Once more, I took the direction of Clermont-Ferrand this winter, not only in order to prepare the World-Cup final, but first and foremost to enjoy technical and demanding orienteering.

The weather became worse and worse all along the week-end; from sunny with 20°C on Saturday to snowy with -2°C on Monday morning. Winter finally seems not to be dead yet…

The theme of the week-end was “start” and “fast navigation” through difficult terrain (green and detailed areas). So, I planned several short courses with quite large scales (up to 1/ 1.500°…).

During the week-end, I realized a total of 29 “starts to the first control” (partly hope to the 20 starts of Sunday’s afternoon exercise). Even if nothing is never established in orienteering, I think that I have set a quite good start’s routine for the season.

I was also (un)lucky to test the first 1/15.000° map (World-cup final's expected scale for the long distance) from this volcanic terrains (all previous maps were printed in 1/10.000° or even larger scale). This was a pure nightmare, really.

I started without magnifier glass for the first couple of controls and even if I have always thought having a good vision, I simply couldn’t run and read the map at the same time. Honestly, it is not anymore the same sport with this scale.
Then I used a magnifier glass for the rest of the course, it helped a lot, even if it was still difficult and I couldn’t avoid some stops in the dark forest.

But, even more dramatic is that cartographers had to delete some small details to have a more readable map, and I think that it deeply increases the part of luck. Many form lines, as well as knoll and small depression has been removed. This makes fluent orienteering much harder and sometime totally incomprehensible map. Damned… the only solution that I found was to use two magnifiers superposed...

Except this training, all others were really fine and exciting. When you are aiming for top results in the biggest event, you should always be able to answer this question: “Am I nowadays a better orienteer than before this training?”
After this short training camp, I think the answer is clearly "yes"…

MAPS

Saturday: Volvic

Sprint 1 (scale: 1/5.000°)
Map only with the course (0,6 Mo) / Map with my route (0,6 Mo)

Only with contours (1/3.000°)
Map only with the course (0,2 Mo) / Map with my route (0,2 Mo)

Super sprint 1 (scale: 1/1.500°)
Map only with the course (0,2 Mo) / Map with my route (0,2 Mo)

Middle distance (scale: 1/5.000°)
Map only with the course (0,7 Mo) / Map with my route (0,7 Mo)

Super sprint 2 (scale: 1/2.500°) [Mazaye]
Map only with the course (0,4 Mo) / Map with my route (0,4 Mo)

Sunday: Mazaye

Only with contours (scale: 1/7.500°)
Map only with the course (0,4 Mo) / Map with my route (0,4 Mo)

Long distance (scale: 1/15.000°)

Starts training (scale: 1/6.000°)
Map only with the course (0,9 Mo) / Map with my route (0,9 Mo)

Super sprint (scale: 1/2.500°)
Map only with the course (0,2 Mo) / Map with my route (0,2 Mo)

Night training (scale: 1/7.500°) [Aydat]
Map only with the course (0,8 Mo) / Map with my route (0,8 Mo)

Monday: Aydat

Only with contours (scale: 1/7.500°)
Map only with the course (0,7 Mo) / Map with my route (0,7 Mo)