Point Pinole Regional Shoreline
Date: (Sun.) Mar. 18, 2007
Location: Richmond, CA
Event Director: 
- 510.779.8808
Course Setter: Steve Gregg
Type: C; White, Yellow, and Orange courses; Prologue-Chase two-part sprint -- part of the Sprint Series, with a club championship to be held at Indian Valley May 19th.
As Point Pinole will not be the official "BAOC Sprint Championships" this year (that event will take place on May 19 at Indian Valley), I am going to experiment with a slightly different format in 2007. There will still be a Prologue course and a Chase course, each between 2.5 km and 3.0 km in length. The Prologue will have an unmanned remote Finish; the Chase will have a remote Start, and finish back at the staging area. However, instead of starting the Chase competitors from fastest to slowest, I plan to start them from slowest to fastest. That will make the Chase a "handicap race", where in theory, everyone will have an equal chance to win. I will provide some inexpensive prizes to the first three people to cross the finish line, and to the person with the fastest combined time for the two races (hopefully the E-punch software will be able to quickly compute all of this). I also reserve the right to penalize anyone who obviously sandbags their Prologue race, to get an earlier start in the Chase!
I do not intend to use any sort of "butterfly loop" or forking this year. The Prologue course will have longer legs, and will present route choice problems to the extent that is possible at Point Pinole. The Chase course will be more of a "control picking" course, and in fact, I plan to print the Chase map at the more normal sprint distance scale of 1:5000, to make it easier to read in the more technical areas. The controls will all be White to Orange level of difficulty.
For those of you who are new to this, the Prologue course will have first-come, first-served starting times (beginning at 10 AM), just like a regular event. However, if you wish to participate in the Chase that follows, you need to be sure you arrive early enough to finish your first run by 12:00 or so, since the first, slowest runner will start the Chase course at approximately 12:45. The winners of the event will be the first people to cross the finish line at the end of the Chase.
As usual, the terrain at Point Pinole is flat and blazingly fast, and with the event occurring later in the year than usual, muddy terrain will perhaps be less likely than in previous years. I hope most of the club "regulars" will choose to compete in the championships, as this particular event format is much more fun for everyone if a lot of people participate.
In addition to the sprint courses, there also will be regular White, Yellow, and Orange courses (with electronic punching) for those people not interested in running the sprints. The Yellow course, in particular, will be specifically designed for the large scout groups that often attend this event.
See the Course Setter's Notes for more information about the courses.
The normal event schedule will be followed:
- Registration: 9:00 A.M. to noon
- Starts: 10:00 to 12:30
- Beginner's Clinics: 9:30 to 10:30
- Courses Close: 2:00 P.M. (everyone must finish by then)
Please check in at the E-punch download tent before you leave the park, even if you do not complete your course.
If you have questions or want to volunteer to help, please contact .
Can't come to the Point Pinole event on March 18? Then take advantage of the opportunity to help vet the Prologue and Chase sprint courses that will be run that day. This is a particularly important task for a sprint-level event, as at a short, high-speed event with relatively easy navigation such as this one, it is important to have the map and the courses as perfect as possible. A 30-second error is a large one in this sort of event, and I would like any errors to be the competitor's fault, not mine!
So if you have a weekend free to help out, let me know, and I will snail mail you the maps, or if you would prefer, email you the current OCAD and Condes files. Thanks!
Steve Gregg
January 27
Driving Directions
Take the Richmond Parkway exit off Interstate 80 in Richmond and go west for 1.3 miles. Immediately after the stoplight at San Pablo Avenue, turn right at the next light onto Atlas Road. After 0.8 miles on Atlas, you will cross over a set of railroad tracks and encounter a stop sign. Turn left onto Giant Highway at this intersection. You will pass a detention center on your right, and the park entrance will be immediately after that, also on your right. Pay the fee (I am almost certain there will be a parking fee this year), park, and walk over the railroad tracks to the staging area in the meadow.