Today's training was a "classical" kind of training on one of the maps of St Etienne area. Since most of our maps are quite hilly here, we sometimes use them to enjoy downhill orienteering. The game rules was to set a course without any positive contours (except in case of mistakes…) but with a maximum of negative heights. That time, we had four courses in the steep slopes of Les Condamines. Some details drawn on the map were quite small on the terrain and hard to see. I did two quite good “schuss” (C & D) and two poor runs (A & B). Many of us got trapped in the A course by a dummy control. Good to remember more than 3 months before Tiomila : reading controls numbers is not always a stupid idea. In such kind of trainings, the key of a good and fluent orienteering is always hidden in the control you might have or not above yourself. It is not anymore a question of running abilities; it is all in your mind… Downhill orienteering

Sprint Qualification On the following day, the Sprint Final took place in Cervara, an incredible village in the slope. The course was quite unusual with a LOT of downhill running. Starting place was amazing, almost like in downhill skiing, on the top of the hill. The weather was also quite wintry: fog and heavy rain... Once again, the informations were talking about a course splited in two different parts... the first part taking place in a steep forest and the second one in a tricky village. One of the question of the day was then : which shoes should we run with for this course? It was nice to see that none had really the same idea. Many among the field used marathon shoes, some cross-country shoes and the others orienteering shoes. It was clear anyway that any shoes were perfectly suitable for the whole race. The first part was really steep and I don´t know how it could have been possible to run full speed with marathon shoes in such a slope. Personally, I used spike shoes with very small spike (0,5 mm), and i think it was a quite good choice. But i must say all our "shoes theories" were obviously a silly question as we clearly knew that winning some seconds with the good choice of shoes was nothing if you compare to a wrong route choice in the village... I like very much the "downhill course", but I decided to run first part without taking too much risk. It was more important for me to be in the map and right with the scale (1/4000°). But still, I did a fluent orienteering in the begining and when I went out from the first part, I was in the lead and caught Jonne Lakanen. Then started the difficulties... Already at the first control in the village (7th), even if my route was quite good, I stopped myself many times and was unsure where I exactly was. The 8th was not much better and i got lost after a few meters. I understood quite quickly that, like in most of the difficult forest terrains, if you are not active enough, if you are not anticipating but just waiting for the features to come, it is almost impossible to run fluently. Too often, I was late in my orienteering and I tried to relocate myself, instead of trying to know where I wanted to go. Over the first two controls of the city, I lost about 1 minute, which was not the best the start I dreamed of... I changed then my tactic, using much more the many cover passages (Canopy) which was easier to find on the map and use on the terrain. I used the largest street to secure my orienteering too. My routes were not the shortest ones there but I found back some fluency. My last mistake came on the 15th control where I stopped too early. I crossed the finish line once again disappointed with my performance. I didn´t manage well the most challenging competition of this week and only can take off my hat to Daniel, who was once again excellent.