Inter-thermal cruise speeds?

Anyone else here see Carl Herolds talk at the convention a couple
years ago titled, If you fly Mcdready you will lose"? Actually, he
said that was a title just to get attention but that the real title
was Fly Slower to Fly Faster, or something like that. It was
fascinating to see all this graphs and flight traces. It was very
convincing to see his data that indicated staying high and not
circling was ultimately faster. I think there may be a threshold L/D
value particular to specific conditions in which his technique
worked. Regardless, I now circle as little as possible.

MM