Almaden Quicksilver (Golden Goat)
Sunday Nov. 23, 2003
Almaden-Quicksilver County Park, San Jose, CA.
Event Director: Jeff Lanam, 408-285-5201
Assistant Event Director: Carl Reisinger, 408-997-8260
Course Setter: Vladimir Gusiatnikov
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Other resources for this event: |
To Control # | Climb (meters) |
---|---|
1 | 80 |
2 | 195 |
3 | 40 |
4 | 25 |
5 | 5 |
6 | 30 |
7A | 75 |
7B | 0 |
8 (from 7A) | 100 |
8 (from 7B) | 200 |
9 | 60 |
10 | 70 |
10 (from 7A) | 110 |
11 | 0 |
12 | 0 |
13 | 20 |
14 | 90 |
15 | 25 |
16 | 5 |
17 | 0 |
18 | 0 |
E | 5 |
A | 5 |
B | 10 |
C | 25 |
D | 0 |
24 | 0 |
F | 0 |
Despite worries of another rainout, clear, cold skies looked down on Almaden Quicksilver County Park for the eighth running of the Golden Goat. In addition to the Goat and Kid courses, we had a good turnout for White and Yellow as well. We even had a large group from Fresno State make the trip.
With many of the club stalwarts out on the course, I especially appreciated those who volunteered. Vladimir placed most of the controls; assistant director Carl Reisinger arranged for the portable toilet, ran the start all day and pitched in wherever needed. Penny DeMoss designed the T-shirts and worked with the printer. Stephanie and Rory Maclean, and Chuck Spalding handled the finish. Ev and Jean Beuerman ran registration. Dan Green did both beginner and an intermediate clinic. Diane Hall, Roberta Pilsenbarger, and their Girl Scouts handled the results. Andrejus Masalkovas, Steve Haas, Wyatt Riley, Jim Waite, and Van Boughner helped Vladimir and I with control pickup. Bob Cooley printed the maps and put the Goat bedsheets in the map cases. Alan LaVergne secured the permit. I also want to acknowledge Frank Weiland of Santa Clara Parks and Rec. There were others who helped; I didn't remember everyone, please let me know who you are.
Here is Vladimir's play-by-play of the Goat competition (see map):
The leg to the first control presented an opportunity to plan the skips, the fork, and the window order. The runners spent at least two minutes running on a road, during which time most made their selections for the race. The 16-contour "sprint" to the control was won by Thiago Ghilardi in 3:50. A number of runners were right behind; Syd Reader was fourth at the control. Wyatt Riley, now an East-Coaster and visiting the Bay Area for the Goat, among other things, was more than half a minute back. Many experienced club members took the time to plan, and arrived at the first control later yet.
There were three choice for the second control: to go 23 contours straight up and suffer oxygen deprivation for 8--10 minutes, but then to run a road, and to approach the control from above and with distinct attack points; or, to drop 4 contours down and take a gradual climb, mostly on trails, but then to approach the control from below, going through/around some thickets of PO; or, to skip the control altogether. The second option was faster than the first one, but also the hardest to execute. Syd and his train chose this option and lost a minute or two near the control, and Wyatt and his train, who bravely undertook the straight-up route, caught up.
Control 3 was one of my favorites to skip. I estimated that going 2 to 4 saved about 4 minutes compared to 2--3--4. I was worried a bit about much unmapped PO around Control 3, but nobody seemed to get stuck in that particular place. Several experienced orienteers opted to skip Control 2, Control 3, or both. Doing so saved no distance but rather the necessity to thrash through the PO-infested woods of the northern slope of the Capitancillos Ridge. In particular, going from 1 straight to 4 allowed for a long, uninterrupted run on top of the Ridge, with a promise to catch up with the lead pack by the time they got to #4. Skipping 2 and 3 saved about 7.5 minutes at the lead-train speed, compared to the course without any skips, according to my pre- and post-race estimates.
It was at Control 4 that Mike Prindiville, a former Stanford track star, made a key decision. He had been following Syd for the beginning of the race, but then Wyatt came along, and Mike noticed that Syd seemed to go straighter than Wyatt, and was also getting stuck more than Wyatt. Since Wyatt and Syd were making the same progress at the time, Mike decided to stick with Wyatt. Syd, on the other hand, decided to skip Controls 5 and 6. Those were in the prettiest part of the map, and the skip, while looking obvious on the map, only saved about 7.5 minutes at the "top" speed.
The obvious fork to take was 7A. While 7B was 330m shorter, it also dipped very deeply into the ravine, resulting in about 5 more contours to climb to get to Control 8 in the combination 6--7B--8, compared to the combination 6--7A--8. Ian Tidswell made the best of 7B, using Hicks Road for his way to Control 8. This was the only way to avoid impenetrable thickets on the south-facing hillside, but the route along the road did not bail out of the extra climb.
My preferred skip of the race was Controls 8 and 9. I test-ran 8--9--10, and each of those legs came out at just under 5 minutes. Control 8 was also about 1.5 minutes more running from Control 7A than either Control 9 or Control 10. Therefore, the savings, at lead-speed, of skipping 8 and 9 came out at 11.5 minutes, the best advantage I could come up with. The second-best skip was therefore Controls 3 and 8: 4 minutes for #3 and 6.5 for #8, for a total of 10.5 minutes. Control 8 in combination with either #1 or #15 gave a 10-minute advantage. However, if one's navigational skills were not quite up to par for the challenges of #2 and/or #3, then the 2, 3-skip was probably the best.
I arrived at Control 10 (Control 6 of the Kid) at about an hour into the race, to spectate. Far in the distance I could see the hopeful Goats dropping the hillside to Control 8 (Kid 4); I could see them climb up from Control 9 (Kid 5); and, across the valley, I could hear talking and laughing from the road that led along the ridge from Control 7A.
The first at the control was Hannu Haarma, the leader of the Kid. But just as he was about to punch, Wyatt and Mike appeared from above, leading the Goat. Wyatt was relieved to hear that Syd was not in sight. Mike appeared to be hanging on to Wyatt tightly.
In about 2.5 minutes, Syd and Thiago huffed and puffed the way up from Control 9. Syd did not appear to be in great spirits, and took some time to drink; Wyatt had made the better skip, and Syd now knew it. After those two, a long gap; finally, Doug Stein comes in fifth, over 10 minutes behind Wyatt. Matthias Kohler came next, and Rex Winterbottom was right behind him. Thorsten Graeve, Brian Moore, and Kent Öhlund rounded up the top 10.
I then moved to Control 14 (Kid 7) to watch more of the race. The 12, 13-skip, although somewhat enticing, was only a 8-minute win, or so. Jim was the only one of the top 10 who opted for it. Therefore, I was much surprised to see a near-complete reshuffling of the Goat standings at Control 14! Wyatt and Mike had already moved through, presumably out of reach. But Syd was just coming in, third position, having apparently lost to the tune of 9 minutes at Control 13 due in part to some unmapped green. Matthias Kohler was now in fourth and did not realize that it was Syd right in front! Thiago came fifth, right after Matthias, and Jim was sixth, thanks to the skip. Doug and Rex were not to be seen, also victims to the same green.
In the end, Wyatt and Mike finished first and second in 102 minutes; some 16 minutes ahead of Syd and 3 minutes better than my predicted winning time. Matthias held on to fourth. Penny DeMoss was the top woman. Hannu won the Kid in 96 minutes.
2003 BAOC Golden Goat Almaden-Quicksilver County Park San Jose, CA Sunday, November 23, 2003 Preliminary Results Pl Name Time White Course (2.05 km, 125 m climb, 7 controls) 1 Sarah & Aaron Doman 28:34 2 Greg, Joyce, MacKenzie & Jonathan Baker, Brooke Muschett 35:10 3 Kristen Pitsenbarger, Michelle Leberknight 42:25 4 Peter Welsh 44:02 5 Rosensweig & Olsen 44:21 6 James & Ruth Detmers 45:00 7 Holliday & Satzfer 45:21 8 Peter Burke, Nikki James 46:00 9 Ananita Vandatinia, Brittney Valdez 51:34 10 Paul Hammel 53:00 11 Mas, Jenny, Kate & Kyle Nishimura 53:40 12 Stephanie McCain, Patricia Nguyen 56:29 13 Christopher & Nina Lozinski, Katie Meyers 67:44 Yellow Course (2.58 km, 190 m climb, 10 controls) 1 Dennis Wildfogel 23:14 2 Rick Norbutas 40:36 3 Brian Kirshner 42:36 4 Hector DeLeon, Cesar Sepulveda, Sundip Rai 43:04 5 Katy & Sam Werback 47:00 6 Jun Chu 48:33 7 Robert Skegg 55:36 8 James Loweecey 56:22 9 Dan Cenny 62:29 9 Bobby Jones 62:29 11 Tim Coogan 63:10 12 Mai Thor & Himmat 63:18 13 Dave Kamalsky, Nina Nguyen 63:30 14 Jamie Lopez 69:23 15 Sean Hiller 70:40 16 Bevan & Chelsea Waite 70:52 17 Lei Xiho 70:59 18 Galena Shakhnovsky 72:08 19 Marina Luz 72:15 20 Rachel Tennant, Arlinda Duffy, Melissa Nasiruddin 72:23 21 Katharine Tennant 73:44 22 Kristen Pitsenbarger, Michelle Leberknight 84:15 (2nd course?) 23 Hengche Liu, Sehnghui Quess, Gus, Sabrina 85:06 24 D. & L. Missina, S. & L. Frolich 85:28 25 Harry Hall 88:45 26 Diane Hall, Roberta Pitsenbarger 97:17 27 Kevin & Jeff Pape 99:26 28 Pangburn, Lesieutre, Pollifrune, Fahey 103:15 Kid (7.38 km, 610 m climb, 15 controls - before skip) 1 Hannu Haarma 96:01 2 CJ Powers 107:51 3 Malcolm Wyatt-Mair 119:41 4 Chuck Spalding 126:03 5 Marie-Josee Parayre 134:18 6 Francois Leonard 134:19 7 Theo Verhoeven 136:29 8 Sergei Rodionov 148:27 9 Scott Spears 152:26 10 Alan Glendinning 173:55 10 Meg Gerstner 173:55 12 Brad Wetmore 175:59 13 Irina Zaks 180:11 14 Patty Clemo 183:33 15 Oleg Shakhnovsky 183:37 16 Philip Hoare 186:45 17 Brad Zuchero 190:34 18 Megan Bergkessel 190:35 19 Wes Erck 204:22 Dean French DNF Denis Kourakin DNF Nancy Lindeman DNF Beth Dixon DNF Devon Prouty DNF Dewey DuMond, Ron Thumann DNF Eric Prestemon DNF Jim Fish DNF Patty Hintz, Stew Hintz, Shelly Anderson DNF Richard Hellyer DNF Sean Campbell DNF Steve Beuerman DNF Natasha Gelfand DNF Niloy Mitra DNF Becky Wong DNF Mark Jimenez, King Clark DNF James Loweecey DNF (2nd course?) Goat (10.00 km, 890 m climb, 24 controls - before skip) 1 Wyatt Riley 102:39 2 Michael Prindiville 102:42 3 Syd Reader 118:47 4 Matthias Kohler 120:17 5 Thorsten Graeve 128:42 6 Doug Stein 131:14 7 Thiago Ghilardi 131:49 8 Jim Waite 133:12 9 Kent Ohlund 133:40 10 Brian Moore 135:04 11 Tapio Karras 141:35 12 Bill Wright 144:12 13 Steve Gregg 145:40 14 Rex Winterbottom 146:44 15 Mark Prior 146:49 16 Andrejus Masalkovas 151:02 17 Ian Tidswell 156:21 18 Derek Maclean 157:57 19 Van Boughner 157:58 20 Doug Bass 161:23 21 Penny DeMoss 164:06 22 Peter Graube 169:17 23 Rod Jaehn 176:54 24 Brett Lehigh 176:54 25 Shai Kahana 177:21 26 Mike Cummer 178:09 27 Dan Greene 179:15 28 Mike Springer 189:12 29 Steve Haas 191:55 30 Matt Holman 198:48 31 Deron van Hoff 198:59 32 Greg Favor 199:31 33 Eric Rosenzweig 200:47 34 Bob Cooley 202:50 35 Gavin Wyatt-Mair 203:24 Chris Roper DNF Dan Holman DNF Mark Blair DNF Rich Dameron DNF Rob Gendreau DNF Tom & Betty Thomas DNF Vivian Lee DNF Wendell Doman DNF James Morris DNF Steve Perez DNF Ken Stern DNF Jim Duggan DNF Joe Knapp DNF
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