Mark Adams extols the virtues of advanced shoelace-tying techniques.

Is your progress through an orienteering event a model of elegance and sophistication? I am not talking about your orienteering technique here. Far more important is the manner of your robing, your visual impact on the forest cat-walk, and your subsequent beautification. Are these conducted in a manner befitting the great name of Happy Herts? Or are you a Mr Bean, a sartorial embarrassment to all your club-mates?

Experienced orienteers will admit that the most critical things to get right are your laces. My own lace-couture used to be such a problem. For years I sacrificed post race one-upmanship on the altar of pre-race point scoring. I resorted to tying my laces with a double bow because it was quick and secure.

But afterwards! Oh how I longed to be able to remove my muddy o-shoes with a glance and the merest touch of a hand, the better to maintain unruffled eye-contact with my fellows during the race post-mortem. How I longed for their envious glance downwards as they marvelled at the professionalism of my shoe removal.

But at least I never plumbed the depths of knot binding! You are sure to have seen the desperate souls who conduct a minor operation on their o-shoes at every event, with scissors and cut-up bits of electrical tape laid out like surgical instruments. These unfortunates must run their course smarting with embarrassment at the garish little nodules poking up from their shoes. And when they return? They are no better off than with a double-bow! There is still all that groping with the muddy unyielding mass where the laces are tied. Usually the dreaded scissors have to be deployed again.

	Intensive pre-race preparations, but are your laces tied correctly.

Imagine then, the sense of release, of deliverance, felt by a group of Happy Herts one sunny day in 1996 in a stunningly-set parking field on the shores of Loch Etive. For it was here that our very own Tom Frentz handed down the ultimate lace-tying wisdom. This was shortly before he left us for New Zealand, but his disciples remain ...

And so I give you the Frentz Knot: a simple knot which will grant you an aura of sagacity as you tie it, security and elegance as you run the race, and admiration as you magic your shoes away afterwards.

Tie an ordinary bow. Then pass one loop through the other, taking care not to bring either of the lace ends with it. Tighten the enclosing loop by pulling on the appropriate end of the lace. Pull firmly, and as you do so hold the enclosed loop taut with a finger hooked through it. You may wish to tidy the end you have lengthened by passing it under the laces where they cross between the eyelets. To un-tie, simply pull the short end. When the lace is caked with dried mud a firm pull can be required, but you will soon develop the confidence necessary for this.

With the Frentz Knot you are making a statement. In place, it is distinctive but not flashy. Its quiet difference implies a deliberate selection to achieve superior performance.

Go well; go beau!