Annadel Results

April 25, 1999

by Evan Custer

The combination of nice terrain, a good map, ideal running weather, and (hopefully) interesting and challenging courses, gave the 200 participants an enjoyable day of orienteering at Annadel this year. Check out the results.

Since we had used the western end of the park last year, I wanted to the terrain to be as fresh as possible. However, because of extremely poor access and parking sites at Annadel, we are limited in what areas we can use without extremely long walks to the start. This year was further complicated by the fact that there is an extensive trail rebuilding program at Annadel, and most of the northern part of the park was closed. Therefore, I decided to have the assembly area, registration, and finish near the small parking lot at the end of Channel Drive, and have a remote start that required a 10-15 minute hike up a steep hill. The remote start was utilized in order to reduce the climb required on the courses, but had a detrimental effect on some of the participants, particularly the beginners, because of the rigorous hike to the start.

It is always a pleasure to design advanced courses at Annadel because the terrain and map are among the best that BAOC has. The terrain is interesting because it is largely forested and also has many remnants from previous mining activities, including pits, small quarries, dot knolls, rock piles, etc., which increases its technical challenge. Also, there are some relatively flat areas, which allows faster running. I tried to make the advanced courses as challenging and interesting as possible, but still be enjoyable by reducing the climb as much as possible. The advanced courses started with two short, technical legs. I thought this would help challenge the orienteer, as it provided no time for people to get used to the map, so orienteering skill would be at a premium. I also tried to have several long legs on the courses, which was more easily done on the red and blue courses because the length of the courses and the terrain. The last half of the courses was predominantly downhill. The advanced courses shared many controls, which has the effect of competitors being able to compare splits and route choice on many legs, even though they were on different courses. Also, it helps conserve the terrain, and makes design of the courses, and hanging and picking up the controls easier.

The white and yellow courses were purposely made slightly shorter than usual because of the long trek up to the start. The white course was entirely on trails, whereas about a third of the yellow course was off trail. Other linear features, such as streams and distinct vegetation boundaries, were used between the controls.

Ivan San Martin blasted through the white course in 21:19, narrowly edging out Malcolm Wyatt-Mair by 7 seconds. Malcolm is the highest ranked boy in the age 10 and under in last year's USOF rankings. Melissa Criqui was the first female on white and came in third overall with a time of 25:18.

The yellow course was won by first time orienteer, Carl Mears, with a time of 27:17. Carl then went on and also had the fastest time on orange. Steve Keller and Julie Bennet were the first group to finish yellow with a time of 30:44. Trinka Gillis was the first woman with a time of 38:50. Rachel Care, age 10, who is the highest ranked girl in the USOF standings for 10 and under, did her first yellow course, and came in with a time of 78:30. The yellow course is the competitive course for 13 and 14 year old youths, so her time is very impressive considering her age.

The orange course had relatively few participants this year. It is always the most difficult to design, since one tries to have the optimal route be off trail, but to have an safer, but longer, trail route, or at least a good collecting feature. I started this year's orange course with a couple of relatively simple, yellowish controls, and then progressively increased the difficulty of the course. I think it still stayed within the guidelines for orange, however. As mentioned, Carl Mears had the fastest time on orange, 57:31, but this was his second course, so he was familiar with the terrain (and even the first control, since it was shared with the yellow course). Don Gee won orange with a time of 97:05, followed closely by David Watt in 97:24.

The top three finishers on brown were all women. Anneliese Steuben won the brown course in a time of 51:04. Anneliese has been improving her standing at recent events, and her experience in Switzerland probably helped her orienteering skill considerably. Vivian Lee came in second, and Leslie Minarik third. First man was Jeff Allanson, a visitor from Australia. His time was 77:38, but he lost some time on the course looking for his punch card which he had dropped.

Christian Frøyd won the 4.6 km. green course in a time of 38:46, or 8.4 min/km. Christian is from Norway, and has trained and coached in Sweden for several years. He is studying at UC Berkeley this semester, and has been very helpful to the club by giving a training session at Briones last month. He is injured with shin splints, and that is why he is running the shorter courses. I wonder how he would do if his legs didn't hurt. George Minarik, despite a rough start, calmed down and had a good run, and came in second with a time of 63:39, narrowly beat out long time rivals Joe Scarborough by 17 seconds and Dennis Wildfogel by another minute. Sarah Minarik braved the poison oak, and was first woman with a time of 76:32. Sarah has been training with Christian in preparation for her second summer in Sweden. Two Swedish girls, Anna-Karin Palm and Frida Larsson, who are working as au pairs in the Sacramento area, ran together on green and had an excellent time of 65:44.

Long time BAOC member, former US Team member, and IOF Councilor, Bruce Wolfe, showed that experience counts as he easily won the 5.7 km. red course in 55:30, or 9.7 min/km. Bruce made a rare Sunday appearance at one of our events (he told his church choir director that he would be missing a baritone that day) in preparation for the US Team trials the following weekend in New Hampshire. Tapio Karras was second 10 minutes after Bruce, and Gary Carpenter followed another 4 minutes later. The first woman was Sanna Wallenborg, also from Sweden, who is spending a year here in the Bay Area with her husband, Magnus. She had a time of 98:34.

Neeme Loorits, an Estonian who recently finished his studies at UC Berkeley, came in first on the 7.6 km., 425 m. climb, blue course with a time of 71:45, or 9.4 km/min. His competitive spirit kicked in when half way through the course he started catching up to other runners, including Dan Stoll-Hadayia, Van Boughner, and Doug Stein. The head to head competition really increases one's running speed. Kent Öhlund, who frequently runs his 40-45 year old age category in red, moved up to blue and came in second with a time of 84:33 with a very good run and only about 4 minutes of errors. He was shortly followed by Doug Stein at 85:28, and James Scarborough, in 85:59. James did not have his usual good day. Perhaps he has been studying too hard at graduate school, and gotten a little rusty. Hopefully, this event will be useful to him as a tune-up for the US Team Trials the following weekend.

Since the BAOC has been using pre-marked maps on a more frequent basis, we have had the problem of the people waiting at the start can see what direction earlier competitors head for their first control. This could cause an element of unfairness. This year I wanted to try the standard procedure used in Europe with a remote start triangle. The maps were distributed at the start up line, and then the competitors followed a mandatory streamered corridor to a remote start triangle out of view of the other participants waiting to start. On the whole, it seemed to work out OK, but the narrow path uphill to the start triangle could have potentially cause congestion problems, particularly since the advanced courses shared the start with the beginners, who generally were in groups and walked more slowly to the start triangle.

As with any event, mistakes and poor decisions occurred. The bright side is that I learn something new with each event I direct or design courses for. If I had it to do over again, I would have had the white and yellow start near the registration area, and had the courses go in the opposite direction up the hill, and come down a parallel trail to the one the start was on. I initially discarded that idea, because I thought the courses would be too long. However, in retrospect, the participants had to cover the same distance and climb, but had all the disadvantages of the remote start. It would have eased up on the congestion at the advanced start, made second courses more easy for participants to do, and eliminate the long, steep, climb to the start, and people would have thought that they got more time out on the course for their entry fee. As it was, some beginners spent more time hiking to the start and waiting for a start time that actually out on the course.

On the whole, I think the advanced courses were successful. The map at the very beginning may be slightly incorrect, which caused some people problems on the first two controls. Bob Cooley had made some corrections in that area, but some inaccuracy probably still is present. Most people on green heading for control 2 ended up about 50 meters south at a red control. Normally, this probably would not have been too much of a problem, but since the main challenge of this short technical leg was a compass bearing and pace counting, it had more effect than at the end of a longer leg. Joe Scarborough, although very complimentary of the event in general, suggested that the courses could have been even better if a couple of short legs were inserted in the latter half of the course to break up the series of 400-500 meter legs.

I want to apologize to those who were adversely affected by the poison oak, which I had described in the announcements as only minimal. I had last visited the park 10 days before the event, and at that time, there was a small amount of poison oak coming out, but it was very low. However, in the intervening 10 days, we had some warm, spring days, and the poison oak just blossomed, and became much more of a problem than initially I thought it would.

Finally, this event would not have been nearly as successful as it was were it not for the many club members who volunteered to help out. The most important person to help at this event was Bob Cooley. He vetted and hung all of the controls, lugged all of the water to the refreshment stops, picked up all of the distant red and blue controls, mapped a new area east of the parking lot which was utilized by the yellow course, made multiple map corrections in the regions of the control circles, and printed up all of the maps. I never could have directed this event without his help.

Tom and Sandy Guldman and George and Pat Aster handled the registration. Gary Kraght gave the beginner's clinics. The remote start was ably handled by David Meredith, Judy Koehler, Neal Barlow, and Penny DeMoss. Shirley Parlan, Syd Reader, Trevor Pering, and Julie Wells helped set up and run the finish. Penny DeMoss, Alan Glendinning, Meg Gerstner, Julie Wells, and Jill Custer calculated the results and checked the punches. Scott Aster was shuttle driver and float person. Kelly Wells, Harold DeMoss, Peter Graube, and Bob Cooley picked up all of the controls. Joan Roos went out earlier in the week and made several helpful suggestions about the green course. I also want to thank Fredrick Sundstrom and other members of the Leksands Orienteering Club from Sweden who pre-ran the blue course and made helpful comments.


Results

135 entries, 200 participants

WHITE    2.4 k, 10 m, 8 controls

1. Ivan San Martin	     21:19
2. Malcolm Wyatt-Mair	     21:26
3. Melissa Criqui	     25:18
4. Beverly Ames	             38:52
Valerie Brown                 DNF   (missed #7)

Groups
1. Gary & Melanie Johas	                   32:40
2. Claire Shubert & Violet Patocchi	   34:17
3. George & Ian Maurer	                   34:32
4. Brian & Eric Jonas	                   38:16
5. Don Vibbert & Jammie Kramer	           42:19
6. Rachael Helscheim & Genevieve Drexler   42:25
7. Willow Lena & Whitney McEvoy	           45:38
8. Gabby Athems & Tosha Callahan           59:18
9. Amanda Simons, Melissa Chrowl, 
   & Jessica Cameron                       62:41
10. Lily Tomkovic & Kate Shubert	   91:39
11. Brandyn Tomkovic & Desiree DelaVega	  120:56

YELLOW    2.3 k, 20 m, 11 controls

1. Carl Mears         27:17
2. Sam To             35:09
3. Trinka Gillis      38:50
4. Julie Wells        49:32
5. Larry Steuben      50:03
6. Jill Custer        50:44
7. Wendy Yu           56:35
8. May Poon           62:59
9. Shirley Parlan     67:51
10. Rachel Care       73:30
11. Vivian Robinson   78:37

Groups
1. Steve Keller & Julie Bennett	                    30:44
2. Cesar Ransh, Nathan Bikor, Miguel Aguilar, 
   Rolando Garcia, & Jim Caruso                     37:19
3. Dustin Pappas & Dash Moore	                    37:56
4. Jerry Andrade & Russ Bissig	                    41:17
5. Mike & Justin Crosier & 
   Pat & John McKenna	                            50:28
6. Daniel Öhlund & Matt Graydon                     50:31
7. George & Pat Aster	                            64:33
8. Kim Gradwohl, Rita Gilstrap, 
   & J.C. & Ana Rodriguez                           64:44
9. Isidro Calderon & Cesar Alvarado                 68:38
10. Nancy Weber & Gerard Russoniello	            72:13
11. Hannah Spencer & Lauren & Mark Gonsalves        72:46
12. Judy & Dick Koehler	75:17
13. Bramara, Sarada, & Mahhuri Tangirala	    76:46
14. Robin & Steve Khamsi & Peter Strand             77:49
15. David & Sandy Tresan	                    89:36
16. Kandi Schneckloth & Heather Bissig	            90:30
17. Jennifer, Natalie & Stephanie Wallace	    96:04
    Chelsea Cohen, Elysse Lane, & Alex Rosalsky      DNF
    Judith & Chad Mayer                              DNF
    Sheryl Ferrati & Hillary Hoff                    DNF
    Vivian & Amelia Robison, Lauren Patz, 
	  Daniella Ross, & Devon Cruz                DNS
    Winterlin Family	                             DNS
		
2nd Course
1. George Maurer	42:26
2. Ian G.P. Maurer	45:07

ORANGE    3.1 k, 95 m, 11 controls

1. Don Gee               97:05
2. David Watt            97:24
3. Orlando San Martin   108:30
4. Peter Williams       130:13
   Hillary Wolfe         DNF
   Paul McEvoy           DNF
		
Groups
1. Ann Sorenson, Josh Phelps, & James Wren      169:50
   Paul & Charlie McEvoy & Teddy Aanestad         DNF

2nd Course
1. Carl Mears                     53:31
2. Steve Keller & Julie Bennett   71:38

BROWN     3.1 k, 70 m, 10 controls

1. Anneliese Steuben     51:04
2. Vivian Lee            66:01
3. Leslie Minarik        75:20
4. Jeff Allanson         77:38
5. Janet Petersen        81:14
6. Charles Brenner       87:45
7. Gary Kraght	         90:18
8. Meg Gerstner       	 93:39
9. David Meredith        97:39
10. Sven Persson        109:00
11. Nancy Lindeman      131:36

Groups
1. Reggie Dugard, Selena Shan, & Jasper Wu    76:16
2. Colombe Tresna & Terri Nauenberg           82:15
3. Dwight & Rachel Freund                     86:55
4. Ev & Jean Beuerman                        165:34
   Tom & Sandy Guldman                         DNF

GREEN     4.6 k, 125 m, 13 controls

1. Christian Frøyd	38:46
2. George Minarik	63:39
3. Joe Scarborough	63:56
4. Dennis Wildfogel	64:54
5. Blake Tresan		71:34
6. Alan Glendinning	73:19
7. Sarah Minarik	76:32
8. Ian Ramsey		77:58
9. Rob Williams		80:02
10. Kathy McArdle	87:23
11. Donn Springer	91:20
12. Scott Aster		94:58
13. Bill Papendick	96:28
14. Patty White		100:26
15. Stacy Goss		107:12
16. Shawn Larsen	110:52
17. Jerry Goss		112:31
18. Aileen Abernathy	118:11
19. Theo Verhoeven	129:35
20. Steve Beuerman	159:46
    Harold DeMoss        MSP
    Rosemary Johnson     DNF
    Don Vibbert          DNF

Groups
1. Anna-Karin Palm & Frida Larsson   65:44
2. Rosalie Rybka & Bob Anglin       144:08

RED     5.73 k, 240 m, 14 controls

1. Bruce Wolfe		55:30
2. Tapio Karras		65:57
3. Gary Carpenter	69:52
4. Fabian Meier		73:25
5. Werner Haag		73:41
6. Martin Bergstrand	75:23
7. Dan Greene		76:53
8. Olav Solgaard	83:48
9. Mark Petersen	85:14
10. Matthias Kohler	86:04
11. Steve Jankowski	87:10
12. Trevor Pering	87:19
13. Chris Sherwood	88:55
14. Tony Pinkham	90:34
15. Sanna Wallenborg	98:34
16. Anders Persson	104:22
17. Kelly Wells		104:34
18. Mike Poulsen	115:37
19. Eric Rosenzweig	116:00
20. Peter Olsten	127:11
21. Mark Blair		135:59  (injured)
22. Mark Rice		136:25
23. Ralf Willecke	142:58
24. Robert Lewis	146:43

BLUE     7.64 k, 425 m, 19 controls

1. Neeme Loorits	71:45
2. Kent Öhlund		84:33
3. Doug Stein		85:28
4. James Scarborough	85:59
5. Dan Stoll-Hadayia	89:27
6. Syd Reader		90:02
7. Neal Barlow		91:42
8. Magnus Wallenborg	93:16
9. Thorsten Graeve	93:40
10. Van Boughner	109:18
11. Gavin Wyatt-Mair	125:36