When an event organizer hit me up a few weeks before Outdoor Retailer to see if I wanted to participate in an early-morning orienteering race, I thought, “Sure, why not?” I’d heard the term countless times and had a hazy idea it involved mapping coordinates and getting from point A to B. I submitted my name and didn’t think about it again.
The night before the race, an email arrived saying we’d need to be at the bus by 5:30 a.m. I skipped the industry party and went to bed early, feeling proud of myself for being so responsible. At 1:30 a.m., my eyes popped open.
“What exactly is an orienteering race?” I wondered. “Am I supposed to bring something? A compass? A map?”
Looking back, this would have been an excellent time to Google those questions. Instead, I watched Instagram reels and felt vaguely anxious for the next 3 hours.
By 4:30, having given up on sleeping, I climbed out of bed, grabbed a pair of old HOKAs, and walked to the ice machine to fill my water bottle. If I couldn’t be well-rested, at least I could be well-hydrated. Thirty minutes later, I was on the bus, where I spilled the entire bottle on the seat next to me, and was off to the races.
Ready for advice? Jump to Beginner Pro Tips for Your First Orienteering Race
First Orienteering Race From Start to Finish
An Early Arrival
On the bus, the mood was chipper as people handed out pocket coffees and complained cheerfully about the ungodly hour. Behind me, I overheard a woman say, “I was studying the map last night.”
“Hmm,” I thought.
As we pulled up to the race site, sprinklers were visible through the misty dawn light, and someone pointed out that we were at a golf course, not the trailhead. I hoped it wasn’t a bad omen that the bus driver had gotten lost on the way to an orienteering event.
We eventually made it to Theodore Wirth Regional Park, where a race organizer from the Minnesota Orienteering Club (MOC) explained the rules, throwing around terms like “e-sticks” and “control points” while I nodded along, smiling.
We were given compasses and told there’d also be a jokey side contest for whoever returned with the most golf balls from the trails. Already sensing that I had zero chance of winning the actual event, I briefly considered abandoning the race entirely for an all-out golf-ball scavenger hunt, but opted against it.
A few minutes before the whistle, course maps were handed out, and chaos broke out. Sharpies came out. People huddled in groups, plotting their routes. “Should I have a team?” I thought.
Before I could answer, the whistle blew, and the group detonated. Sneakers hit dirt. Bodies headed in every direction. I watched several clusters disappear down a paved path and, short of any better strategy, followed along.
Running Without a Plan
The group thinned out as we headed into the woods. Realizing I was running with no purpose whatsoever, I slowed to a walk, pulled out my map and compass, and tried to figure out where I was.
An organizer passing by took pity and tried to help, but as he rapidly pointed to landmarks on his own map, the words came out like the Charlie Brown teacher: all sound, no content. I thanked him and jogged away.
Once out of sight, I stopped again, and a second man approached. He looked slightly lost himself, and we realized we’d met the day before on the trade show floor. “I think we’re fairly close to ‘236,’” he said.
He seemed to be inviting me to join, so I followed him, and we veered off the pavement. As we wound up a narrow trail, a 10-year-old kid sprinted past us and disappeared into the underbrush.
A moment later, his voice carried back up. “I found it, Dad!” His parents jogged by, disappeared for a minute, and reemerged with their kid, and the trio headed up the trail together.
It was low-hanging fruit, but I was ready to take it. I punched my first control and felt a dim glimmer of success, despite having used no actual orienteering skills to get there.
For the next 10 minutes, the helpful man and I found a second flag together, at which point I told him to go on without me. He’d been so nice, but if I was going to finish this race with any semblance of dignity, I needed to figure out how to do it myself.
Finding a Rhythm
I got out my Sharpie and traced the route I thought I’d taken so far. Studying the legend, I realized the control list had descriptions next to each number, with clues like “path crossing,” “beneath bridge,” and “edge of marsh.” I pulled out my compass and watched the needle settle north. Slowly, things began to make sense, and — about 30 minutes into the 90-minute race — I finally started feeling self-sufficient.
That isn’t to say I suddenly began crushing the race. My pace was slow. But I found the next flag. And then the next one. Each time I punched a control and the light lit up, I let out an audible “Yes!” and pulled my fist in tight.
If I wasn’t quite getting the hang of it, I was at least getting less bad at it.
The next hour continued in a similar fashion: I overshot controls, and then undershot them. I army-crawled under a fence and came out the other side covered in spiky seed burrs. I ran down a steep gully toward what I thought was a flag, only to find a red-checkered blanket. At one point, I ran in a full circle without realizing it.
But with each control, I was getting a little better, building a mental list of things I’d do differently next time.
Figuring Out the Point
Toward the end, lost for the zillionth time, I came around a bend and heard birds chirping in a scenic meadow. The morning light was hitting the prairie grass just right, and it hit me that the birds had been chirping all along — I just hadn’t heard. It also occurred to me that I was trail running through a beautiful place, which is something I really love doing.
I checked my watch, and it was 8:16. With 14 minutes left and only a fuzzy idea of where I was, I gave up on the last flag I’d been chasing and turned back.
I crossed the finish line at 8:28 a.m. with 2 minutes to spare, punched my e-stick, and let out one last “Yes!” even as the organizer looked mildly baffled by my almost-last-place enthusiasm.
My final score was 70 points out of a possible 200. Not even a passing grade by school standards. But I’d found seven flags on my own, learned more than I expected to, and made it back before the clock ran out. That felt like a win.
I headed to the reception area with a dozen or so tips rattling around in my head, and pulled aside a couple of race organizers to compare notes. I wanted to see how my hard-won lessons lined up with what they actually tell first-timers. Here’s what we came up with.
Beginner Pro Tips for Your First Orienteering Race
1. Do Your Homework
Three days after the event, I discovered a link to a video in the welcome email titled “Orienteering 101” that, in hindsight, would have saved me a lot of grief. Andrea Schneider, youth outreach coordinator for MOC, urges first-timers to contact the host club in advance.
Most clubs have a 101 video or other beginner resources and are happy to walk newcomers through the basics, as terrain can vary dramatically by region. There were multiple points during the race where I wished I’d looked at a park map beforehand. If there’s no club nearby, Schneider suggests trying old maps from past events, which are often posted online.
2. Don’t Confuse Fitness Level for Skill Level
Among my many mistakes, assuming I could wing it because I’m decently fit was one of the biggest, and one Schneider says is all too common. Orienteering is sometimes called “cunning running” for a reason: it doesn’t matter how often you run or how fast you are if you can’t read a map or think strategically.
Experienced trail runners often sign up for courses that are too advanced, assuming speed will make up the difference, she says, but it rarely does. Courses are color-coded by difficulty, beginning with white, so pick one that matches your experience level, not your fitness level. “Every beginner, even a strong runner, should start on an easy course,” she says. “Just get a feel for it first.”
3. Pause to Make a Plan
When the whistle blew, my natural instinct was to start moving, even without a plan. It was a race, after all. But that instinct cost me. I followed a crowd down a path with no idea what I was running toward, and within minutes, I was standing alone with no idea where to go.
Taking a few minutes to study the map before charging off into the wilderness will save more time than it costs, Schneider says. Look for clusters of controls, identify the “must-haves” you can hit in one sweep, and decide which one you’re heading to first.
You don’t need your whole route mapped out. My race was a “score-O,” meaning controls could be tackled in any order. In a standard point-to-point event, this step is even easier: just map your route to the first flag and go.
4. Get a Feel for Scale
One of the toughest things for first-time adventure racers, especially if you haven’t spent much time backpacking or exploring backcountry terrain, can be figuring out how far away everything actually is. I experienced this myself more than once, and overheard several other newbies saying the same thing. Sometimes a control feels closer than it turns out to be; other times, you might run straight past one and have to loop back.
Schneider’s fix: pick two points on the map, measure the distance in finger-widths, and then run that stretch and time yourself. It gives you a rough personal sense of scale for the rest of the race, which is much better than doing math mid-run. Just be sure to time yourself at the pace you’ll actually navigate at, since reading a map is slower than running with your head up.
5. Slow Down to Speed Up
The fastest person doesn’t necessarily win an orienteering race. In fact, going faster can make you significantly slower, explains MOC event organizer Vince Laraia. “There’s a saying: the faster I go, the dumber I get,” he says. “Even experienced racers slow way down, on that first leg especially. Only run as fast as you know where you are.”
Start slowly and let your pace increase as your confidence does. As you recognize intersections and features more quickly, you’ll naturally move faster.
6. Orient Your Map
If you’ve ever taken a wilderness survival course, one of the first things they teach you is how to orient a map, aligning it with the terrain around you so the north arrow on paper actually points toward true north. This skill is at the heart of orienteering, and if you understand it, you’ll excel at the sport.
“If north is over there in real life, I turn my map so its north points that way,” Schneider explains. “Even if I turn to face a different direction myself, the map’s north still points the same way in real life. I don’t rotate the map as I move. The map stays fixed — I move around it.”
7. Learn to ‘Thumb’ Like the Pros
Once you understand how to keep the map oriented, the next trick is keeping track of where you are on it, something experienced adventure racers call “thumbing.” Place your thumb on the map at your current location and slide it along as you move, so you’re not constantly stopping to relocate yourself. Folding the map down to just the section ahead of you will help, too.
For anyone who wants to get serious about the sport, Laraia recommends investing in a thumb compass with a clear, transparent base, so it doesn’t disappear against the colors on your map. I also found it helpful to trace my route with a thin Sharpie as I went, keeping a visual record of where I’d been — though the caveat is that any mistakes you make will become permanent on your map, too.
8. Always Be Looking for Controls
My first instinct was to run to where I thought the control was and then start looking when I got there, but that’s not always the best strategy. The flag might be visible before you reach the point where you expected it, or you might realize you’ve already passed it.
Laraia says this is a common moment: catching yourself mid-run, wondering if you actually registered the last feature you passed, only to realize you’re already well past it. Keep your eyes scanning the whole time you’re moving, especially early on, while you’re still calibrating the scale.
9. When in Doubt, Take the Sure Way
In orienteering, the shortest route isn’t always the best one. After a few failed shortcuts, I learned that at my skill level — and probably yours too — a marked trail, fence line, or other reliable path is usually the smarter choice, even if it’s longer in distance.
It turns out this wasn’t just a beginner’s hunch. Schneider says sticking to a trail is generally about twice as fast as cutting off-route. “Unless you’re very confident in your bushwhacking and know you won’t get stuck, moving along a trail is always faster,” she says. “Dark green or heavily marked areas usually signal dense undergrowth. You’ll be slower there no matter what, and more likely to get lost.”
10. Leave Yourself Enough Time to Get Back
Unlike point-to-point races, where you punch every control in a specific order, score-O races, like the one I did, run on a time limit instead. I made it back to the finish line just in the nick of time, but through no strategy of my own. It was sheer luck that I had a vague idea of where I was when I noticed the clock — and also, I ran like hell.
Penalty structures vary, but most events dock points for finishing late. At mine, racers lost 10 points for every minute past the 90-minute cutoff.
11. Don’t Forget to Have Fun
In the mad dash into the woods, it’s easy to get so focused on finding controls that you forget why you signed up in the first place. Schneider says everyone gets into orienteering for different reasons. Some love being in nature, others love the community. For her, it’s the problem-solving. “Every time, it’s a new puzzle to solve,” she says.
Laraia agrees, noting that every race feels different, even in places he’s been a hundred times. “Every time I find a control, there’s still a little four-year-old inside me going, ‘wow!’”
Whatever your reason for trying an orienteering race, don’t forget it once you get out there.
