On a beautiful fall day, some 300 people showed up at Calero Reservoir for BAOC's final regular meet of 2002. That might be a record for this venue! We rented out all the e-sticks and compasses, but fortunately had plenty of maps for everyone. Course times were fast and there were very few DNFs (did not finish), so we hope that means good course-setting and a fun time had by all. Below are the complete results. Also be sure to check out the e-punch splits for the Orange and advanced courses.
The Yellow course had a few more grownups, plus Boy Scout Troop 290 and another Girl Scout troop. The winner was another junior, Jeremy Bricker, with a time of 33:02. Caroline Lee (an adult!), doing her second course of the day, finished 2nd in 39:30. And 10-year-old Sean Hiller, a first-time orienteer, finished an amazing 4th in 51:35 (shadowed by dad Bernhard) - the kid's a natural! Unfortunately, one group of girls on Yellow apparently didn't use their maps and got quite lost (they were seen on a trail south of Green #6, which was nowhere near the Yellow course), and didn't show up at the Finish until well after the 2:00 pm course close. This should be a reminder to adult chaperones that kids need to be adequately prepared, understand what they are doing (putting the map in your pocket and wandering around is not orienteering!), and know what to do if they get lost.
The Yellow course included a few routes that encouraged easy off-trail navigation - but alas, two of these were marred by map-printing errors. The route choice for leg 4-5 was either a long roundabout trail, or a short direct downhill hike through an open area. Unfortunately, the west end of the trail loop got cut off during map production (the printer forgot that trails were key for Yellow), creating a potential source of confusion for novice map readers (we heard one complaint indirectly, but most said it was easy to figure out). The second error was a misprinting of the circle for the final control (#9), which was placed on a rock/tree feature to the east of the intended rock/tree (the actual flag was at the correct spot, and the clue sheet was correct). Because the two similar features were in a direct line toward the Finish, apparently this didn't trip anyone up (although the control pickup person who finally pointed this out was a bit puzzled). This reminded us to carefully review premarked maps after printing, even though we think we already know what is on them. My apologies for the errors to anyone who had problems.
Competitors on the intermediate Orange course got to use e-punching, start and finish with the advanced orienteers, and cover terrain similar to that on the advanced courses, albeit with easier navigation and larger control features. Lukas Gruendler was nearly 15 minutes ahead of everyone else with a time of 51:10. Victoria Lee, the first woman, was 3rd in 1:08:04. And 13-year-old Rachel Care completed her first solo Orange course in 1:36:37 - good for 11th place and middle of the pack. Way to go, Rachel!
To facilitate your route-choice discussions, we've posted a couple of master maps showing the control locations (warning: large files ahead!):
On Brown, Jim Waite bested the field in 43:49; Svetlana Kpelkina, the first woman, was 4th at 1:08:46. Brad Wetmore, a relative newcomer who's done a few Oranges and decided to tackle his first Brown, finished a respectable 10th (of 31). Green, as usual, was hard-fought by the usual suspects (Evan, Chuck, George, Dennis...), all of whom finished in under an hour. The nominal winner at 49:44 was Vlad Gusiatnikov, doing his third advanced course of the day; however, since Vlad did have a significant advantage by knowing the control locations, the real winner on Green was Chuck Spalding in 51:08. Yelena Krasnov was the first female finisher in 1:06:58.
On Red, Doug Stein scraped by the ubiquitous Vlad in 58:44 to take top honors. Vivian Lee, who has been improving dramatically over the past year, was the first (and only) woman, finishing in 1:28:52. And on the Blue course, which was somewhat shorter than usual, Syd Reader blew away his rivals in 59:08, nearly 7 minutes ahead of 2nd-place Steve Gregg. Penny DeMoss was (as usual) the top female, in 1:23:06.
And then there was Vlad...who decided to see how many courses he could complete (and how well) at one meet, starting with Blue and working his way down. He completed all four advanced courses, and finished in the top three on each: Blue (3rd), Red (2nd), Green (1st), and Brown (2nd). Of course, he had an advantage in that there was significant control overlap among the advanced courses (although he says he took different routes on some identical legs to see which was optimal), but that's still a lot of mileage, er, kilometers! He estimated that he ran a total of 25.45 km and climbed 1475 meters (based on straight-line/best routes for the courses plus four trips up to the remote start). His total time was 3:45:37 for the four courses, and his average minutes/km (from Blue to Brown) was 10:00/9:59/10:81/11:49. On the "long leg," his min/km was 9:33/8:00/10:45/11:44. (He says, "I ran that leg the same way all four times, without errors; pushed on Red, so that gives an idea of how much I was holding back on Blue and how tired I was on Green and Brown.")
In part, Vlad was responding to a challenge made by Werner Haag, who ran (and won) four courses at the 2001 China Camp meet. However, Werner's courses were White, Yellow, Orange, and Brown - so even though Vlad didn't win all four courses, he did harder and longer ones (and still finished in the top 3 each time). The gauntlet has clearly been thrown for the next challenger. Can anyone do a hat trick (all 7 in one day, top 5 finishes)?
I also appreciate the youth group sponsors who notified me ahead of time, so that I knew to expect a large turnout and could get enough maps printed (thanks, Bob Cooley!) and adequately staff the event. A turnout of 300 people requires many helping hands, and thanks to the following folks (some who signed up in advance, others who pitched in where needed during the event), the day went smoothly and we were all able to clean up and go home by 4:00 pm!
WHITE 3.2 km, 60 m climb, 8 controls, 92 participants 1 Jim Danz, Eric Trautman, Scott Ballatore 27:48 2 Sean Coleman, AJ Artis, Tom Palmer 32:35 3 Pablo, Julian 35:25 4 Tyrra, Tyschell, Anhang, George, Alex 36:09 5 Bonnie Chan, Sarah Engle, Chethana Damodara 36:21 6 Mark & Candy Gularte, Pam Woods 40:24 7 Anna Tchetchetkine, Elana Share, Lindsay McLaughlin 40:32 8 Caroline & Vicki Lee 41:41 9 Jennifer Mateo, Dana Allen, Candice Paik 42:14 10 Jessica Kreiss, Noelle Mason-Wood, Becca Gularte 42:16 11 Evida Mars-Holt, Kimi Su, Golnaz Samimifar 44:19 12 Clare Livak 44:45 13 Sue Trautman, Joe Chan 45:55 14 Nick, Jonathan 47:48 15 Shireen & Behzad Ahmadi, Gillian Decker, Sammie Jennings 48:03 16 Elena Livak 49:10 17 Three Musketeers (GS Troop 341: Jenna Logan, Gina Devincenzi, Samantha Jones, with Mary & Alan Axworthy) 50:00 18 Adam Wisnewski, Debbie Ramm, Jami Edigan 50:19 19 Paul & Kyle Umeda, Ian Axworthy 51:26 20 Bruce & Ryan Frambach 51:29 21 Diane Hall 52:40 22 Amanda & Rebecca Hayton 53:18 23 Blue Jays (GS Troop 341: Rachel Shanley, Miranda Axworthy, Hannah Bierach, Jennine Grasso, with Judy Shanley & Betsy Tanner) 53:26 24 Paul & Mike Hogan 54:04 25 Kira Lieberman, Andrea Herman, Alyssa Singh 54:57 26 Amelia & Oona Gleeson, Lynsie Mason, Amy Spence, Kelsey Duncan (GS Troop 373) 57:44 27 Wildflowers (GS Troop 341: Sydney Umeda, Stephanie Ungson, Amanda Craine, with Vickie Umeda) 59:28 28 Bevan Waite 1:01:05 29 Michelle Reed, Sarah Wynne, Alex Hernandez Mary, Kelsey, Brian (GS Troop 373) 1:09:40 30 Corynn Costa, Hailee, Danielle, Marie (GS Troop 373) 1:10:38 Stephanie McCain, Alex Diaz DNF YELLOW 3.2 km, 160 m climb, 9 controls, 75 participants 1 Jeremy Bricker 33:02 Caroline Lee 39:30 (2nd course) 2 Dewey Du Mond 42:22 3 Sean & Bernhard Hiller 51:35 4 Liz Davis 51:55 5 Matt Holman 54:58 6 Antonio Gonzalez 55:30 7 Judy Koehler 55:52 8 Yerneni family (3) 56:14 9 Carl & Aleene Reisinger 57:15 10 George & Terri Warren 1:03:28 11 Annie, Yelena, & Alex Erez 1:04:55 12 Ron & Emily Thumann, Rose Du Mond 1:09:38 13 Denise Mottesheard, Alanna, Mark, Mike 1:10:45 14 Galena Shakhnovsky 1:13:55 15 Bruce, Raquel, & Tania Reynolds 1:15:35 16 Jeff & Ana Maria Boenig 1:16:00 17 Brian, Ian, Matt, & Emily Ferry 1:16:39 18 Sam & Wes Maffei 1:17:46 19 Ev & Jean Beuerman 1:24:35 20 Rob & Nikole Clima, Jason Xuereb 1:26:30 21 Jamie & Laura McKeegan, Kalvin Deng 1:28:20 22 Mai & Jimmy Chung, Werner Haag 1:37:55 23 Danielle, Caitlyn, Julia (GS Troop) 1:42:00 24 Buzzard 1 (BS Troop 290: Aaron, Adam, Joel, Tony, Rudy) 1:48:36 25 Buzzard 2 (BS Troop 290: Rob & RJ Aitken, Kevin & Kurt Flammi, Jarrad Gardner) 1:50:33 26 Buzzard 3 (BS Troop 290: Dan, Brendan, Nick, Thiem) 2:00:50 27 Camila, Kari, Unique (GS Troop) 2:09:40 28 Ed Cassada 2:19:50 Frank Perez DNF (missed #1) Kaitlyn, Sarah, Courtney (GS Troop) DNF ORANGE 4.05 km, 200 m climb, 13 controls, 34 participants 1 Lukas Gruendler 51:10 2 Edward & Alexander Boenig 1:05:44 3 Victoria Lee 1:08:04 4 Beth Dixon 1:12:25 5 Michael Young 1:15:04 6 Beatrix Paal 1:19:16 7 Sean Campbell 1:24:01 8 Cathy Bolger 1:32:16 9 John Pagendarm 1:32:40 10 Niloy Mitra & Erika Chuang 1:34:07 11 Rachel Care +1 1:36:37 12 Mike & Tortyse Shadduck 1:38:12 13 Mike Christensen, Kathy Teatmeier 1:43:47 14 Bob Denike 1:47:00 15 Mary Beth Kossuth, Damian Hajduh 1:48:17 16 Barbara Straka 1:49:00 17 Jack Myers 1:52:06 18 Larry Pagendarm 2:04:15 19 Joseph Moore 2:04:58 20 Trygve Thorsrud 2:20:12 21 Don Gee 2:20:25 22 Rick James 2:22:05 23 Ken Livak 2:24:24 24 Jill Custer 3:42:39 Howard & Julie Graves DNF Jeff Levin, Cheryl Parker DNF BROWN 3.95 km, 220 m climb, 10 controls, 35 participants 1 Jim Waite 43:49 Vlad Gusiatnikov 45:24 (4th course) 2 David Jorgensen 58:25 3 Svetlana Kpelkina 1:08:46 4 Patty Clemo 1:11:02 5 Oleg Shakhnovsky 1:11:12 6 Robert Lewis 1:11:49 7 Bjorn Widerstrom 1:12:15 8 Joan Roos 1:13:05 9 Brad Wetmore 1:13:30 10 Francois-Marie Lefevere 1:15:27 11 Bill Haughney 1:16:00 12 Joe Scarborough 1:16:22 13 Brad Johanson 1:24:58 14 Sarah Rubinfeld 1:27:13 15 Terry Farrah, John Maloney 1:33:57 16 Natasha Gelfand 1:34:20 17 Vlad Fridman 1:37:08 18 Trinka Gillis 1:37:11 19 Rosemary Johnson 1:46:23 20 Meg Gerstner 1:47:29 21 Leslie Minarik 1:47:29 22 Dana Chaney 1:48:49 23 Julie VanHoff 1:49:32 24 Dmitriy Volkov 1:51:46 25 Alan, Andrew, & Geoffrey Theiss 1:54:44 26 Alan & Debra LaVergne 2:17:19 27 Nancy Lindeman 2:27:22 Vasya Volkov DNF Wes Erck DNF Audrey Faist DNF GREEN 4.6 km, 280 m climb, 12 controls, 28 participants Vlad Gusiatnikov 49:44 (3rd course) 1 Chuck Spalding 51:08 2 Evan Custer 54:07 3 George Minarik 54:44 4 Lars Fjellbirkeland 58:46 5 Alan Glendinning 59:22 6 Dennis Wildfogel 59:38 7 Bill Wright 1:05:10 8 Yelena Krasnov 1:06:58 9 Mike Fleishman 1:09:32 10 Jerry Goss 1:10:08 11 Genevieve Graves 1:10:35 12 Johan Overby 1:11:21 13 Eric Ramberg, Anna Brunzell 1:12:20 14 Bernhard Hiller 1:16:36 15 Steve Haas 1:17:14 16 Bill Straka 1:21:59 17 Phillip Hoare 1:22:04 18 Jeff Lanam 1:25:12 19 Nick Corsano 1:26:19 20 Dave Ingram 1:31:03 21 Vic Revenko 1:54:48 22 Steve Beuerman 2:12:08 23 Bob & Cathy Baylor 3:08:14 Bob Cooley DNF Matt Holman DNF RED 6.2 km, 350 m climb, 16 controls, 19 participants 1 Doug Stein 58:44 Vlad Gusiatnikov 59:28 (2nd course) 2 Jeff Lewis 1:02:26 3 Matthias Kohler 1:02:53 4 Tapio Karras 1:07:51 5 Kent Ohlund 1:08:56 6 Dan Greene 1:09:47 7 Alex Krasnov 1:12:22 8 Eric Rosenzweig 1:16:53 9 Andrejus Masalkovas 1:17:51 10 Tony Pinkham 1:28:42 11 Vivian Lee 1:28:52 12 Mark Blair 1:33:47 13 Rod Jaehn 1:37:09 14 Theo Verhoeven 1:50:35 15 Parag Gupta 2:21:36 Denis Kourakin DNF (missed #11) Sergey Rodionov DNF (missed #11) Greg Favor DNF BLUE 7.1 km, 400 m climb, 19 controls, 17 participants 1 Syd Reader 59:08 2 Steve Gregg 1:06:00 3 Vlad Gusiatnikov 1:11:01 4 Vadimas Masalkovas 1:14:43 5 Penny DeMoss 1:23:06 6 Rex Winterbottom 1:24:18 7 Otti Bisang 1:27:23 8 Douglas Bass 1:28:12 9 Mitsami Sugizaki 1:32:14 Eric Rosenzweig 1:33:34 (2nd course) 10 Gavin Wyatt-Mair 1:39:40 11 Peter Graube 1:43:55 12 Liam Corner 1:45:07 13 Dorsey Moore 1:46:42 Jeff Hole, Liz Routch, Jocelyn Luo DNF