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25th "Annual" Golden Goat & Golden Kid

Camp Tamarancho

Date: (Sun.) Jan. 12, 2025
Location: Fairfax, CA
Event Director: - 415.456.8118
Course Setter: Mikkel Conradi
Type: C; After missing a year, we have the return of an extra-long "Goat" course, and a long "Kid" course, with a shared mass start; there will be NO BEGINNER COURSES at this special event

Related Event Information

WinSplits Results (http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/show_event.asp?id=102363) Attackpoint Results (https://www.attackpoint.org/eventdetail.jsp/event_58957) RouteGadget – Introduction RouteGadget – This Event (http://baoc.org/gadget/cgi/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=551) Event Announcement

Skip to the Results


Event Write-Up

, Event Director

Congratulations for everyone who came out to the Golden Goat & Kid! The weather was incredible, sunny, light to no wind, with temps in the 60's, a nice surprise from typical January weather. The 30 inches of rain Marin has received so far this year made the ground soft, yet not muddy (for the most part), with the new, short, green grass covering the areas of open hillsides.

While this event was technically the "2024" Goat, events conspired against us, pushing the date into this new year. Originally scheduled for November 3rd, a landslide on the road up to the camp forced repeated delays. The road was technically still closed to car traffic this weekend, but the Scouts graciously gave us an exemption as the reconstruction had progressed to the point where it was possible to drive it (very cautiously). Even the Carson City NJROTC minibus made it up without issue!

Mentioning the Carson City group, our turnout surprised and pleased me! Until a few days before the event, fewer than 30 people had pre-registered. However, with last minute registrations, coupled with some day-of registrations, over 80 people ended up going out on the two courses!

It was a blast watching the mass start, seeing 80+ people heading off in multiple directions at the same time. Some heading out in directions the course setter could never have imagined as likely!

These courses were not ordinary O' courses though, and the results bore this out! The Goat is meant to be an extreme physical challenge, and course setter Mikkel Conradi's designs certainly lived up to this description. Both courses were printed front and back of the map page, requiring a flip at the halfway point. Some participants made it to the halfway point, and then called it quits, while others soldiered on to finish their course. Perhaps the most challenging route choice on the Goat was the leg that ran almost all the way across the map. Even studying it carefully while at the assembly area, I couldn't figure out what the best route would be. It will be fun to see people's RouteGadget entries, and see how many different choices there were.

Fortunately, no one got seriously lost, and no significant injuries occurred. Finishers were happy to down the food and drink at the assembly area, and discuss their adventures and misadventures on the courses. Prizes were given out to the Male and Female winners of both the Goat and Kid, and the top 15 finishers on the Goat get their "Goat points"! Congratulations to Steve Gregg, for once again scoring points on the Goat. He has the longest streak by far for finishing in the top 15, just making it this year!

There are many people to thank for this event, but by far the most accolades most go to the Course Setter Mikkel Conradi. Not only did he design the courses, he also set all the bags out on the day before and day of the event, and designed the clever forking system that helped keep people from following each other. He also sealed all the maps, and placed everyone's map in their own manilla envelope, with their name on it, so everyone got a personalized course (one of four on the Goat, one of two on the Kid).

Sarah Williams, Steve Haas, Dennis Wildfogel, and Mattias Kohler worked the registration table and answered questions before the event. Jeff Lanam ran the E-punch system, and managed to make everything work, even though he left the event laptop at home, and had to quickly improvise with his backup laptop. Thanks to him, E-punch ran smoothly for the event! Last but not least, most of the maps were beautifully printed and collated by Matej Šebo.

I'd like to thank Scout Executive CEO Michael Dybeck at the Scout center, who worked with me through the delays, and gave us permission to drive up the road, even when no one else was allowed to. Ranger AJ Quilty was also very helpful, aiding Mikkel in placing water out on the courses. Scouts love Orienteering!

At the end of the day, with everyone tired from the courses, five participants (and Mikkel) found the strength and wiliness to go back out and collect the controls. My huge thanks to Taylor Pospisil, Kat Lan, Tom De Vre, Theo Verhoeven, Luc Poppe, and Mikkel Conradi for this tough task at the end of a long day!

It was great to see everyone, including some people who I haven't seen out on a course in several years. The turnout was great, and I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of this event.

Additional Analysis/Commentary

, Course Setter

The previous Golden Goat course I set was back in 2015, in Briones. At the time I was in decent running shape, the map did not require a lot of corrections, and I took the time to run the planned course to gauge its difficulty. I grossly overestimated the navigational difficulty, and François Léonard won it in 84 minutes. Steve Gregg finished the course in under two hours. This year, I did not want to make that mistake, and therefore aimed for a winning time of two hours. However, the Tamarancho map was dated, and every time I went to the camp I came back with several photos on my phone and scribbles on my map for things to correct. I spent Thanksgiving with family in Chicago, and the following weeks battling a fierce cold. So when I did go back to Tamarancho in late December, I did not feel like I had the stamina nor the time to try to run the course end-to-end. So how did I decide on the length and climb? The Briones course had been 9.5 km with 720 m of climb. The 2022 Goat in Las Trampas was 11 km with 750 m of climb, and I had finished it in 118 minutes. So the Tamarancho course statistics, despite being slightly higher, felt right to me. However, there were a few things I had not accounted for. Firstly, Tamarancho has significantly more vegetation than Las Trampas, making the navigation more challenging. Secondly, it has a lot more deep reentrants, which increase the actual distance run relative to the as-the-crow-flies distance we use as the course statistic. Finally, and maybe crucially, at Las Trampas we were allowed to skip one control, and were able to reduce both distance and climb by choosing cleverly. (I don't know my actual climb and distance as I accidentally deleted my GPS route after finishing.) In summary, the Tamarancho courses did end up being harder than I had intended, and I think everyone who finished within 4.5 hours deserve kudos and respect.

Here are some additional observations. First of all, I think everyone's actual finishing time is a few minutes shorter than we have currently published. I looked at my watch when the first finishers came in, and I thought Wyatt's finish time on the Goat was off by about 3–5 minutes. It also seems that way from looking at some of the GPS tracks that were added on RouteGadget. If someone with a GPS tracker could let us know how far off our current times are, we can fix this in the published results. Some runners said the map feels steep, and questioned whether 5 m contours is correct. We checked this in two ways — first using Google map, which estimated a 440 ft climb between two points that the map says are 427 ft (130 m) apart. Secondly, we looked at the first version of this map that we ever used, and it does list the contour interval as 5 m. So we are pretty confident that this is correct. But when I was out there myself, I agree that many reentrants feel steeper than mapped. And I did design the long leg on the Goat (and to a lesser extent the Kid) so that runners would ideally think carefully about climb when planning their route. I don't think the far-left route is a very good one, because the climb penalty is far too high for the benefit of staying on a trail. I visited that hill three times in two days, so I am intimately familiar with the effort it takes to scale it. Finally, I wanted to point out that Wyatt won the Goat by eight minutes despite having the fastest time on only 2 out of 29 legs. I think this is further evidence that this was a course that rewarded navigation skill and consistency. The "Superman" competitor (adding up all the fastest splits) would have finished the Goat 13 minutes faster, and the gap between "Superman" and the actual winner is a decent indication of gnarliness.

To those who told me you had fun despite being exhausted — I appreciate your feedback and positivity. To those who felt the courses were too hard — I agree, and I apologize for not having found a way to calibrate them better. I promise that if I am entrusted to set another Golden Goat in the future it will be easier. Not as easy as Briones '15, though.



Results

"2024" Golden Goat & Golden Kid

Fairfax, CA
Sunday, January 12, 2025

Class:  Kid   Goat

Yes, the "2024" Goat! It was supposed to be last year, but the road to Camp Tamarancho was in no condition to be driven on. Thanks to Scott Aster, Event Director, and Mikkel Conradi, Course Setter, for a fun, if challenging, set of courses.

The Goat class had four possible courses, and the Kid had two. The results below show which course each competitor ran.

The Winsplits results, which I believe reordered the legs so that you can compare them, can be found at WinSplits Online (http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/show_event.asp?id=102363). The Attackpoint splits are similar, and can be found here (https://www.attackpoint.org/eventdetail.jsp/event_58957).

You can see the event map with the actual routes traveled by participants, and draw your own route for comparison, in RouteGadget for this event (http://baoc.org/gadget/cgi/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=551). (Use of RouteGadget is explained here.)

RouteGadget handles Goats (and Score-Os) nicely, as it uses split times to determine the order in which each competitor visited the controls. In a way, each competitor makes their own course.
In RouteGadget, you can enter your route manually or upload a GPS recording and adjust to fit our map. The following tips apply to the GPS method.
RouteGadget Tip #1: After selecting your GPX file, make sure to adjust the time offset between starting your watch at the Start line and leaving the Start Triangle. The offset can have a significant impact on your route accuracy. For most local events, the offset should be set to 0 as we start from the triangle (assuming you started your watch exactly when you started).
RouteGadget Tip #2: After uploading your GPS track to RouteGadget, you can create additional blue adjustment points by right-clicking your track. You can use these points to better align your route with the map, for example, along trails. You can delete extra adjustment points by right-clicking them.

Please tell Jeff Lanam () and the webmasters () if anything needs to be changed.

The updated Golden Goat Lifetime Points table is here (25KB PDF). (Please tell the webmasters [] if there is an error.)

The following people moved up compared to the previous (2022) table (26KB PDF).
           21 places: Wayne Staats
           18 places: Joe Papendick, Nikolay Chukanov
            7 places: Tom De Vre
            5 places: Wyatt Riley, Greg Khanlarov, Lubomir Sebo, Graham Brew
            2 places: Andrew Peterson
The following people were first-time points earners: 

           Pl  Name            Points
            4  Taylor Pospisil   12  
            6  Oriana Riley      10
           13  John Richardson    3

Note: Based on a request from Mikkel, 4:15 has been subtracted from all the finish times below.


Preliminary Results 

Kid Class          (6.2 km, 475 m [7.5%] climb, 17 controls)  
   Pl  Name(s)                 Club  Course    Time      Behind  
    1  Rex Winterbottom        BAOC    A     1:51:47             
    2  Mattias Vangbo          BAOC    B     1:55:15       3:28
    3  Matthias Kohler         BAOC    A     2:12:50      21:03
    4  Andrej Masalkov         BAOC    B     2:13:43      21:56
    5  Stan Barrett            BAOC    B     2:21:39      29:52
    6  Marie-Josée Parayre     BAOC    A     2:36:16      44:29
    7  Derek Maclean           BAOC    B     2:36:57      45:10
    8  Stephen Haas            BAOC    A     2:59:35    1:07:48
    9  Werner Haag                     A     3:03:16    1:11:29
   10  Luc Poppe               BAOC    B     3:08:34    1:16:47
   11  Joshua Zhanson          BAOC    A     3:31:56    1:40:09
   12  Johanna Merriss         BAOC    B     3:44:31    1:52:44
   13  Vivi Mellow             CSOC    B     3:51:23    1:59:36
   14  Hui Shi                 BAOC    B     4:08:52    2:17:05
       Aribella Kane           CSOC    A       DNF               
       Bill Papendick                  A       DNF
       Cash McIntyre           CSOC    B       DNF
       Chloe Suitt-Payne       CSOC    B       DNF
       Ellen Mouchawar         BAOC    B       DNF
       Jasmine Slater          CSOC    A       DNF
       Jay Hann                BAOC    A       DNF
       Lliam Reeder            CSOC    A       DNF
       Maeve Bayer-Boss        CSOC    A       DNF
       Michelle & Emi                  B       DNF
       Mirjana Spasojevic              B       DNF
       Miroslav Trubelja       BAOC    A       DNF
       Neva Mellow             CSOC    A       DNF
       Nimalo                          B       DNF
       Olga Boiarynova         BAOC    B       DNF
       Peter Woodbury          CSOC    A       DNF
       Piper Jensick           CSOC    B       DNF
       Rhonda Stieber          BAOC    A       DNF
       Roopa McNealis                  A       DNF
       Stephanie Maclean       BAOC    A       DNF
       Steve OKeefe                    B       DNF
       Tatiana Fedyk           BAOC    A       DNF
       Yunying Chiu                    A       DNF
       Jiahao Huo                      A       DNS               
       Joshua & Meg            BAOC    A       DNS
       Meg Thomas              BAOC    B       DNS
       Penny DeMoss                    B       DNS
       Yanting Zhao                    B       DNS
       Yuwen Tan                       A       DNS


Goat Class        (11.2 km, 825 m [7.4%] climb, 28 controls)  
   Pl  Name(s)                 Club  Course    Time      Behind  
    1  Wyatt Riley             DVOA    BA    2:46:07             
    2  Wayne Staats            BAOC    AA    2:54:09       8:02
    3  Greg Khanlarov          BAOC    AB    3:09:22      23:15
    4  Taylor Pospisil         BAOC    BA    3:19:25      33:18
    5  Lubomir Šebo            BAOC    AA    3:22:16      36:09
    6  Oriana Riley            DVOA    BB    3:23:12      37:05
    7  Joe Papendick           BAOC    BB    3:24:14      38:07
    8  Andrew Peterson         NAVX    BB    3:29:00      42:53
    9  François Léonard        BAOC    AB    3:29:11      43:04
   10  Tapio Karras            BAOC    AB    3:50:22    1:04:15
   11  Graham Brew             BAOC    AA    3:51:07    1:05:00
   12  Nikolay Chuvanov                AA    4:00:33    1:14:26
   13  John Richardson         BAOC    BB    4:06:41    1:20:34
   14  Tom De Vre              BAOC    BA    4:14:11    1:28:04
   15  Steve Gregg             BAOC    AB    4:19:31    1:33:24
   16  Emily Ellsworth         BAOC    AA    4:24:34    1:38:27
       Ambrose Liu                     BA      DNF               
       Boyuan Zhang            BAOC    BA      DNF
       Eric Rosenzweig         BAOC    AA      DNF
       Gavin Wyatt-Mair        BAOC    AB      DNF
       Geoffrey Sears          BAOC    BA      DNF
       Greg Favor              BAOC    AB      DNF
       Grollis                         AA      DNF
       Henrike Siemen          NAVX    BA      DNF
       Hillary & Fiona                 AA      DNF
       Jerry Skirvin           BAOC    AA      DNF
       Josef Estrada-Ledesma   CSOC    AA      DNF
       Kathleen Lan            BAOC    AB      DNF
       Kevin Hinkley                   AB      DNF
       Kristin Bremm           NAVX    BA      DNF
       Mareese Keane           NAVX    BB      DNF
       Patrick Carvalho        BAOC    AB      DNF
       Steve Harrison                  BA      DNF
       Theo Verhoeven          BAOC    BB      DNF
       Weichung Fong           CSOC    AB      DNF
       Josh Munic              BAOC    AA      DNS               
       Terri Hunt                      AB      DNS

_______________

DNF = Did not finish (one or more controls missed)
DNS = Did not start