Point Pinole Training Exercise, Pinole
Sunday, March 29, 1998
Time and place: 10 AM to ???. Meet at the picnic tables right past the railroad tracks--the staging area we've used at the meets the last two years.
Cost: Free! We'll just get rid of some of the many leftover premarked maps from the last two years. (Also, I don't have to worry about getting permission from the park, if we don't charge) There is a $3.50 parking fee on weekends, though.
Directions: Same as in the Jan-Feb bulletin, but I've discovered it's actually much quicker to exit Interstate 80 at Richmond Parkway, the next exit north of the Hilltop Drive exit. Take Richmond Parkway west a little over a mile. When you reach San Pablo Avenue, follow the old directions in the bulletin--keep going 0.2 miles, and turn right on Atlas Rd. The park entrance will be on your right in 1.4 miles. (OR, you can stay on Richmond Parkway past Atlas Rd., following the actual highway signs to the park and coming in from the opposite direction. However, this route backtracks and is longer--not sure why they made the signs in this way!)
Other information: I'm not sure now why I scheduled this event this week, as I've been extremely busy at work and probably won't plan the exercise in detail until Saturday. The main theme, however, will be pace counting. I have blatantly plagarized the workshop material from the 1993 convention at Sugar Bowl (did Hannah North put this together, old timers??)--you will count paces over various types of terrain to establish your pace count per 100 m, and see how slope and vegetation affects this count. Then we will look at a very informative dissertation Joe Scarborough recently put together on this topic--I'm not sure when or if Joe plans to post this to the O-net, but if you come Sunday, you will see it then! Finally, I will set a short streamered course to let you practice pacing over various types of terrain.
Hope to see you there! Not sure whether to expect 3 or 30 people, but regardless of the numbers, I hope this will be a worthwhile event.
--Steve Gregg