Yes, it was pouring rain in Oakland at 7 AM when I left my house for Point Pinole. This no doubt kept all of the beginners and even some of the advanced runners home in bed. But by 8:30 the skies were mostly clear at Point Pinole, and the brave souls who ignored the early morning showers enjoyed a beautiful day of orienteering. The terrain was soggy from all the rain (it reminded George Minarik of "running through the Swedish bogs"), but the footing was still fairly good in most places and the top runners in the club made sure that the Sprint Championships lived up to its billing as a test of speed through the terrain. Below are the complete results.
The event was held in two segments: first a short, 3.2 km Prologue with normal staggered starts, and then a longer 6 km Chase with start times determined by the results of the Prologue. While this introduced an element of luck into the Chase (some people had the advantage of running in a pack much of the way; others didn't), I don't think there's much doubt that the top three finishers in the event are the three fastest runners in the club. James Scarborough and Dan Stoll were almost two minutes ahead of everyone else after the Prologue, and increased this gap during the Chase to finish a full seven minutes ahead of the third-place runner. James began the Chase with an eighteen second head start on Dan, but Dan soon caught James, ran with him for awhile, then pulled away at the end of the Chase to win the event by twenty seconds. Congratulations, Dan! Dan is starting to train seriously for orienteering again and it's showing in his recent results.
Things were a little more interesting behind Dan and James. Neal Barlow, Kent Ohlund, Syd Reader, and Ian Ramsey were in positions three through six after the Prologue, with a gap of two minutes thirty seconds between Neal and Ian. Neal and Kent predicted they would lose ground during the Chase due to a lack of training and their predictions were proven correct, as the two young fit kids (Syd and Ian) proceeded to run down the two oldsters. Ian eventually put his excellent running speed to work and pulled away from Syd in the last hundred meters, taking third place by twelve seconds. From the standpoint of sheer running speed, Ian is probably at least as fast as Dan and James right now, and as soon as he gets more orienteering experience, he's going to be a force to be reckoned with in the orienteering community.
Although the event wasn't quite as exciting as I had hoped due to the relatively low turnout of advanced runners, everyone seemed to enjoy the new format of the sprint champs and it will perhaps be repeated in future years. Thanks to everyone who helped make the event a success. Penny and Harold DeMoss, in particular, helped in almost every possible way the day of the event. I'm writing this in April and I've frankly forgotten everyone else who volunteered their time. My apologies and thanks very much!
SPRINT CHAMPS PROLOGUE CHASE TOTAL 1. Dan Stoll 18:31 (2) 34:39 (1) 53:10 2. James Scarborough 18:13 (1) 35:17 (2) 53:30 3. Ian Ramsey 22:44 (6) 37:49 (3) 60:33 4. Syd Reader 21:51 (5) 38:54 (4) 60:45 5. Neal Barlow 20:11 (3) 41:20 (6) 61:31 6. Derek MacLean 23:17 (8) 41:10 (5) 64:27 7. Doug Stein 23:08 (7) 41:27 (7) 64:35 8. Van Boughner 23:28 (9) 41:44 (8) 65:12 9. Kent Ohlund 21:43 (4) 44:19 (10) 66:02 10. Mark Prior 25:53 (11) 42:54 (9) 68:47 11. Gary Carpenter 25:14 (10) 48:44 (13) 73:58 12. George Minarik 27:39 (14) 49:39 (15) 77:18 13. Shawn Larsen 29:43 (19) 48:18 (12) 78:01 14. Ian Tidswell 29:57 (20) 48:17 (11) 78:14 15. Angelica Riley 26:26 (13) 52:16 (17) 78:42 16. Evan Custer 29:31 (17) 49:34 (14) 79:05 17. Kelly Wells 28:12 (15) 53:02 (19) 81:14 18. Joe Scarborough 26:22 (12) 56:34 (21) 82:56 19. Chris Taylor 31:50 (21) 56:26 (20) 88:16 20. Mike Prindiville 38:55 (25) 51:13 (16) 90:08 21. Bill Papendick 28:19 (16) 63:01 (22) 91:20 22. Gavin Wyatt-Mair 39:02 (26) 52:53 (18) 91:55 23. James Wilson 33:53 (22) 70:15 (24) 104:08 24. Stew Hintz 34:56 (23) 69:27 (23) 104:23 25. Robert Lewis 37:00 (24) 77:14 (25) 114:14 26. Eric Rosenzweig 29:40 (18) DNF 27. Dennis Wildfogel DNF DNS Unofficial times (pre-runners) Harold DeMoss 34:40 Penny DeMoss 51:27 Dan Greene 32:03 Steve Gregg 19:30 38:30 (touching streamers on a dry day) WHITE (1) John Herron 40:28 (2) Keup / Bitner 94:55 YELLOW (1) Barbara Robben 58:53 (2) Shirley Parlan 62:22 (3) Fowler group (Pack 134) 95:00 ORANGE (1) Minoru Machii 24:10 (2) Lars Fjellbirkeland 25:59 (3) Brian Donohue 31:53 (4) Stephanie Maclean 33:33 (5) Jeff Lanam 36:57 (6) Phillip Hoare 42:00 (7) Joan Roos 43:16 (8) John Herron 47:10 (9) Melissa Criqui 48:44 (10) Trinka Gillis 51:11 (11) Jeff Walker 51:17 (12) Leslie Minarik 58:00 (13) Jesse and Julia 63:09 (14) Jack Myers 63:50 (15) Dean French 68:30 (16) Shirley Parlan (2nd course) 71:12 (17) ROTC Group #3 100:51 (18) ROTC Group #2 109:57 (19) ROTC Group #1 130:48