Sunol Regional Wilderness
Date: (Sun.) Apr. 22, 2007
Location: Sunol, CA
Event Director: 
- 408.262.3457
Course Setter: Gary Carpenter
Type: B; All seven courses--White through Blue--plus Long Orange
Related Information
Event Announcement WinSplits (http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/show_event.asp?id=7487) RouteGadget - Introduction RouteGadget - Event (http://baoc.org/gadget/cgi/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=95&kieli=)
Event Write-Up
By
One of my favorite things to do when directing or course setting is to see who comes to the event. I was glad to see long-time BAOC members Mark and Janet Petersen and their girls come down from the Sierra Nevada for this year's Sunol experience. First-time orienteer Chip Edin had called from Missouri in February and started making plans to attend. Other visitors included Jurgen Luwald and Elexis Scott from NEOC, Leif Lundquist from Tucson Orienteering Club, and two Blue-course runners from England: Christopher Davidson of JOK and Ian Marsden of HH. It's a good reflection on our club when orienteers from around the U.S. and the world look us up and attend our "B" events.
My next favorite thing to do is look at the routes drawn on RouteGadget and read the comments. Gary Carpenter set good courses and utilized a remapped portion of the park. Many legs had multiple route choices and the advanced courses shared common legs, which then forked to unique controls. I was particularly interested in route choices from Blue 2 to 3 and was pleased to see the variations drawn on RouteGadget. One competitor posted that Green 6 was a bingo control, and no one on Green appeared to take the circuitous ridgeline run from Green 7 to 8. The "Reentrant of Doom" did not seem to be a factor, and everyone wisely skirted it high or low so, unfortunately, there will be no legends for 2007. Our biggest complaint on the advanced courses was that a lot of the light green sections on the map should be changed to dark green to reflect the poison oak. I encourage all competitors to draw their routes on RouteGadget and compare their splits with others. This is a good learning tool to improve your orienteering skills, and actually provide some post-race, armchair orienteering.
Working with Gary on courses is a pleasure. The Orange & advanced courses are usually designed and streamered about a month before the event. After vetting, we hang bags about 2 weeks prior to the event so the pre-runners can actually punch and not just look for streamers. With 4 pre-runners going out the week before the event, we had good feedback on the routes and control locations, and we were extremely confident of the map and courses. This left us with a few buffer days to tweak the courses before we printed the final maps. Some of you Blue runners should thank Mark Prior for saving your life and helping answer the question of whether we should map the worst poison oak section and impassable cliffs and gullies along Welch Creek Road as out of bounds.
This year was one marked by renegade cows. They knocked down over 15 controls and moved some water jugs in the week prior to the event. We re-hung the knocked-down bags while setting the Epunch units out on the day before the event. I hoped nothing would happen to them that night. I enjoy vetting Gary's courses and taking my dog, Marley, out on these hikes, since Sunol is an off-leash park. Marley is about the size of a small coyote and occasionally 3 or 4 mama cows would line up with their calves and march directly at us in an attempt to get this perceived predator out of their territory. I would try to get him to speak and show a little herding authority, but he just put his tail between his legs and took off with a look that said, "Good luck dude, you're on your own, try not to impale yourself on a control stand if you decide to run too!" On Saturday evening, I was out in the rain showers hanging White and Yellow, and there were about 60 renegade cows gathered around the pond at Yellow #6 giving me that look that only a cow can give. I decided to hang Y6 early the next morning. Still relevant after 30 years, I remembered a quote from Steve Martin in The Cruel Shoes, "... and I guess you might say I learned my lesson: Don't fool with renegade cows."
Sunol continues to be one of the most popular and profitable BAOC "B" events. It helps make all the work worthwhile. This year the club netted $1253 after fees and expenses. The turnout was smaller, at 183, than last year's record-breaking 268, but I was pleased with the number of competitors and the results. The rains were intermittent and did not have an adverse affect on the number of participants. Here is a comparison of Sunol statistics over the last several years by course and weather.
Date 4/22/07 3/19/06 3/20/05 3/21/04 4/22/03 6/22/02
Weather Rain Dry Rain Dry Rain Dry
White 13 25 18 4 27 Yellow 18 28 29 9 38 Orange 23 24 13 15 27 Long Orange 7 0 15 0 0 Brown 15 30 25 20 16 Green 23 25 24 15 23 Red 19 18 25 14 16 Blue 18 19 16 12 10 Rogaine, 7 hour 93 Rogaine, 4 hour 79
Total entries 136 169 165 172 89 157 Total participants 183 268 214 172 107 238
It's also fun to check out the results, then Google the competitors on the BAOC Web site to see who has run Sunol in past years and check how they performed this year compared to others.
I want to thank Brian, Isabel, Tom, Barb, Troop 706, Leslie, and the others who came up to me after their runs and shared some comments and opinions about their courses and decisions. Feedback is always rewarding, and I regret that I did not have more time to spend with each of you. I am sure Gary is equally appreciative of the feedback that others shared with him, too.
Thanks to the following volunteers who made this event possible. Many other clubs would be ecstatic if they only had a small portion of our volunteer pool:
Gary Carpenter Course setter, permits, setup, takedown, rover Bob Cooley Map printing & portable print station Brad Wetmore Insurance and Pre-runner/course feedback James & Zion Wilson Registration Everett & Jean Beuerman Registration Chuck Spalding WYO Starts Trinka Gillis, Peter Graube E Punch Ruth Kadel, Steve Gregg E Punch Dan Greene, Steve Gregg Beginner Clinics Evan Custer, Mark Prior Pre-Runner/course feedback Joshua Wells, Tom Carpenter Pre-runner Harold & Penny DeMoss Control Pickup Theo & Luc of the Belgian Beer Brigade Control Pickup Cedric Lasfargues Control Pickup Mark Blair Control Pickup Double Trouble Twins: Denise & Darlene Control Pickup Jim Fish, Bjorn Widerstrom Take Down and Clean up Joe Scarborough, Derek Maclean Early runners carrying spare epunch unit Tapio Karras RouteGadget
I also want to thank Tiffany Margulici (EBRPD) and Kelly Barrington (Chief Ranger, Sunol) for their assistance and support. The Bay Area Orienteering Club values its relationship with the East Bay Regional Parks District.
Kelly Wells
Sunol 2007 Event Director
Results
Sunol Regional Wilderness
Sunol, CA
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Pl Name(s) Time
White Course (2.4 km, 80 m climb, 12 controls)
1 Long Dam, Jimmy Chung 28:23
2 Julia Doubson 32:26
3 Sarah Jolly 33:03
4 Troop 726, Dragon group 39:42
5 Lady Bugs 45:31
6 Sarah Petersen 46:12
7 Mike & Michael Marsman 46:56
8 Katie Petersen 47:37
9 Diane Hall 58:52
10 Martha Partida, Austin McLaggan 1:03:27
11 Nanci & Jesse Erven-Collins 1:04:22
12 Owl group 1:33:55
13 Tina Twite 1:38:11
14 Emily Hann, Caroline Grossman 1:56:56
Yellow Course (2.7 km, 120 m climb, 12 controls)
1 Toby Ferguson 30:59 2nd course
2 Bea & Gary Owens 45:33
3 Richard Furness 50:07
4 Mike & Michael Marsman 54:49 2nd course
5 Kevin Hu, Paul Fallon, Jeffrey,
Justin, & Michael Wang 58:39
6 Isabel & Christina Souto 1:01:34
7 Chip Edin 1:02:08
8 Richard Powell, Mark Lin 1:06:07
9 Amol Sharma, Romit Malik 1:14:54
10 Long Dam, Jimmy Chung 1:16:52 2nd course
11 Paul & Kat Li 1:20:59
12 Emma Shelton, Troop 206 1:30:03
13 Troop 726 Dragon 1:31:46 2nd course
14 Molly, Adam, & Kent Hetherwick 1:39:47
15 Masha & Natasha Konkov 2:06:57
16 Peter Rogers 2:26:11
17 Double Trouble 2:30:45
Eileen Everett DNF
Orange Course (4.2 km, 150 m climb, 10 controls)
1 James & Zion Wilson 49:45
2 Chris Broekhoff 50:10
3 Brian Kirshner 56:17
4 Toby & Cameron Ferguson 1:03:18
5 Megan McCandless 1:11:19
6 Kevin & Denise Harrington 1:14:16
7 Anja Kahampaeae 1:14:51
8 Matt Sheehy 1:21:23
9 Elexis Scott, Jurgen Luwald 1:25:02
10 Gary Martinez 1:25:10
11 Kathy & Mark Turner 1:26:49
12 Fred Ciaramaglia 1:28:40
13 David Dippon 1:31:46
14 Barbara Straka 1:35:14
15 Angie Peckham, Hani Juha 1:38:54
16 Viktor Passinsky 1:41:32
17 Shura & Helena Krechetov 1:52:54
18 Roy Want & 5 Mousekateers 1:55:16
19 Michael & Jeanne Jones 2:04:10
20 Sarah Jolly 2:30:45 2nd course
21 DV Outdoors 2:41:25
22 Harold Lischner 3:55:09
Jill McCandless DNF
Long Orange Course (5.0 km, 220 m climb, 10 controls)
1 Rod Jaehn 1:06:49
2 Tom Pappas 1:07:23
3 Stephen Harrison 1:12:21
4 Tom Hardy 1:21:18
5 Chris Guertin 1:24:55
6 Margaret Longstreth 2:01:05
7 Neal Lischner 2:26:46
Brown Course (4.2 km, 165 m climb, 12 controls)
1 Ray Rosenbaum 57:24
2 Dan Greene 1:01:13
3 George Minarik 1:07:57
4 Chris Delp 1:10:25
5 Gavin Wyatt-Mair 1:12:25
6 Joe Scarborough 1:16:03
7 Debbie Wojtowicz 1:24:54
8 Jason Hogan 1:26:51
9 William Straka 1:30:52
10 Oleg Shakhnovsky 1:42:28
11 Leslie Minarik 1:47:51
12 Jim Fish 1:58:21
13 Steve Beuerman 2:22:29
14 Rosemary Johnson 2:24:40
Alan Houser DNF
Green Course (5.2 km, 260 m climb, 13 controls)
1 Steve Gregg 54:57
2 Ido Green 1:00:07
3 Werner Haag 1:04:52
4 Kent Ohlund 1:10:40
5 Chuck Spalding 1:11:00
6 Jim Waite 1:11:37
7 Colin Williams 1:11:52
8 Dennis Wildfogel 1:13:59
9 Tony Pinkham 1:17:28
10 Bob Cooley 1:17:31
11 Alan Glendinning 1:22:21
12 Stephanie Maclean 1:28:58
13 Bjorn Widerstrom 1:29:36
14 Gregoire Broquet 1:33:13
15 Oliver Pohl 1:37:01
16 Adrian Martin 1:37:26
17 Leif Lundquist 1:41:01
18 William Strauss 1:49:07
19 Jeff Lanam 2:08:24
20 Janet Petersen 2:14:08
21 Phillip Hoare 2:29:54
22 Frederick Lee 2:57:01
Michael Rodriguez DNF
Red Course (6.1 km, 320 m climb, 16 controls)
1 Alexander Brunette 1:08:07
2 Tapio Karras 1:09:23
3 Derek Maclean 1:15:13
4 Matthias Kohler 1:21:31
5 Travis Parker 1:26:13
6 Mutsumi Sugizaki 1:26:22
7 Martin Muendel 1:27:07
8 Robin Gustafsson 1:32:25
9 Eric Rosenzweig 1:32:28
10 Mark Blair 1:44:08
11 Theo Verhoeven 1:46:20
12 Luc Poppe 1:52:45
13 Bob Strauss 1:53:04
14 Joe Maffei 1:58:27
15 Kevin Schoenfeld 2:03:30
16 Cedric Lasfargues 2:05:10
17 Leon Berzins 2:15:13
Jennifer Klafin DNF
Brian Schmitz DNF
Blue Course (7.0 km, 410 m climb, 17 controls)
1 Francois Leonard 1:09:19
2 Mikkel Conradi 1:10:07
3 Ian Marsden 1:17:00
4 Mattias Vangbo 1:17:56
5 Dag Ainsoo 1:20:33
6 Andrejus Masalkovas 1:20:45
7 Syd Reader 1:21:50
8 Scott Porter 1:26:05
9 Christopher Davidson 1:27:42
10 Penny DeMoss 1:36:12
11 Tomer Maymon 1:42:08
12 Peter Graham 1:42:45
13 Rex Winterbottom 1:47:20
14 William Gilmore 2:01:28
15 Roger Pruett 2:02:01
16 Greg Favor 2:08:30
17 Deron van Hoff 2:09:34
18 Peter Graube 2:15:44
_______________
DNF = Did not finish (missed one or more controls)