Golden Goat Mass Start?
Golden Goat Mass Start?

20th Annual Golden Goat & Golden Kid

Briones Regional Park, Alhambra Creek Staging Area

Date: (Sun.) Nov. 8, 2015
Location: Lafayette, CA
Event Director: - 510.525.1574
Course Setter: Mikkel Conradi
Type: Extra long courses with mass starts. No Beginner or intermediate courses.

Related Event Information

Event Announcement


Course Setter's Notes

By Mikkel Conradi

Registration be in the picnic area close to the edge of the parking lot. There will be a 150 m walk to the Start area, and there will be a 400 m walk from the Finish back to download & refreshments.

Terrain

Briones is a large park with stereotypical Northern California terrain: large open hills, and steep hillsides with primarily oak and bay trees. The map has 7.5 m contours, which should be a significant consideration. Compared to maps with 5 m contours, hills are generally steeper than they look on the map, and reentrants are deeper and take more work to traverse. The contours also convey less granularity and detail.

Courses

This event will only offer two courses, with a mass start at 10 AM.

Special Rules

Both courses will feature two kinds of Goat shenanigans:

At some point in the course, runners will have two choices for which control to visit. They will be labeled on the map as "A" and "B", and there will be a line going to each. Only one of these controls needs to be visited. The E-punch units at the two controls will both have the same control code​—​there will not be an "A" or "B" printed on the units.
At some point in the course, runners will encounter phi loops. These are constructed such that each runner will complete the same legs, but not necessarily in the same order. The Golden Goat will have two phi loops, meaning there will be a total of four different combinations. This also means that the probability of having the same order as someone running next to you is 25%. The Golden Kid will have one phi loop. Runners will need to focus on their own navigation, and be careful to complete the course in the order specified on their own map. The E-Punch crew will be instructed to check the map of each runner to ensure they completed the correct course variant.

Apart from visiting only one of the forked controls, no control can be skipped. Not allowing for skipped controls will make it much easier for the E-Punch crew to verify results, as they just have to check in each runner under one of the six courses (Kid X or Y, and Goat XX, XY, YX, or YY), as printed on their map.

Water

Both courses will have four water stops, although two of them will be close together on the Golden Kid. Since the courses are long, slower runners should consider carrying additional water.

Hazards

The Golden Goat and Golden Kid courses will be longer than standard B-meet courses, and some of the controls are set in steep terrain. There are no beginner courses offered due to event parking restrictions, and we recommend that only experienced orienteerers participate in this event. Carpooling is strongly encouraged.

The poison oak (PO) in this park is generally very dry, but it may still bother susceptible individuals. None of the controls are set in close proximity to PO. However, if you suspect you have been in contact with PO, washing clothes and shoes and bathing exposed areas with dish-washing soap or a commercial product such as Tecnu is recommended (i.e., to remove the irritant oil).

This is not a hazard, but you must remember that horses have the right of way. If you encounter a horse, you must stop running and respond to the rider's directions. Also be careful about "bursting out of the woods" onto a trail if there's a horse nearby.