Quite shaky – and not the best video quality admittedly – but still a nice one to watch in order to see how the master does it. And if that’s not enough to get some o-technical learning from it: Draw his route on the map in the Webroutes below (forest orienteering + sprint) and compare yourself with others to see how well you hit! Can you spot the error in the end before Thierry?

Video and maps were posted at the Facebook page of I Meeting de Orientação de Gouveia. Thanks to Miguel Reis e Silva for updates about the competitions.

Video

Below you find the video and two Webroutes – one for the first part of the course and one for the second part. Take a look at the map below while watching the video, and try to draw along. In the last part Thierry makes a mistake and has to make a few seconds stop to read the map – can you spot the error before Thierry?

Tip: The second map is easier to follow, and a lot more interesting – so I would start with that one. That starts about 6 minutes into the video. Good luck! Open second map in separate browser window to draw along. And don’t fool yourself by rewinding the video to look a second time – draw based on what you see the first time.

Map – first part of video

Tip: Open the webroute in a second browser window so you can draw while you watch the video. Use a straight line between the places the video jumps.
Powered by WebRoute – WorldofO.com

Map – second part of video
Powered by WebRoute – WorldofO.com

Gueorgiou, Nordberg, Adamski and several other top runners use a HeadCam in their o-technical training to improve their technique. In this article series it is shown how YOU can use a HeadCam to improve your skills – or the skills of the ones you are coaching. Topics to be considered are the tools available, analysis methods, what you can learn from the analysis, and interviews with some of the top runners and coaches who have been using a HeadCam regularly in their training.

The first things I learnt was that my map reading frequency decreased during the race, which is obviously a sign of tiredness for me (Gueorgiou)

The use of a headmounted camera to study orienteers and orienteering technique has been done for a long time in research projects as you can see in this article from 1995 (full text version of reprint in SJO) – see also these two articles.

In the current article series “Improve your Orienteering Skills using a HeadCam” here at o-training.net, the focus is less theoretical. Instead it is focused on how you can use a HeadCam to improve your own orienteering skills.

Overview of article series

In this first part of the series, some very useful tools for analysis of a HeadCam video + GPS data are presented, as these tools make the specific analyses discussed later on much easier. Without adequate tools like the ones presented here, only the ones who are most determined to become World Champion will take themselves the time to regularly use a HeadCam as part of their technical training. With better tools along with cheaper and better HeadCams, these methods should be accessible to a much wider range of runners in the coming years.

In the following three parts, three distinct analysis techniques are presented and discussed:

• Analyze mistakes/time losses from a given training/competition (Part 2)
• Improve general orienteering technique: Optimize map reading technique, where you look, where your focus is, and the orienteering flow (Part 3)
• Use the HeadCam as an aid in visualization and/or mental training (Part 4)

I think the absolutly best training is when I run at high speed, and some coach or teammate runs with the camera behind me. Then I can see everything (Nordberg)

Each of these parts is discussed separately, as both the method and the aim of the training/analysis is different for each case.

Finally there is one part with interviews of users on top elite level (Gueorgiou, Nordberg, Adamski, Buch etc.) – and a brief discussion of equipment.

HeadCam video + GPS: Some history

Since 2007 I have had a setup and code (as explained here) which allowed me to semi-automatically produce videos consisting of a HeadCam-video along with the GPS position on a map, including some extra information such as speed and pulse of the runner. The work time for making such a video was about 10-15 minutes + computer processing time. Some of the early example videos are the video of Simone Niggli’s route at the World Cup sprint in Finland ahead of Jukola 2007, including her narration, runthrough of the WOC 2007 sprint final (see 5 first minutes in better quality at Veoh), WOC 2007 middle runthrough with one picture every second and Norwegian champs sprint 2007. One of my latest examples is embedded below:

I have used a HeadCam for analysis around 30 times since June 2009 (Adamski)

Since 2007 I have had quite a few requests both by individuals and national teams about how they could do their own analysis with HeadCam video + GPS.

• My usual recommendation was until about a year ago to just watch the video in one window on the desktop while having QuickRoute (why not donate something to Mats Troeng for his great work with QuickRoute while you are at it?) open in another window: When holding your mouse above any point on the QuickRoute route, you can see the time at the bottom of the QuickRoute window ; this time you can compare with the corresponding time on the video.
• Since early last year, I have recommended to have the video in one window and 3DRerun running at real-time-speed in another window. By starting the video and 3DRerun at the same time, you get a dot representing your position moving on the map in sync with the video.

I have also heard that the Swiss team has had some tool (developed by David Schneider) to study HeadCam video and GPS together, but I have not seen it in action.

HeadCam video + GPS: The latest tools

Since a few weeks ago, there are several methods available which makes this type of HeadCam+GPS view more accessible and easy to use. After some discussions over at Attackpoint.org, Ken (the man behind Attackpoint) made a very nice solution in which you can see a HeadCam-video in sync with your position on the map. Since then, two other solutions have also been presented; all three methods are presented in some detail below:

That’s absolutely stunningly amazing! What a great training tool (comment at Attackpoint)

• The tool at Attackpoint can show your HeadCam footage along with your position on the map. You upload your gpx-route to Attackpoint, and upload your video at either Vimeo or YouTube. Your video can then be shown in sync with your GPS track – you can give a video offset if they don’t start at the same time. When you use the video slider to change the position in the video, the position on the map is updated. A great solution, which works very well! See one example here and another example here. Note that upload of gpx-files is only available to people donating to Attackpoint (but if you use the site you should consider donating anyway, Ken is doing great work with the site). To my knowledge the current version does not work with videos on your local computer, but I guess that may change in the future (at least implementing a local webserver version as done in 3DRerun – see below – should be quite easy – it might even be implemented as far as I know). This HeadCam + GPS feature is still being further developed at Attackpoint according to this article – so don’t be surprised if it just gets better in the coming weeks and months.
  

• After seeing the very nice solution at Attackpoint, I have also included a HeadCam+GPS mode in 3DRerun. Here you can click (while holding the ctrl-key) on any point of the map, and the GPS + HeadCam-video will start from the closest point. It works with videos from YouTube, Vimeo and also videos using HTML5. The latter means that you can do your analysis without uploading the video to a server – which again means that you are up and running your analysis with GPS+HeadCam in sync only minutes after you are back from your training depending on the format of your video camera (some cameras need a conversion first – I am lucky with my Contour camera). To manage this, you must install a local webserver (which is done in 5 minutes).
  

  The 100 first to send an email to 3drerunbeta@ worldofo.com will get a password for the closed beta

  You can test an example of 3DRerun for video+GPS analysis here if you have access to the closed beta-testing of 3DRerun. If you are not part of the beta-testing, the beta-testing is being extended with up to 100 new beta-testers now. The 100 first to send an email to 3drerunbeta@worldofo.com will get a password for the closed beta. Note that you can also see an example of 3DRerun in action for video analysis at the bottom of this article (recorded video).

  If the need arises, i.e. if there is available data, it would also be possible to extend 3DRerun to show two videos at the same time in order to (1) compare micro route choices from different runners or (2) show footage from one camera mounted on the head and one from somebody running behind to get even more information.
  

• Jarkko Ryyppö (Mr. RouteGadget) has made an offline tool which also gives approximately the same possibilities as the two tools described above, without having to upload the video to a server (see here for a screenshot and some discussion at Facebook). This works with even more video formats, but is currently just “a hack” which isn’t very easy to apply for anyone but Jarkko – a bit like my original scripts to make video+gps . I got to test it though, and it works very well. This might be a good solution for the future?
  .
  Jarkko is also working on producing some very nice videos of HeadCam + GPS position – kind of like my scripts from 2007, but they look a lot better as you now have a double split view of the map and some extra features. See an example video here.

There might be other tools available – please add a comment below if you know about other tools.

Outlook: Part 2 – Analyze mistakes/time losses from a given training

In part 2 we start with the really interesting part of this article series – how to utilize these kind of tools to improve your orienteering skills. Part 2 covers how to analyze mistakes/time losses from a given training/competition. The video below gives an example of the use of 3DRerun for such an analysis. This particular example will be discussed in more detail in Part 2.