On the first full day of Spring, 200 orienteers found their way around Coyote Hills, taking in rain-freshened views of the Bay Area. For the second year in a row, the last few controls were set in an early morning rain, but a beautiful sunny day appeared at the last minute, welcoming orienteers who showed up to try courses ranging from beginner's to intermediate and memory orienteering. Check out the results and Thorsten Graeve's winning Memory-O strategy.
All six courses were won in better than 10 minutes per kilometer, attesting to the open hillsides and the energy of several new and veteran orienteers. The most enthusiastic orienteer of the day was Allen Downs, a newcomer who started on White, then moved up to Yellow, Orange, and Score-O', doing 4 courses in one day!
Cecile and Fernando Jimenez won the White course, running the nearly 2km course in 17:17. They went on to try the significantly more challenging Orange course and finished in the top half of that course. Leif Kirschenbaum bested 58 other competitors on the crowded Yellow course in just under 10 minutes per kilometer, even with the tricky hillside controls during the second half of the course.
Chuck Spalding flew through the standard Orange course in 33:03, with Anneliese Stueben taking an impressive second in 41:49. The fastest running of the day took place on the Long Orange course, with visiting Swede Magnus Cederlof finishing the >4% climb course in exactly 6 minutes/kilometer. Over five minutes back, club mate Magnus Wallenborg took second with local speedster Dan Stoll-Hadayia within a minute for third. Top woman on Long Orange, Angelica Riley, was one of two women to beat 10 minutes/kilometer on the day.
The Score O' course featured the same controls as the Long Orange, but with competitors choosing their own order and trying to get as many as possible in under an hour. This choice proved to be perhaps more of a challenge than a help, with the winner, Neal Barlow, getting all 24 controls in 52:15. Matthias Kohler & Hannu Haarma, 2 and 3 minutes behind Neal, also found all 24 controls under the time limit.
In some of the most impressive feats of the day, two other competitors also got all 24 controls under the time limit, without carrying maps! On the Memory Score-O', competitors could only look at the map at the start and at controls 6 and 21, also near sea-level on other edges of the map. To get all 24 controls, top competitors had to memorize the location of about 8 controls at a time, go find and punch all of them, then find the next map and do it again, two more times! Thorsten Graeve completed that feat in 57:56, with Brian Moore and Dan Greene close behind, accomplishing the same task in 59:21 and 1:00:04 respectively.
As event director, I really appreciate the help of all the volunteers who make the many little tasks on the day of the event run so smoothly. I had found barely enough people to help in the week before the event, but over twice as many people volunteered on the spot during the event. Thanks! In the flurry of managing the event, I know I didn't get the name of all the volunteers. Some of the very helpful individuals were:
Total competitive entries 137
# of people-entries 213
# of different people 200
White: 1.93km, 25m climb, 8 controls
Place Name Time
1 Cecile & Fernando Jimenez 17:17
2 Jeffrey Steuben 18:00
3 Lucy Clark & Dand Eger 21:48
4 Allen Downs 23:55
5 Gail Glendinning, Sarah Band 25:48
6 Tom Finke 28:10
7 Sandi & Randy Fox, Lexie Kekoa 32:08
8 Nick Tapia, Alan Houser (Troop 24) 40:19
9 Carolyn Fujii, Sam Werback
(GS Troop 1187) 42:00
10 Kristen Pitsenbarger 45:10
11 Michael Marte, Elise Engelhardt 45:25
12 Chanda, Shounak & Sanjeen Dharap 46:03
13 Mark Aydelotte 53:45
14 Kyle Garcia, Kyle Jay (Troop 132) 54:40
15 Daryl Hidalgo, Matthew Kell 55:27
16 Rick Garcia 56:15
17 Marco Echandt, Jeffrey Aydelotte 56:38
18 Patrick Tremo, Lois Derodeff 1:16:26
Yellow: 2.43km, 70m climb, 11 controls
Place Name Time
1 Leif Kirschenbaum 23:55
Tom Finke 25:22 2nd Course
2 Brandon Young 29:16
Im Soon Yun 31:15 2nd Course
Allen Downs 32:01 2nd Course
3 Greg Morgan 34:04
4 Werback (4 from Troop 1187) 34:30
5 Anu Peräsalo 36:18
6 Katie Johnson 37:29
7 Don Griffin 38:30
8 Brian Ascher 42:10
9 Dan & Greg Hobbs 43:30
10 Aigno Feng 43:34
11 Aimee Grimes 44:00
12 Roberta Pitsenbarger 45:16
13 Julie Wells 45:59
Marco & Ron Echandt &
Jeffrey Aydelotte 51:50 2nd Course
14 Dan, Brett Plambeck 52:20
15 McGugan Family 52:53
16 Nicholas Tapia, Manny Barra,
Harris Lapiroff, Brendan Dreaper,
George Dreaper 53:04
17 Werner & Dao 53:24
18 Jacob Erikson (Troop 24) 54:04
19 Rachel Care & Louise Madrid 58:52
20 A. Doxiadis, Sarah Edwards 1:01:15
21 Carlos Miller, Alanao, Amando,
Colton, Eric 1:09:16
22 Matt, Eric, Jeff, Joshua, Joseph,
Judy, Mike, Bill (Troop 110) 1:14:44
23 Joseph & Lourdes Barboza 1:15:10
24 J. Peterson 1:25:40
25 Brian, Ann, Matthew, Laura Agee 1:46:00
Daryl Hidalgo, Matthew Kell 1:56:32 2nd Course
Orange: 3.76km, 140m climb, 14 controls
Place Name Time
1 Chuck Spalding 33:03
2 Anneliese Steuben 41:49
3 Michael Young 45:48
4 Jorian Riley & Christopher Wilkins 47:52
5 Josh Friederichs 48:12
6 Michael Boyce & Im Soon Yun 49:30
7 Aileen Abernathy 50:17
8 Stephanie Maclean 51:45
9 Orlando San Martin 53:20
Allen Downs 55:00 3rd Course
10 Katie & Andy Werback 56:30
11 Dave Modiano 1:00:46
Cecile & Fernando Jimenez 1:02:09 2nd Course
12 Rebecca Higgerson & Brian Johnson 1:03:53
13 Marsha Jacobs 1:05:11
14 P. Williams 1:10:28
Brian Ascher 1:11:11 2nd Course
15 Don, Denise, Will, Kyle Larsen 1:11:13
16 Patty White, Nancy Kohn 1:12:25
17 Chris Cobey 1:13:06
18 Dean French 1:17:12
19 Glenn & Emma Shelton 1:19:20
20 James Shyn 1:30:15
21 S Leandro (4) 1:34:26
22 Mark & Nate Perkins 1:41:20
23 Ev & Jean Beuerman 1:51:17
24 Thomas Family 1:52:20
25 Bill, Helen Madsen 2:00:56
26 Linda Bagnall 2:05:59
Long Orange: 5.96km, 250m climb, 24 controls
Place Name Time
1 Magnus Cederlof 35:50
2 Magnus Wallenborg 40:55
3 Dan Stoll-Hadayia 41:28
4 Neeme Loortis 42:15
5 Robert Pedersen 42:23
6 Stefan Carlsson 43:01
7 Steve Gregg 46:43
8 Tapio Karras 49:13
9 Chris Sherwood 49:56
10 Derek Maclean 52:28
11 George Minarik 55:10
12 Angelica Riley 55:29 (Tuesday rerun: 46:28)
13 Dennis Wildfogel 59:18
14 Werner Haag 59:25
15 Peter Rexer 59:28
16 Kelly Wells 1:00:01
17 Sean Coady 1:00:21
18 Michael Poulsen 1:01:14
19 Gary Kraght 1:03:06
20 Chris Taylor 1:05:38
21 Per Andersson 1:07:00
22 Chau George 1:08:13
23 Baharau Zachi 1:09:50
24 Shawn Larsen 1:11:22
25 Alan Glendinning, Meg Gerstner 1:12:45
26 Vivian Lee 1:13:44
27 Harold DeMoss 1:18:13
28 O'Kelly, Sidwell 1:19:27
29 Robert Lewis 1:26:14
30 Bjorn Widerstrom 1:29:29
31 Jim McMahon 1:33:53
32 Carol Chen 1:34:21
33 Leslie Minarik 1:38:47
34 Steve Beuerman 1:44:33
35 Deborah Swarts 1:49:30
36 Pauline, Reggie 2:00:35
37 Natasha Gelfound, Dimitris
Michailidis, Kostadis Rocessos 2:36:46
38 Joe Rivera DNF (got 18)
39 Anders Carlsson DNF (got 17)
40 Ben and Ira Weiner DNF (got 17)
Score-O
60 minute limit, 24 controls, 10 pts/control,
-5 pts/minute late, same controls as Long Orange
Place Name # Score Time
1 Neal Barlow 24 240 52:15
2 Matthias Kohler 24 240 54:15
3 Hannu Haarma 24 240 55:40
4 S. Lang 24 235 1:00:33
5 Steve Smith 22 220 58:21
Allen Downs 17 170 57:50 4th Course
6 Eric Rozenzweig 24 170 1:13:20
7 Rosemary Johnson 15 150 56:31
8 Brian Cilker, Abby, Mark, Margo 10 55 1:08:18
9 Al, Geoffrey, Andrew 13 -120 1:50:00
10 Jennifer Marinelly-Nunes, and
Jeff Nunes 24 -145 2:16:14
Memory Score-O
60-minute limit, 24 controls, 10 pts/control,
-5 pts/minute late, same controls as Long Orange
3 maps (at start and at 2 controls)
Place Name # Score Time
1 Thorsten Graeve 24 240 57:56
2 Brian Moore 24 240 59:21
3 Dan Greene 24 235 1:00:04
4 Syd Reader 23 230 57:46
5 Panu Haaramo 21 210 56:04
6 Mark Blair 21 210 57:42
7 Manfred Kopisch 20 200 59:05
8 Gavin Wyatt-Mair 18 175 1:00:40
9 Scott Aster 16 160 56:40
From 21, I went to 17-14-13-12-11-6. No problems here, except that I couldn't remember which way to turn from 11 and went west for a moment looking for the trail through the marsh.
The last set was definitely the hardest. I memorized the sequence 5-2-4-1-3-7-9-10. I kind of knew where 16 was from looking at it at the start, thinking I could get it on the way back if I had a minute or so left. Number 8 just looked like too much of a slog, so I wasn't actually planning on getting it. Except that when I got to the ridge above 9, I still had ~14 minutes to spare, and I kind of remembered it was on the N or NE side of the hill, so I figured what the heck. Luckily it was way out in the open and easily visible.
If I had done the regular score-O, I probably would have done a big clockwise loop instead of a figure-eight. I liked the route-optimization vs. memorization problem - it adds an extra dimension to the run. With the wide open terrain, it was surprisingly easy - there were only a few places where having a map at hand could have saved me a few seconds (maybe I was even running faster without the map?).