Discussion: 1:15

I would argue that on a long course, the 1:15 is beneficial for a big picture view of the terrain, e.g. for long legs. For example, in the 2015 World Cup Long in Tasmania, the long leg was 3.8 km. That's 38 cm - almost 16 inches on a 1:10 map.

I ran on a 1:10 map at Tiomila with a 13 km course, and the map was A2 - 16" x 24". It was like running with a poncho.

If printing is good and the typical vision of the class members is good enough, it can be much easier to understand the terrain on a 1:15 map. I guess there is a characteristic scale for a course at which it's helpful to see; for a sprint or middle, this scale is seldom larger than a km. For a long this might be 2 or more kilometers. There's only so much physical map area that we can hold and read while running. If the map scale is appropriate such that the characteristic scale of a course is correctly represented on the map, map reading is much easier.

I wonder if/when we'll see a future state where we have the option to use cheap, durable, color e-ink displays that we could use for maps with pan/rotate/zoom.

For me it's definitely because of the map size. Not just for long legs, but also when it's a massive map, and you fold it up to the point where it's the size I want to look at, there's just too much map in my hand, and my wimpy little hands get tired.

I haven't yet had trouble reading a well-printed 1:15 map, but I still have young eyes. I imagine I'll sing a different tune when I hit 45.

Yes, yes you will.
I remember standing on the start of WOC'93 (Harriman, you know), looking at the map hanging there. 1:15, tons of detail. And I thought, "YES!"
Now I can barely read it at 1:10 with my magnifier and bifocals. (Well, it's not quite *that* bad.)