Here is one interesting route-choice from one of my last training session in le Pilat (20 minutes from St Etienne).

Terrain type: Forest is quite nice, visibility is not so open, mostly pine but some areas with spruce too. Ground is soft and good to run, but there is quite many undergrowth.

French national championship in long distance was held in this forest two weeks ago.

Last information, scale is 1/15000° and contour intervall is 5 meters.

Now, You have all information to find easily the best route choice...



Personally I tried different possibilies with good speed. I wasn’t surprise with the best answer. Red route, on the small path slightly on the left side, was by far the fastest choice. But time difference with blue selection is quite big (almost one minute).

That’s a surprise, I thought it was only 30 seconds or so. May be, I am not using enough 1/15000° scale. Or maybe, I am still too much in “Japanese configuration” where it was possible to do long detour without losing much of time.



I also ran several different possibilities. Only few minor changes from the first two selections, but it's still interesting to see that “micro route-choices” (I am talking about real orienteering, not Micro-O...) are always important to safe some seconds.



I am quite attentive to those micro-route choices in Middle distance for example and it works well. But I must admit that I have to work this winter to keep same concentration to perform as well in long distance. I will also try to use much longer route choices and 1/15000° scale to improve myself.