The Annadel B meet turned out to be one of the first real lovely days of this El Niño spring. The skies were clear and blue, the sun was shining, and the park was beautiful, with lots of fresh green grass and beautiful wildflowers.
Unfortunately, despite the good weather, we had a very poor turnout for the beginning courses. There were only four entries on White, and 12 on Yellow. There was good attendance on the advanced courses, however. There were an amazing 15 entries on Blue and 31 on Green. Below are the complete results.
Annadel has some of the best orienteering terrain in the Bay Area. It is not as steep as most of our parks, and there is a nice mixture of forests and meadows. In addition, there is extensive rock detail, and a lot of pits and excavations from previous mining activity, which provide technical challenge not generally found in the Bay Area.
Since we had been at Annadel the previous October for a two-day A-meet, I wanted to use the southwest corner of the map, which was not used then, in order to provide fresh terrain. Here is a map that shows all controls for the Orange and advanced courses.
The biggest problem with Annadel is its poor access. The best access is from adjacent Spring Lake Park, which has ample parking. However, the intermediate and advanced courses required a 1.5 km hike to the remote start. The advanced courses were all a subset of the long Blue course, with all four advanced courses sharing most of the final five or six controls, with some forking to prevent following. The Red and Blue courses had most of the climb in the first half, which allowed the runners to cruise downhill for the final half.
Bob Cooley had set the controls late Saturday afternoon. Neither control was visible from any trail. However, the Orange control was at a man-made dam, creating a small pool behind it, and perhaps some of the local residents use this as a Saturday night hangout. The other control was on the way to this dam and pool, and perhaps both were removed by some evening party-goers. In the future, I will try to have volunteers run the courses early to check that all of the controls are in place before the start.
The other problem was an inadequate number of preprinted Blue and Green maps. Up until this year, we would normally have 5 to 8 Blue runners. We had printed up 11 maps, but were four short. We also had a large turnout on Green, and a relatively small turnout on Red. Therefore, we converted some of the extra Red maps into Blue and Green maps by making hand drawn courses. In the future, at events where we have premarked maps, we will ask members to give an indication what course they are planning on running prior to the event, to help alleviate this problem.
A relatively small field competed on the Red course. Tomas Cihlar won with a time of 67:02, or 9.9 minutes/km. Angelika Riley finished fourth overall and first woman with a time of 85:49.
The Green course was very popular. Unfortunately, the missing control affected three of the top green runners: Joe Scarborough, Dennis Wildfogel, and George Minarik. Joe lost about 2 to 3 minutes looking for the missing control, and Dennis and George lost over 10 minutes each. If they had not been hampered by the absent control, it would have been a very close race. Derek Maclean, stepping down from Blue to Green because he had not orienteered for several months, won with a great time of 42 minutes flat. Manfred Kopisch came in second at 53:57. Joe Scarborough was third at 55:42. Angelika Gerlach was first woman with a time of 82:52. Angelika, spending a year in the U.S. as an au pair, brought her parents, who were visiting her from Germany. (Her father ran the Blue course, and her mother the Orange course.) Looking at the times, the Green course was probably a kilometer or so on the short side.
Marsha Jacobs won the Brown course with a time of 56:44. Tom and Sandy Guldman came in first on the Orange course. Noel and David Grey finished first on the Yellow course, and the Cihlar family won the White course. Of note is that four young club members, Daniel and Linnea Ohlund and Kirstin and Tania Haag, and went out on the White course themselves. Daniel led the pack with a time of 61:01.
Ian Tidswell vetted the courses. Tom and Sandy Guldman and Tim Giddings handled registration. Werner Haag and his mother, Johanna, ran the Start-O. Beginner's clinics were given by Gary Kraght and Scott Aster. Leslie Minarik, in her new role as social co-director, had available refreshments and an opportunity for beginners to discuss their courses with some of the more experienced club members. The advanced starts were handled by Neal Barlow, David Meredith, Arild Orsleie, Van Boughner, and Mike Condrin. White and Yellow starts were doe by Shirley Parlan, Linda Curry, and Judy Koehler. Cheryl Madson, Steve Jankowski, and Jill Custer ran the finish. Leslie Minarik, Louise Madrid, Rachel Care, Meg Gerstner, Alan Glendinning, Steve Beuerman, and Rosemary Johnson calculated the results. Finally, the controls were picked up by Bob Cooley, Mark Blair, and Gary Carpenter.
Start-O Age #Cntls Time Without help 1. Willow & India McEvoy 6 9 19:52 2. Mark Brown 7 6 20:12 With adult help 1. Christopher Sage 7 10 ? Johanna Haag 76 10 38:31 White 2.5k 70m 11 controls 1. Andrea & Gabriela Cihlarova & Tomas Cihlar 51:07 2. Daniel Ohlund 61:10 3. Kirstin & Tania Haag & Linnea Ohlund 61:52 4. Diane Raphale 79:15 Karel Van Haeften, Terry Arellano, & Adara Friley DNF (missed last control) Yellow 2.85k, 100m, 9 controls 1. Noel & David Gray 53:17 2. Sam Jones 68:37 3. Shirley Parlan 68:40 4. Mary, Jerry, & Jacob Lawson; Stephane Ribaud 78:25 5. Judy Koehler 82:20 6. Jill Custer 88:34 7. Todd & Donna Lewis 90:40 8. Don & Jenn Gee 94:08 9. Kelly McGuire 104:35 10. Sharon Evans 104:36 11. Linda Brown, Nancy Pollock, Teri Balkum, Sonja Brassington, Mark & Eric Brown, Christopher Sage 136:43 12. Paul Alexander 154:06 James Cassady MSP (#8) Whitney, India, & Willow McEvoy DNF Galena Shakhnovsky DNF Orange 3.0k, 100m, 7 controls 1. Tom & Sandy Guldman 65:07 2. Silvia Gerlach 74:10 3. Dave Meredith *78:14 4. Kirk Davis 80:03 5. David Klipp *82:11 6. Rachel Care & Louise Madrid 91:19 7. Jack Myers 101:38 8. Ed & Emily Winfield 102:17 9. Linda Curry *102:24 10. Mark Burchil, Heather Greenham, Tom, Mary & Robert Pforsich 111:51 11. Jeff Edmonston & Marjorie Wong 134:06 12. Tom Crane & clan 144:47 13. Paul McEvoy 161:26 14. Ken Organist 180:52 Brown 3.2k, 75m, 10 controls 1. Marsha Jacobs 56:44 2. Rosemary Johnson 85:45 3. Dave Modiano 98:33 4. Meg Gerstner 101:12 5. Cheryl Madson 108:36 6. Stan & Daniel Suderon & William Griffin 115:47 7. Steve O'Keefe 118:55 8. Ev & Jean Beuerman 138:54 Leslie Minarik *SWL Steve Jankowski DNF (lost card) Olsons DNF (lost card) Green 4.6k, 145m, 13 controls 1. Derek Maclean 42:00 2. Manfred Kopisch 53:57 3. Joe Scarborough *55:42 4. Gary Kraght 56:09 5. Doug Harrison 58:37 6. Bill Papendick 63:28 7. Dennis Wildfogel *65:42 8. George Minarik *66:40 9. Michael Poulsen 68:50 10. Peter Rexer *69:52 11. Scott Aster 72:18 12. Terry Gleason 82:32 13. Angelika Gerlach 82:52 14. Jascha Lee 84:11 15. Aileen Abernathy 86:42 16. Stacy Goss 87:10 17. Mike Fleischman 94:09 18. Vicki Woolworth *96:00 19. Oleg Shakhnovsky 100:27 20. Carol Chen 100:32 21. Bill Straka *101:42 22. Rachel & Dwight Freund 113:44 23. Jeff Lanam *119:12 24. Steve Beuerman 121:03 25. Jerry Goss 121:10 26. Vic Revenko 153:06 27. Nancy Lindeman 158:00 Mike Condrin DNF (got 4) Charles Brenner DNF (got 4) Robert Eikel DNF (got 2) Arild Orsleie DNF Red 6.75k 285m, 14 controls 1. Tomas Cihlar 67:02 2. Werner Haag 71:29 3. Tapio Karras 83:09 4. Angelika Riley 85:49 5. Dan Greene 88:23 6. Mark Blair 102:09 7. Alan Glendinning 110:55 8. Trevor Pering 119:07 9. Van Boughner 130:34 Blue 8.25k, 360m, 16 controls 1. Eino Havas 75:47 2. Neeme Loorits 85:36 3. Kent Ohlund 87:06 4. James Scarborough 88:39 5. Wyatt Riley 89:45 6. Syd Reader 96:29 7. Neal Barlow 99:07 8. Steve Gregg 99:38 9. Thorsten Graeve 99:55 10. Martin Bergstrand 105:17 11. Gary Carpenter 110:15 12. Doug Stein 112:08 13. Matthias Kohler 121:30 14. Karl Gerlach 129:39 15. Peter Graube 138:17