A hiker, biker and swimmer all her life, Zerfas took up running near the end of college, simply to lose weight. Working out 6 days a week, she trimmed her 10,000-meter run time to 37 minutes, which still left her a few minutes away from the elite level. She then turned to racewalking, but again was a tad slow. She said my speed was right for the national orienteering team. Zerfas learned orienteering at dozens of local meets, many sponsored by the Quantico Orienteering Club, to which she belongs.
Meets typically last a little over an hour and involve color-coded courses of varying difficulty.
Sometimes the woods are so thick you can't run. Sometimes you have to go around lakes or swamps. If the terrain is really steep, you can't even run. Green, red and blue courses are long and hard. On a well designed course, which can take years to make, it's impossible to reach all the controls.