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Roberts Regional Recreation Area – Joaquin Miller Park

Sprint Elimination Tournament 20th Anniversary Event

Date: (Sat.) Nov. 17, 2012
Location: Oakland, CA
Event Directors: - 510.652.9631, - 510.407.1876
Course Setters: Joe Scarborough, Lisa Tracy, Vicki Woolworth
Type: C; White, Yellow, and Orange courses, and an advanced Sprint

Roberts Recreation Area and Joaquin Miller Park offer an excellent opportunity for beginners, and some very familiar but fun terrain for old timers. This is an absolutely beautiful location, full of Redwood groves and views across the Bay.

Roberts and Joaquin Miller were the birthplace of Bay Area orienteering. This was also the site of the first Sprint Elimination Tournament series exactly 20 years ago, in 1992. As with the original event in 1992, this event will be a demonstration of the format, with an eye toward continuing with a more serious competition in Morgan Territory terrain in the future. A special invitation is extended to the Club’s top runners, but evryone is warmly invited to participate whether or not you consider yourself to be "fast".

In addition to the Sprint, there will be standard White, Yellow, and Orange courses — great for relative beginners and for kids. Vicki Woolworth first designed these courses twenty years ago, and she came back to design the 2012 versions as well. Lisa just ran them all, and she can tell you that Vicki takes you through absolutely gorgeous terrain! The Yellow course was her favorite, very pretty, and part of the allure was that it is slightly more challenging than a typical Yellow. As usual, when you arrive you may ask for advice about which of the three courses is most appropriate to your skill level, and you may also try more than one course (time permitting). Total beginners are warmly welcomed. There is no pre-registration for the White, Yellow, and Orange courses — just show up on Saturday and register then. More information about the White, Yellow, and Orange courses is in the WYO Course Setters' Notes.

Parking is $5.00 (bring bills for the machine). We are assembling at the Huckleberry Picnic Area, which is just past the parking kiosk, to the right (west) of the parking lot.

Event Schedule

• Event registration will open from 9:00 AM to noon.
• Start times will be available on all courses from 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM.
  Note that the Sprint Tournament will start at 10:30 AM.
• All the courses will close at 2:00 PM. Please be sure to return to the Finish no later than this time, even if you have not completed your course. Finishers after 2:00, or more than three hours on their course, will be declared overtime (OVT).
• Because of past infractions, park managers have requested we pay special attention to closed areas (signed on the ground and marked out-of-bounds on the map). Our continued use of the park depends on it.

If this is your first time orienteering, a beginner’s clinic to get you started is scheduled for 10:00 AM. Come on out and join us!

Sprint Tournament

Advanced runners, please come for our exciting 20th-anniversary Sprint course! It will be comprised of three micro courses (1–2 km each), each the basis of a round in the Single-Elimination Tournament (SET). The current plan is for runners to be divided into competition groups based on age group/gender, depending the composition of the entries. Runners will compete head-to-head, in pairs based on seeding, over closely parallel courses with the winners advancing to the next round. Non-winners continue for the remaining places. Non-tournament runners may form ad hoc pairs.

Sound familiar? This is essentially the unique format introduced 20 years ago here at Joaquin Miller Park.

Note for Sprint participants: Please pre-register by sending email to . We need just your name and your age — no advance payment is required. Pre-registration will help us vet Sprint Tournament rounds in advance.

Course Setter's Notes for the Sprint are available here. Be sure to read them!

Volunteers

We need volunteers to put on this event! Please contact if you can spare an hour or two.

Another Request for Volunteers (Nov. 15)

This is a another request for you to help us at Redwood/Joaquin Miller Parks this Saturday! Each volunteer position is timed so that you can race at least one of the courses if you'd like to, before or after the volunteer commitment.

Here are the volunteer positions that we most critically, definitely need to fill right now (as of Nov. 15). Please opt for one of these three (over the others listed further down) as they are top priority for us (all are on Saturday unless otherwise noted):

• 10:30–12:30 — Registration – someone to relieve James – you can be a neophyte, he will train.
• 12:30–2:30 — Finish line and results – 2+ more people needed – we will train.
• Friday, anytime — Help Lisa and Joe put out the controls – prefer people with a nuanced eye for inconsistencies.

Other positions we would really like to fill:

• 7:00–9:45 — Early runners to check our courses – anyone who isn't racing later – prefer people with a nuanced eye for inconsistencies.
• 9:45–12:30 — Start/call-up crew – 2 more people needed.
• 10:00–10:20 — Clinic for beginners – we definitely have demand for this, we have gotten inquiries – 1 person needed.
• 2:30–5:00 — Control pickup – 2–3 more people needed.
• Between Sprint rounds — Sprint racers will have idle time between rounds. Please pitch in to help Joe and the tournament team! In fact, if you can arrive to the Sprint Start area at Redwood Grove at 9:30, you can help more formally as part of the Tournament Team (and still race).

Please write if you can commit to one of the above. Or even if you are just thinking about it, and have questions.

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