Time Lost per Control: Analyze Your Splits with Data

After running a course with a split time at each control, each student calculates how much time they lost on every leg compared with the class's best split. It's the same analysis orienteers do with their splits, and it helps separate technical mistakes from simply lacking pace.

How to play

1. Pairs race: one partner runs a 10-control course, pressing the lap button on their stopwatch at every punch; the other waits at the start, checks the card, and logs the total time. Then they switch (14 min).
2. Split sheet: each student copies their leg times onto the sheet under an alias, not their name (6 min).
3. Best split: a shared table shows the fastest time on each leg, and everyone works out their time lost (their split minus the best) (8 min).
4. Diagnosis: pick the two legs with the most time lost and label the cause: technical error, poor route choice, or physical pace (6 min).
5. Plan: each student writes one concrete action for their weakest leg and talks it over with their partner (6 min).

Rules

• The class table uses aliases: nobody posts names or anyone else's times.
• Hit the lap button when you punch, not before.
• Cutting through out-of-bounds areas to improve a split voids that leg.
• The analysis compares you with yourself and the best leg time; no ranking of people.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: their own accessible course, comparing against their best leg over two attempts.
• Visual impairment: runs with a guide who presses the lap button and reads out the calculations.
• Math difficulties: a template with the subtractions set up and a calculator.

Learning goals

• Record and organize personal performance data.
• Pinpoint where time is lost in a race.
• Protect privacy when sharing performance data.

Equipment for a class of 25

• school maps: 30
• control markers: 10
• crayons: 10
• control cards: 30
• stopwatches: 15
• split sheets: 30
• pencils: 30

Teacher tip

If you lack lap stopwatches, phones in airplane mode with the stopwatch app work. The typical mistake is blaming it all on speed: the leg with the most time lost is usually a two- or three-minute technical error.

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