Six years as a coach for school and club orienteering
COACH'S CORNER: Marion Burrill has coached athletes in the Bullecourt Boulder Bounders Orienteering Club for the past six years and enjoys every moment of it.
She and husband Philip have been part of the club since 2001 and their five children have all competed for Queensland.
Marion explains the art of coaching in orienteering:
I teach in primary schools in Warwick and first did more orienteering coaching after starting more PE work in 2011.
I am the manager of the Queensland schools team which is heading to the nationals in Bathurst in late September.
The key to orienteering coaching is practice, practice, practice. At the weekend, I was at the state school trials at Petrie and the ones who did the most orienteering were generally the ones in the placings.
It takes four or five years to be able to complete a hard course at speed. Correct map readings is as important for the juniors as running.
My recommendation for juniors, aged 11 or 12, is to run 5-6km each week in training.
Some will run that much in other sports which will be enough for weekend orienteering.
In the next three weeks, our club has events in Warwick and Killarney started with an event from Federation Park from 2.30pm on Sunday. Newcomers always welcome.
