The combination of nice terrain, a good map, ideal running weather, and (hopefully) interesting and challenging courses, gave the 200 participants an enjoyable day of orienteering at Annadel this year. Check out the results.
Since we had used the western end of the park last year, I wanted to the terrain to be as fresh as possible. However, because of extremely poor access and parking sites at Annadel, we are limited in what areas we can use without extremely long walks to the start. This year was further complicated by the fact that there is an extensive trail rebuilding program at Annadel, and most of the northern part of the park was closed. Therefore, I decided to have the assembly area, registration, and finish near the small parking lot at the end of Channel Drive, and have a remote start that required a 10-15 minute hike up a steep hill. The remote start was utilized in order to reduce the climb required on the courses, but had a detrimental effect on some of the participants, particularly the beginners, because of the rigorous hike to the start.
It is always a pleasure to design advanced courses at Annadel because the terrain and map are among the best that BAOC has. The terrain is interesting because it is largely forested and also has many remnants from previous mining activities, including pits, small quarries, dot knolls, rock piles, etc., which increases its technical challenge. Also, there are some relatively flat areas, which allows faster running. I tried to make the advanced courses as challenging and interesting as possible, but still be enjoyable by reducing the climb as much as possible. The advanced courses started with two short, technical legs. I thought this would help challenge the orienteer, as it provided no time for people to get used to the map, so orienteering skill would be at a premium. I also tried to have several long legs on the courses, which was more easily done on the red and blue courses because the length of the courses and the terrain. The last half of the courses was predominantly downhill. The advanced courses shared many controls, which has the effect of competitors being able to compare splits and route choice on many legs, even though they were on different courses. Also, it helps conserve the terrain, and makes design of the courses, and hanging and picking up the controls easier.
The white and yellow courses were purposely made slightly shorter than usual because of the long trek up to the start. The white course was entirely on trails, whereas about a third of the yellow course was off trail. Other linear features, such as streams and distinct vegetation boundaries, were used between the controls.
Ivan San Martin blasted through the white course in 21:19, narrowly edging out Malcolm Wyatt-Mair by 7 seconds. Malcolm is the highest ranked boy in the age 10 and under in last year's USOF rankings. Melissa Criqui was the first female on white and came in third overall with a time of 25:18.
The yellow course was won by first time orienteer, Carl Mears, with a time of 27:17. Carl then went on and also had the fastest time on orange. Steve Keller and Julie Bennet were the first group to finish yellow with a time of 30:44. Trinka Gillis was the first woman with a time of 38:50. Rachel Care, age 10, who is the highest ranked girl in the USOF standings for 10 and under, did her first yellow course, and came in with a time of 78:30. The yellow course is the competitive course for 13 and 14 year old youths, so her time is very impressive considering her age.
The orange course had relatively few participants this year. It is always the most difficult to design, since one tries to have the optimal route be off trail, but to have an safer, but longer, trail route, or at least a good collecting feature. I started this year's orange course with a couple of relatively simple, yellowish controls, and then progressively increased the difficulty of the course. I think it still stayed within the guidelines for orange, however. As mentioned, Carl Mears had the fastest time on orange, 57:31, but this was his second course, so he was familiar with the terrain (and even the first control, since it was shared with the yellow course). Don Gee won orange with a time of 97:05, followed closely by David Watt in 97:24.
The top three finishers on brown were all women. Anneliese Steuben won the brown course in a time of 51:04. Anneliese has been improving her standing at recent events, and her experience in Switzerland probably helped her orienteering skill considerably. Vivian Lee came in second, and Leslie Minarik third. First man was Jeff Allanson, a visitor from Australia. His time was 77:38, but he lost some time on the course looking for his punch card which he had dropped.
Christian Frøyd won the 4.6 km. green course in a time of 38:46, or 8.4 min/km. Christian is from Norway, and has trained and coached in Sweden for several years. He is studying at UC Berkeley this semester, and has been very helpful to the club by giving a training session at Briones last month. He is injured with shin splints, and that is why he is running the shorter courses. I wonder how he would do if his legs didn't hurt. George Minarik, despite a rough start, calmed down and had a good run, and came in second with a time of 63:39, narrowly beat out long time rivals Joe Scarborough by 17 seconds and Dennis Wildfogel by another minute. Sarah Minarik braved the poison oak, and was first woman with a time of 76:32. Sarah has been training with Christian in preparation for her second summer in Sweden. Two Swedish girls, Anna-Karin Palm and Frida Larsson, who are working as au pairs in the Sacramento area, ran together on green and had an excellent time of 65:44.
Long time BAOC member, former US Team member, and IOF Councilor, Bruce Wolfe, showed that experience counts as he easily won the 5.7 km. red course in 55:30, or 9.7 min/km. Bruce made a rare Sunday appearance at one of our events (he told his church choir director that he would be missing a baritone that day) in preparation for the US Team trials the following weekend in New Hampshire. Tapio Karras was second 10 minutes after Bruce, and Gary Carpenter followed another 4 minutes later. The first woman was Sanna Wallenborg, also from Sweden, who is spending a year here in the Bay Area with her husband, Magnus. She had a time of 98:34.
Neeme Loorits, an Estonian who recently finished his studies at UC Berkeley, came in first on the 7.6 km., 425 m. climb, blue course with a time of 71:45, or 9.4 km/min. His competitive spirit kicked in when half way through the course he started catching up to other runners, including Dan Stoll-Hadayia, Van Boughner, and Doug Stein. The head to head competition really increases one's running speed. Kent Öhlund, who frequently runs his 40-45 year old age category in red, moved up to blue and came in second with a time of 84:33 with a very good run and only about 4 minutes of errors. He was shortly followed by Doug Stein at 85:28, and James Scarborough, in 85:59. James did not have his usual good day. Perhaps he has been studying too hard at graduate school, and gotten a little rusty. Hopefully, this event will be useful to him as a tune-up for the US Team Trials the following weekend.
Since the BAOC has been using pre-marked maps on a more frequent basis, we have had the problem of the people waiting at the start can see what direction earlier competitors head for their first control. This could cause an element of unfairness. This year I wanted to try the standard procedure used in Europe with a remote start triangle. The maps were distributed at the start up line, and then the competitors followed a mandatory streamered corridor to a remote start triangle out of view of the other participants waiting to start. On the whole, it seemed to work out OK, but the narrow path uphill to the start triangle could have potentially cause congestion problems, particularly since the advanced courses shared the start with the beginners, who generally were in groups and walked more slowly to the start triangle.
As with any event, mistakes and poor decisions occurred. The bright side is that I learn something new with each event I direct or design courses for. If I had it to do over again, I would have had the white and yellow start near the registration area, and had the courses go in the opposite direction up the hill, and come down a parallel trail to the one the start was on. I initially discarded that idea, because I thought the courses would be too long. However, in retrospect, the participants had to cover the same distance and climb, but had all the disadvantages of the remote start. It would have eased up on the congestion at the advanced start, made second courses more easy for participants to do, and eliminate the long, steep, climb to the start, and people would have thought that they got more time out on the course for their entry fee. As it was, some beginners spent more time hiking to the start and waiting for a start time that actually out on the course.
On the whole, I think the advanced courses were successful. The map at the very beginning may be slightly incorrect, which caused some people problems on the first two controls. Bob Cooley had made some corrections in that area, but some inaccuracy probably still is present. Most people on green heading for control 2 ended up about 50 meters south at a red control. Normally, this probably would not have been too much of a problem, but since the main challenge of this short technical leg was a compass bearing and pace counting, it had more effect than at the end of a longer leg. Joe Scarborough, although very complimentary of the event in general, suggested that the courses could have been even better if a couple of short legs were inserted in the latter half of the course to break up the series of 400-500 meter legs.
I want to apologize to those who were adversely affected by the poison oak, which I had described in the announcements as only minimal. I had last visited the park 10 days before the event, and at that time, there was a small amount of poison oak coming out, but it was very low. However, in the intervening 10 days, we had some warm, spring days, and the poison oak just blossomed, and became much more of a problem than initially I thought it would.
Finally, this event would not have been nearly as successful as it was were it not for the many club members who volunteered to help out. The most important person to help at this event was Bob Cooley. He vetted and hung all of the controls, lugged all of the water to the refreshment stops, picked up all of the distant red and blue controls, mapped a new area east of the parking lot which was utilized by the yellow course, made multiple map corrections in the regions of the control circles, and printed up all of the maps. I never could have directed this event without his help.
Tom and Sandy Guldman and George and Pat Aster handled the registration. Gary Kraght gave the beginner's clinics. The remote start was ably handled by David Meredith, Judy Koehler, Neal Barlow, and Penny DeMoss. Shirley Parlan, Syd Reader, Trevor Pering, and Julie Wells helped set up and run the finish. Penny DeMoss, Alan Glendinning, Meg Gerstner, Julie Wells, and Jill Custer calculated the results and checked the punches. Scott Aster was shuttle driver and float person. Kelly Wells, Harold DeMoss, Peter Graube, and Bob Cooley picked up all of the controls. Joan Roos went out earlier in the week and made several helpful suggestions about the green course. I also want to thank Fredrick Sundstrom and other members of the Leksands Orienteering Club from Sweden who pre-ran the blue course and made helpful comments.
135 entries, 200 participants WHITE 2.4 k, 10 m, 8 controls 1. Ivan San Martin 21:19 2. Malcolm Wyatt-Mair 21:26 3. Melissa Criqui 25:18 4. Beverly Ames 38:52 Valerie Brown DNF (missed #7) Groups 1. Gary & Melanie Johas 32:40 2. Claire Shubert & Violet Patocchi 34:17 3. George & Ian Maurer 34:32 4. Brian & Eric Jonas 38:16 5. Don Vibbert & Jammie Kramer 42:19 6. Rachael Helscheim & Genevieve Drexler 42:25 7. Willow Lena & Whitney McEvoy 45:38 8. Gabby Athems & Tosha Callahan 59:18 9. Amanda Simons, Melissa Chrowl, & Jessica Cameron 62:41 10. Lily Tomkovic & Kate Shubert 91:39 11. Brandyn Tomkovic & Desiree DelaVega 120:56 YELLOW 2.3 k, 20 m, 11 controls 1. Carl Mears 27:17 2. Sam To 35:09 3. Trinka Gillis 38:50 4. Julie Wells 49:32 5. Larry Steuben 50:03 6. Jill Custer 50:44 7. Wendy Yu 56:35 8. May Poon 62:59 9. Shirley Parlan 67:51 10. Rachel Care 73:30 11. Vivian Robinson 78:37 Groups 1. Steve Keller & Julie Bennett 30:44 2. Cesar Ransh, Nathan Bikor, Miguel Aguilar, Rolando Garcia, & Jim Caruso 37:19 3. Dustin Pappas & Dash Moore 37:56 4. Jerry Andrade & Russ Bissig 41:17 5. Mike & Justin Crosier & Pat & John McKenna 50:28 6. Daniel Öhlund & Matt Graydon 50:31 7. George & Pat Aster 64:33 8. Kim Gradwohl, Rita Gilstrap, & J.C. & Ana Rodriguez 64:44 9. Isidro Calderon & Cesar Alvarado 68:38 10. Nancy Weber & Gerard Russoniello 72:13 11. Hannah Spencer & Lauren & Mark Gonsalves 72:46 12. Judy & Dick Koehler 75:17 13. Bramara, Sarada, & Mahhuri Tangirala 76:46 14. Robin & Steve Khamsi & Peter Strand 77:49 15. David & Sandy Tresan 89:36 16. Kandi Schneckloth & Heather Bissig 90:30 17. Jennifer, Natalie & Stephanie Wallace 96:04 Chelsea Cohen, Elysse Lane, & Alex Rosalsky DNF Judith & Chad Mayer DNF Sheryl Ferrati & Hillary Hoff DNF Vivian & Amelia Robison, Lauren Patz, Daniella Ross, & Devon Cruz DNS Winterlin Family DNS 2nd Course 1. George Maurer 42:26 2. Ian G.P. Maurer 45:07 ORANGE 3.1 k, 95 m, 11 controls 1. Don Gee 97:05 2. David Watt 97:24 3. Orlando San Martin 108:30 4. Peter Williams 130:13 Hillary Wolfe DNF Paul McEvoy DNF Groups 1. Ann Sorenson, Josh Phelps, & James Wren 169:50 Paul & Charlie McEvoy & Teddy Aanestad DNF 2nd Course 1. Carl Mears 53:31 2. Steve Keller & Julie Bennett 71:38 BROWN 3.1 k, 70 m, 10 controls 1. Anneliese Steuben 51:04 2. Vivian Lee 66:01 3. Leslie Minarik 75:20 4. Jeff Allanson 77:38 5. Janet Petersen 81:14 6. Charles Brenner 87:45 7. Gary Kraght 90:18 8. Meg Gerstner 93:39 9. David Meredith 97:39 10. Sven Persson 109:00 11. Nancy Lindeman 131:36 Groups 1. Reggie Dugard, Selena Shan, & Jasper Wu 76:16 2. Colombe Tresna & Terri Nauenberg 82:15 3. Dwight & Rachel Freund 86:55 4. Ev & Jean Beuerman 165:34 Tom & Sandy Guldman DNF GREEN 4.6 k, 125 m, 13 controls 1. Christian Frøyd 38:46 2. George Minarik 63:39 3. Joe Scarborough 63:56 4. Dennis Wildfogel 64:54 5. Blake Tresan 71:34 6. Alan Glendinning 73:19 7. Sarah Minarik 76:32 8. Ian Ramsey 77:58 9. Rob Williams 80:02 10. Kathy McArdle 87:23 11. Donn Springer 91:20 12. Scott Aster 94:58 13. Bill Papendick 96:28 14. Patty White 100:26 15. Stacy Goss 107:12 16. Shawn Larsen 110:52 17. Jerry Goss 112:31 18. Aileen Abernathy 118:11 19. Theo Verhoeven 129:35 20. Steve Beuerman 159:46 Harold DeMoss MSP Rosemary Johnson DNF Don Vibbert DNF Groups 1. Anna-Karin Palm & Frida Larsson 65:44 2. Rosalie Rybka & Bob Anglin 144:08 RED 5.73 k, 240 m, 14 controls 1. Bruce Wolfe 55:30 2. Tapio Karras 65:57 3. Gary Carpenter 69:52 4. Fabian Meier 73:25 5. Werner Haag 73:41 6. Martin Bergstrand 75:23 7. Dan Greene 76:53 8. Olav Solgaard 83:48 9. Mark Petersen 85:14 10. Matthias Kohler 86:04 11. Steve Jankowski 87:10 12. Trevor Pering 87:19 13. Chris Sherwood 88:55 14. Tony Pinkham 90:34 15. Sanna Wallenborg 98:34 16. Anders Persson 104:22 17. Kelly Wells 104:34 18. Mike Poulsen 115:37 19. Eric Rosenzweig 116:00 20. Peter Olsten 127:11 21. Mark Blair 135:59 (injured) 22. Mark Rice 136:25 23. Ralf Willecke 142:58 24. Robert Lewis 146:43 BLUE 7.64 k, 425 m, 19 controls 1. Neeme Loorits 71:45 2. Kent Öhlund 84:33 3. Doug Stein 85:28 4. James Scarborough 85:59 5. Dan Stoll-Hadayia 89:27 6. Syd Reader 90:02 7. Neal Barlow 91:42 8. Magnus Wallenborg 93:16 9. Thorsten Graeve 93:40 10. Van Boughner 109:18 11. Gavin Wyatt-Mair 125:36