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Tilden Regional Park

Date: (Sun.) Jan. 24, 2010
Location: Berkeley, CA
Event Director:
Course Setter: Jonas Kjall
Type: B; We had some nice courses from Jonas in the north end of Briones this past Spring. Let's see what he can do in Tilden!

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Event Write-Up

By

Approximately 150 people attended the first B-meet of the year at Tilden Park near Berkeley on Sunday, January 24, 2010. Perhaps people were getting cabin fever after a week of almost continuous rain, perhaps they were itching to get back in the woods after a long holiday hiatus, perhaps they came because of Jonas's reputation as an excellent course setter, or maybe they came just because it was close by. Probably they came because they like the free food that Rex and Jay have become famous for providing. The junior tent with the nachos was a very popular gathering place, and a lot of people hung around, talking, comparing routes, and gnashing. In any event, most everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves despite the threatening skies and light rain for about an hour between 12:00 and 1:00.

Jonas Kjäll, a Swedish grad student at UC Berkeley, designed and set the courses. Jonas has been in the area for two and a half years, and has been a great addition to the club. Fortunately, getting a PhD in physics at Cal takes a lot of time, so he will be with us for a while yet.

Jonas did a fabulous job designing the courses. There was everything one would want in a well-designed course. The legs were interesting, with a lot of route choice, a combination of longer and shorter legs, the need for fine orienteering skills, lots of change in direction. All in all, the courses provided a good challenge, both mentally and physically, to the participants. Also, from an event director's point of view, I couldn't ask for a better person to work with. He was very disciplined, planned his courses out far in advance, and always had things completed in a timely fashion. There was no need to be biting my nails, worrying if the courses would get designed and the flags placed in time.

George Minarik was the course consultant and vetter. George is one of our most experienced and talented course designers. He made a lot of suggestions on how to improve the courses, and vetted the controls to be sure they were in the right place (they were). The combo of Jonas and George resulted in a formidable course-setting team.

Jonas has posted his 3 choices of routes on the Blue course (which shared some legs with the Orange, Brown, Green, and Red courses) — they can be found on RouteGadget (http://baoc.org/gadget/cgi/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=205&kieli). He also wrote a nice review of the course, which can be found here — it provides interesting comments about route choice (and course setting). Almost everybody thought the courses were excellent. The only controversy was control 55, which was a common control and water stop for all of the advanced courses. There was an indistinct trail through the fight north of the control, which provided a route choice alternative going to the control. Jonas had marked the trail with a pink ribbon. Unfortunately, the fact that the trail had been streamered was not mentioned in the Course Setter's Notes, and so some people thrashed through the green, and lost some time. Also, the fight was wider than mapped.

Results

François Leonard had the best time on Blue, finishing the 7.0-km, 450-m-climb course in 1:36:06. It was nice to see François back, as he has not been to many of our events recently.

Steve Gregg took the honors on the Red course, finishing the steep 5.2-km course in 1:15:09. The big surprise on Red was second place finisher, and first woman, Rebecca Minty, with a time of 1:24:35. Rebecca is Australian, and is a law student at UC Berkeley. She has attended JWOC, and been one of the top-ranked Australian orienteering women, and is also a mountain runner in bush marathons. Tilden sounds like her type of terrain. We are looking forward to seeing a lot more of Rebecca in the next few years. Penny DeMoss, long-time BAOC member and world-class marathoner, is pleased to see the Amazon tradition in BAOC will get some new life.

The closest race of the day was on Green, with two hot-shot young men, Philipp Kopisch and Cameron Ferguson, battling it out. Philipp, who won the silver medal at the U.S. Orienteering Championships in Wisconsin last November, edged out Cameron by 16 seconds, coming in at 1:01:03 on the 4.5-km Green course. Ahh, to be young again. Chuck Spalding was the first 'old goat' on the Green course, only 10% behind the young kids. Penny DeMoss was first woman with a time of 1:12:10.

The Brown course was hotly contested by two of BAOC's better orienteers, both of whom are on the sick and disabled list. Ben Legg, suffering from a cold, out ran Martin Kunz, the Swiss mountain goat, who has been suffering with a long bout of Achilles tendinitis. Ben finished the 3.0-km course in 28:51. Lauren MacMullen was first woman on Brown with a time of 57:51.

Joe Knapp finished the challenging Orange course in 41:58, and Marie-Jose Parayre was second overall and the first woman in 52:50.

William Morris whipped around the 2.3-km Yellow course in 27:31, and David Harrison came in second, only 38 seconds behind. Irena Stefanova was first woman in 40:39.

The young ladies took top honors on the White course, with Hannah Kopisch (obviously, orienteering runs in the blood of the Kopisch family) zipping around the 1.5-km course in 21:50. Natalie Kim came in second, and Daniel Sebo was third overall, and first young man, with a time of 24:35.

Volunteers

This event could not have taken place without the help of many people. First, I want to thank Davio Santos, the chief ranger at Tilden, for his cooperation in letting us use the park for an orienteering event.

I also particularly want to thank Jim Fish. Jim was the first person on the scene, arriving at 8:00 am, and helped set up all of the tents and the Start area. Then he went out for his run, and after he came back, he manned the results download station most of the day. Finally, he went out and helped collect controls. Jim never complains, always volunteers to help, and is a true gem for our club.

Everybody appreciates the goodies that Rex Winterbottom, our social chairman, and Jay Hann, the driving force behind COOL, bring to our events. There is nothing like free food to keep people around. James Wilson and Rex handled the registration duties. We had quite a few first-time orienteers at this event, and Steve Gregg was kept busy giving beginner's clinics. Gary Kraght and his wife Olga Seredenko handled the first shift of the starts, and Ben Legg responded to a panic e-mail Saturday afternoon to do the second shift of starts, despite the fact he was feeling a little under the weather. Jim Fish, Peter Graube, Matej Sebo, and Greg Ehrensing handled the EP download and results posting.

Harold and Penny DeMoss were coordinators for control pickup, and also arrived early to help set up. Lauren MacMullen, Steve Haas, Jim Fish, Vicki Woolworth, Jonas Kjall, Steve Gregg, Marina Keating, Joe Maffie, Mark Blair, Greg Ehrensing, Masha Lipatov, and Cameron Ferguson helped pick up controls. This was the largest and the fastest control-pickup crew I have ever seen. All of the controls were back in 45 minutes, a new record. Usually I have to wait around for all of the controls to come in before I leave as event director, but we still hadn't finished taking everything down before they were all back. I was home by 3:45, another record for my career of directing events.

And finally, I want to thank Bob Cooley, our tireless mapping director, who prints up all of our great maps for every event, Chuck Spalding, who edits and posts the announcements and results on the Web page, and Tappio Karras, for setting up the RouteGadget for each event.

I keep threatening to go on emeritus status with the club as far as being an event director, but with all of the help that I got, maybe I will reconsider next year.

Those of you who weren't able to be at the event missed a great one.

Lost & Found

The following items were left at the event:

• Grey Brooks gloves
• Olive cap
• Water bottle with pink cap and colored polka dots “Hello Kitty”
• Base-plate compass

If any of these items are yours, please let me know, and we can make arrangements to get them back to you.

Results

Tilden Regional Park

Berkeley, CA
Sunday, January 24, 2010

  Pl  Name(s)                           Time

White Course   (1.5 km, 9 controls)

   1  Hannah Kopisch (COOL)             21:50
   2  Natalie Kim (COOL)                23:51
   3  Daniel Sebo                       24:35
   4  Gavin Smith (COOL)                26:07
   5  Jake Hennlen, Nick Item,
        Auson Born                      27:20
   6  Kelly & Zara Walton               27:53
   7  John Martin                       28:35
   8  Davy Williams (COOL)              28:59
   9  Darius Rudominer, Miles Watson    31:49
  10  Deborah Mikuteit                  32:40
  11  Emily Hann (COOL)                 34:13
  12  Luther Martin                     35:18
  13  Stephanie Maclean                 38:43
  14  Andrew Kim (COOL)                 40:05
  15  Tristan Hawes                     44:05
  16  Penelope Cox                      49:51
  17  Dave Watson, Mitch Rudominer      54:55
  18  Ingert Svard                      57:24
  19  Garrett & Preston Vona          1:01:34
  20  Xander Hawes (COOL)             1:07:12
  21  Elizabeth Hawes                 1:09:01
  22  Wes Erck                        1:20:43
  23  Chris & Karlen Vona             1:41:11


Yellow Course  (2.3 km, 9 controls)

   1  William Morris (COOL)             27:31
   2  David Harrison (COOL)             28:53
   3  Gavin Williams (COOL)             30:43
   4  Irena Stefanova                   40:39
   5  Olga Seredenko                    43:09
   6  Rory Maclean (COOL)               57:58
   7  Kajsa Vangbo                      59:44
   8  Ben Hallsted (COOL)             1:01:33
   9  Talia Peterson (COOL)           1:04:32
  10  Amanda Radtke (COOL)            1:06:01
  11  Lani Schreibstein,
        Vladimir Gusiatnikov          1:13:37
  12  John & Jeff Skinner,
        David Boicelli, Gino Dianda   1:14:31
  13  Liza & Camila Sanches           1:16:56
  14  Sasha Iakovlev                  1:19:39
  15  Riva & Nadine Skinyer,
        Vinny Dianda                  1:21:29
  16  Blithe Brandon, Maxine Jacobi   1:22:11
  17  Nathan Krieger, Molly Wahl      1:24:43
  18  Sara & Joseph Danielson         1:28:50
  19  Jeff & Nancy Tyler,
        Garret Chen                   1:54:27
  20  Greg Hartman, Deborah Carrillo   1:56:33
  21  Ellis De Valois                 1:56:35
  22  Nancy Lindeman                  2:03:23
  23  Diane R. Hall                   2:35:26

      Troop 1630                        DNF
      Daniel Kim (COOL)                 DNF


Orange Course  (3.3 km, 13 controls)

   1  Joe Knapp                         41:58
   2  Marie-Jose Parayre                52:50
   3  Paul Polewaczyk                 1:01:48
   4  Harold DeMoss                   1:04:38
   5  Carl Williams                   1:09:55
   6  Caedmon Hass, Daniel Shu        1:17:23
   7  Deb Mikuteit                    1:24:00
   8  Nathan Kelso                    1:31:08
   9  Chris Buchner                   1:32:15
  10  Don Gee                         1:35:06
  11  Paul & Kathy Li                 1:42:53
  12  Fred Loebl                      1:53:05
  13  Kevin MacInnis                  2:01:09
  14  Chris Kovatch, Jennifer Meek    2:01:46
  15  Jane Wang, Olivia Lee           2:36:24

      Go Bears                          DNF    Skipped #1
      Teruko Follette                   DNF
      Barbara Finch                     DNF

  Second Course

      Gavin Williams (COOL)             56:52
      William Morris (COOL)             59:45


Brown Course   (3.0 km, 10 controls)

   1  Benjamin Legg                     25:51
   2  Martin Kunz                       28:35
   3  Gary Kraght                       46:31
   4  Stefan Stefanov                   52:37
   5  Lauren MacMullen                  57:51
   6  Scott Novotny                   1:00:28
   7  Johanna Merriss                 1:01:08
   8  Alex Solomatnikov               1:05:02
   9  Laurens Fein                    1:09:56
  10  Leslie Minarik                  1:12:48
  11  Jim Fish                        1:15:10
  12  Joe Scarborough                 1:23:54
  13  Bronwen Caplinger (COOL)        1:32:20
  14  William Nguyen, Tiffany Pham    1:34:10
  15  David Hallsted                  1:52:59
  16  Tracy Sanders, Ellen Hughes     2:28:38

      Michelle Daher                    MSP     #10

  Second Course

      Wes Erck                        1:30:06


Green Course   (4.5 km, 10 controls)

   1  Philipp Kopisch (COOL)          1:01:03
   2  Cameron Ferguson                1:01:19
   3  Matej Sebo (SDO)                1:06:48
   4  Chuck Spalding                  1:07:07
   5  Penny DeMoss                    1:12:10
   6  Dan Greene                      1:16:08
   7  Brad Wetmore                    1:17:42
   8  Misha Lipatov                   1:17:52
   9  Steve Haas                      1:21:43
  10  James Wilson                    1:24:24
  11  Bob Cooley                      1:24:38
  12  Greg Ehrensing                  1:27:33
  13  Bill Strauss                    1:28:09
  14  Daniel Kopisch (COOL)           1:32:03
  15  Jonathan Hallsted (COOL)        1:32:50
  16  Vicki Woolworth                 1:41:46
  17  William Follette                1:50:18
  18  Derek Sibilia                   1:54:37
  19  Tom Cronin                      2:25:45
  20  Ben Caplins, Jess Douglas       2:49:46
  21  Juval Benjamini, Ngoc Tron,
        James Long                    3:33:36

      Phillip Hoare                     DNF    Skipped #7

  Third Course

      William Morris (COOL)           1:38:24


Red Course     (5.2 km, 14 controls)

   1  Steve Gregg                     1:15:09
   2  Rebecca Minty                   1:24:35
   3  Matthias Kohler                 1:26:44
   4  Lubomir Sebo                    1:31:39
   5  Steve Harrison                  1:34:11
   6  Michael Behrens                 1:42:47
   7  Manfred Kopisch                 1:49:42
   8  Shura Kretchetov                1:54:46
   9  Gavin Wyatt-Mair                2:02:39
  10  Derek Maclean                   2:03:32
  11  Mark Blair                      2:10:52
  12  Theo Verhoeven                  2:13:50
  13  Heidi Stenner                   2:51:11
  14  Marina Keating                  2:56:12
  15  Jeff Dickert                    3:04:45

      Mattias Vangbo                    DNF    Skipped #6
      Bruce Wolfe                       DNF    Skipped #8


Blue Course    (7.0 km, 19 controls)

   1  Francois Leonard                1:36:06
   2  Dennis Wilkinson                1:41:52
   3  Mark Prior                      1:56:53
   4  Syd Reader                      2:01:42
   5  Toby Ferguson                   2:05:05
   6  Alex Finch                      2:08:19
   7  Joe Maffei                      2:32:19
   8  Peter Graube                    2:36:24
   9  Lou Lederer                     3:02:38

      Vladimir Gusiatnikov              DNF
      Kim Dararath                      DNF

_______________

DNF = Did not finish (missed one or more controls)
MSP = Mispunched (one or more controls wrong)