Photo gallery image (click to enlarge)

Indian Valley Open Space Preserve

Date: (Sat.) May. 19, 2007
Location: Novato, CA
Event Director: - 415.895.6039
Course Setter: Rex Winterbottom
Type: C; White, Yellow, and Orange courses; Sprints (4-round tournament)

Course Setter's Notes

By

All orienteers are welcome to find an interesting challenge this Saturday!

Whether it's beginners courses, intermediate courses, or advanced, technical sprint courses, check out all the details for the event right here.

Sprint Basics

  1. Be registered, dressed, warmed up, and ready to run at 10:55. It's about a 5-minute walk to the staging area. I'll give a brief talk with instructions for the special format, and group-of-4 starts begin at 11:00, with 1-minute intervals. Everyone will have started by 11:10!!
  2. Anyone can enter, including on the day of the event. You don't have to have run 4 qualifying sprints prior to this event! Please come and enjoy some nice, fine, technical navigation.
  3. For my sanity, let me know in advance if possible that you may come, if you haven't already done so.

List of Attendees

Here's a list of people who have contected me thus far (as of 6:00 P.M., Tuesday, May 15):

  Class   First Name  Last Name
   F21    Marie-Josee Parayre
   F35    Stephanie   Maclean
   F75    Shirley     Pierce
   M21    Peter       Graham
   M21    Ben         Legg
   M21    Russell     Neilson
   M21    Mark        Prior
   M21    Greg        Khanlarov
   M21    Vladimir    Gusiatnikov
   M21    Torkel      Dominique
   M21?   Andrejus    Masalkovas
   M35    Francois    Leonard
   M35    Ido         Green
   M40    Derek       Maclean
   M45    Tapio       Karras
   M45    Steve       Beuerman
   M50    Kent        Ohlund
   M60    Dennis      Wildfogel
   M60    George      Minarik
   M65    Jim         Fish
   M65    Bob         Cooley
   M70    Terry       Gleason

Did I miss you? Misclassify you? Let know!

General Event Details

Terrain

The terrain is a mix of urban parkland and oak woodland, with some open space. The forest and campus blend together nicely. Moderately hilly, only one Sprint course, and the Orange course, get to the steep stuff.

Map

Map scales could be 1:10000, 1:7500, or 1:5000. All the Sprints will be printed at 1:5000. The contour interval is 5 m.

The map quality is generally good, but it is an older map. Things like vegetation are not mapped perfectly, but are fair enough. Just take the vegetation with a grain of salt. When going off trail and through the woods, the white forest is generally pretty runnable.

Hazards

The poison oak can be prevalent in spots, especially the woodsy areas around the campus. It's easy to run into, literally, if you don't look out for it; it can be found in flat, white-coded forest. For that reason, shorts are not recommended for Orange or Sprints. Tecnu is a good idea, but I personally prefer dishwashing soap.

The White course crosses a parking lot. The Yellow and Orange courses cross a road with light traffic, including people coming to and from the event. All Sprint courses cross the service road, which should have no traffic but possibly could. So everyone should watch out for cars.

Course Statistics

                                      Technical     Physical
 Course     Length   Climb  Controls  Difficulty    Difficulty
 
 White      1.7 km    35 m     12     Novice        Easy
 Yellow     2.3 km    40 m     12     Beginner      Easy
 Orange     3.3 km   250 m     10     Intermediate  Hard
 Sprint 1   1.2 km    45 m      7     Advanced      Moderate
 Sprint 2   1.1 km    80 m      7     Advanced      Moderate
 Sprint 3   1.3 km    20 m      7     Advanced      Moderate
 Sprint 4   1.3 km    45 m      7     Advanced      Moderate

Orange Notes

Make sure you've had lots of practice if you haven't done Orange before today! This is a challenging, physical course. Cleats are necessary and long pants, too. Adventure racers should enjoy the course. And if you want more than that, do the Yellow course too. It's navigationally interesting. Long Orange was supposed to be Yellow + Orange, we can have a results category summing the times for people who run both courses.

Sprint Notes

Read the maps carefully. Three of the four Sprints cross themselves. Make sure you start with the first control, not the last, as Mikkel did when he vetted one of the courses. We'll make it as clear as we can on the map!

Wear long pants and cleated shoes.

Boulders, even 1.0-m boulders, seem small.

Buildings have grey areas indicating where you may pass through. Sometimes it may be useful.

Mapped earth banks near the campus are usually walls, and are impassable enough that you should just go around them.

Near the campus, there is a network of deep gullies that are difficult to cross for long stretches. I purposefully course set around these, except: One leg on one course will take you straight to a gully. If you go straight, you'll find crossing options. And you'll see the bag.

After you finish each course, download immediately—it will be right there. Then go back to the Start area. I'll update your position in the next group on the whiteboard. Within 5 minutes, you should be starting your next course with a new group. Keep warm. We'll keep you hydrated.

You don't have to do all the courses, but you are encouraged to do so! They are all good, but in a way build up to the final course. The summed statistics are 4.9 km with 190 m of climb.

Starting at 11:00, I predict everyone should be done by 1:00. I hope to do the awards ceremony at 1:00, or even sooner.

Enjoy, and good luck!

Rex