Urban Goat II, plus Dinner and a Movie
Date: (Sat.) Aug. 5, 2006
Location: Oakland, CA
Event Director: 
- 510.681.6181
Course Setter: Rex Winterbottom
Type: C; Short "Goat" course
Event Write-Up
By Rex Winterbottom
Mass-start events are easy to put on. Just get everybody registered (in this case, because it was a free event, just sign the waiver), give out the maps, explain the rules, send them off, start the watch, then wait for them to finish.
This truly was an international event. People came from Lebanon, Switzerland, and Hong Kong to attend. Well, perhaps they also came for other reasons to be in the Bay Area, and happened to hear about our event. Even though this was small, half the people were new and exciting faces to BAOC. After I had time to shower after setting out Joaquin Miller bags, and folks had congregated at my porch, and Pat arrived at the porch steps from the AC Transit 15 bus (yay for public transit to orienteering events!) we might have been ready to do the pre-start briefing, but the local police were uncooperative. But it wasn't BAOC who was getting busted — it was speeders down Park Blvd.! That'll teach them to drive too fast near an orienteering event. Of course, being the conscious course setter that I am, none of the three courses on this map this weekend were designed to cross Park Blvd. during competition. We all crossed together safely in the crosswalk to the start area after a briefing session interrupted by at least 5 of the 25 or so "pullovers" done by the two Oakland motorcycle cops.
I drove ahead of the group in my car, but because of the manifold staircases and footpath shortcuts, Andrejus Masalkovas almost beat me to the first control, and it took him 8 and a half minutes to arrive there! I spectated as everybody passed by. The first two controls were shared by both the 3.3-km Kid and the 5.2-km (or less, depending on which control you skipped) Goat.
Participants doing the full-on Goat had to visit an extra 6 controls in a window of 7 on the map, setup as a Score-O. The four who braved it found it fun and intellectually challenging, and I was excited to see that they picked different skips and still debated as to which was best. There were at least 3 in contention for the "best skip." Andrejus Masalkovas cruised through it, followed not far off by Theo Verhoeven; Clare Durand championed the women, and Jim Fish rounded out the field of those who consumed the whole enchilada.
The only decisions to be made on the kid: route choice. And there was plenty of it. How do you get to 1, then 2, then 3, then the finish. When's the last time we had a course with so few controls? Leg lengths averaged about 0.8 km each. Margaret Longstreth almost beat me to the finish, but I clocked her from my car as I waited for the two stoplights. Margaret also won the "kid." And everyone else who finished did well.
All of us gathered at a long table at Rolling Dunes, a pasta – crepes – sandwich eatery on Lake Shore Ave., and had a great time chatting and hanging out and enjoying the food and drink. We skipped the movie, but I hope someday we can visit the majestic Grand Lake Theater as a party of orienteers. Thanks to everyone for making it a fun event, and to Jim Fish for running off to photocopy the answer sheets!
Results
Urban Goat II
Oakland, CA
Saturday Evening, August 5, 2006
Pl Name(s) Time
Urban Kid Goat
1 Margaret Longstreth 35:42
2 Julia Doubson, Fyodor Konkov 49:45
3 Masha Konkov, Natasha Doubson 62:01
4 Carine & Tarek Elkhoraibi,
Wassim Ghannoum,
Mariah Hopkins, & Mohammed 64:07
6 Pat Wong 66:07
Urban Goat
1 Andrejus Masalkovas 36:43
2 Theo Verhoeven 39:41
3 Clare Durand 59:34
4 Jim Fish 64:33