Sunol

Fremont
Sunday, March 26, 2000

by Gary Carpenter, 925-862-2978

Sunol Regional Park is very green and beautiful right now. The creeks are flowing and the wildflowers are just getting started. If the weather is like the last two weekends, it will be great for a picnic after your run.

Sunol is relatively open with many interesting rock features. The terrain is quite steep and the advanced courses (except for Brown) will be physically demanding. If you have slacked off on physical conditioning over the winter, you may want to drop down a level for this meet!

We will use our 1991 five-color 1:15,000 map by George Kirkov. Although this map is not yet on OCAD, it is still one of our more detailed and accurate maps. Kelly Wells will set the advanced courses and Peter Graube the beginner/intermediate courses.

We will have White, Yellow, and Orange courses for novice through intermediate orienteers, as well as the usual four advanced courses. Registration opens at 9 AM with start times from 10 AM to 12:30 PM. Beginner's clinics are planned for 9:30-10:30.

Course statistics

Preliminary stats for the advanced courses: 
          Length     Climb
Brown     3.7 km     250 m
Green     4.7 km     270 m
Red       6.3 km     315 m
Blue      7.2 km     350 m

Shuttle for advanced starts

The last four years at Sunol have seen 50 to 60 competitors on advanced courses. Usually a long climb to the start is required for a quality course. In order to give the advanced runners some fresh new territory, we will use shuttles to a remote start along Welsh Creek Road for the Brown, Green, Red, and Blue courses.

In order for this to run smoothly and avoid long shuttle waits, we would like to try to spread out the advanced runners over the 2.5-hour start window. If you plan to run an advanced course, please e-mail Kelly Wells indicating which course and approximately the time you plan to run so that he can allocate shuttles appropriately. The start windows (approx. 27 people per window can be shuttled): 

Early-10:30
10:30-11:30
11:30-12:30
Expect a 10-minute shuttle ride and a 5-minute walk (30 meters of climb) to the start. You also may experience a 20-minute wait while the shuttles make the round trip. Please use this time to stretch and warm up. There will be a 300-meter trail run from map copy to the start triangle. 2/3 of the course should be totally new to green and brown runners.

Directions

To get to the park, take I-680 to the Calaveras Road exit near Sunol. Go south on Calaveras Road about six miles to Geary Road. Turn left onto Geary and continue for a couple of miles to the park entrance. Pay the parking fee and follow the O' signs to the registration area at northern side of the parking lot near the corrals.