by Dennis Wildfogel (email)

Fortune smiled on us once again, as the string of great weather for our annual Bon Tempe event continued. It was a bit chilly in the morning, but the sun was out, the rains from the previous week had brought out the greenery, and the mud had mostly dried up, making for great running conditions. This was our yearly Volunteer Appreciation event, with no entry fee — a small way that we say "Thank You" to our wonderful volunteers. It is also our annual memorial to Greg Ehrensing, a Marin resident and selfless volunteer who, sadly, passed away far too early.

Martin Kunz, a veteran course setter, designed very interesting courses for his first time setting at Bon Tempe. Many legs had multiple route choices, and, speaking to participants afterwards, it appears that someone or other took every possible route choice that Martin and I had discussed during the design phase.

Ouri Karni had an eleven-minute margin of victory on the Long course, while François Léonard, nursing a hamstring injury, won the Medium course by roughly half of that. Gary Kraght had a substantial margin of victory on the Short course, as did Sarah Williams on the physically moderate but still technically challenging Very Short course.

As always, many people volunteered their time to make the event a success. Scott Aster obtained the permit and took a turn at staffing the event computer. Jeff Lanam entered all the pre-registrants into the results software, staffed the computer for most of the day, and published the results after the event. Sarah Williams set up online registration. Theo Verhoeven, Tom De Vre, Steve Gregg, Ian Smith, and Jake Neibaum picked up controls. Ian, a former member of the U.S. Team, was at Bon Tempe for the first time after moving to the Bay Area about a year ago; Jake is a new member of the club who had also picked up controls at Shell Ridge a few weeks earlier. While Jeff was out on his course, it was reported that the battery of the final control had failed; Rex Winterbottom jumped in and used the computer to appropriately alter an unused punch unit so that Martin could replace the failed one. Scott, Sarah, and Marie-Josée Parayre brought delicious homemade treats to share.

Jeff set up a local Wi-Fi network that allowed everyone to see the results on their own cell phone — that was pretty awesome!

It was a fine day of orienteering and of conviviality. I hope more of you can make it next year.

Very-Short Course        (1.4 km, 25 m climb, 6 controls)  
                                                           Time  
   Pl  Name                   Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  Sarah Williams         BAOC      44:15              2:17  
    2  Jeff Lanam             BAOC    1:06:28    22:13    25:02
    3  Rosemary Johnson       BAOC    1:10:59    26:44    11:49
       Leslie Minarik         BAOC      DNF                      
       Nancy Lindeman         BAOC      DNF

Short Course             (3.3 km, 110 m climb, 13 controls)  
                                                           Time  
   Pl  Name                   Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  Gary Kraght            BAOC      55:15              0:00  
    2  Chuck Spalding         BAOC    1:13:32    18:17    17:58
    3  Olga Boiarynova        BAOC    1:13:55    18:40    17:10
    4  Scott Aster            BAOC    1:32:30    37:15    12:05
    5  George Minarik         BAOC    1:36:48    41:33    16:22
    6  Olga Kraght            BAOC    1:39:12    43:57    22:11
    7  Evan Custer            BAOC    1:54:46    59:31    24:16
    8  Dan Greene             BAOC    2:00:06    64:51    11:39
       Jay Hann               BAOC      DNF                      
       D. D. Freund           GGO       DNS

Medium Course            (5.2 km, 235 m climb, 15 controls)  
                                                           Time  
   Pl  Name                   Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  François Léonard       BAOC    1:03:56              2:52  
    2  Tapio Karras           BAOC    1:09:42     5:46     3:03
    3  Steve Gregg            BAOC    1:12:02     8:06     0:49
    4  Andrej Masalkov        BAOC    1:26:51    22:55     7:08
    5  Marie-Josée Parayre    BAOC    1:29:58    26:02     8:06
    6  Matthias Kohler        BAOC    1:31:10    27:14     9:45
       Derek Maclean          BAOC      DNS                      
       Jerry Skirvin          BAOC      DNS
       Stephanie Maclean      BAOC      DNS
       Steve Haas             BAOC      DNS
       Van Boughner           BAOC      DNS

Long Course              (6.7 km, 290 m climb, 21 controls)  
                                                           Time  
   Pl  Name                   Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  Ouri Karni             BAOC    1:14:48              0:43  
    2  Ian Smith              BAOC    1:25:59    11:11     4:42
    3  Tom De Vre             BAOC    1:28:41    13:53     3:50
    4  Brian Ritchken         BAOC    1:55:25    40:37    32:03
    5  Theo Verhoeven         BAOC    2:02:28    47:40    11:24
    6  John Richardson        BAOC    2:06:36    51:48    38:49
    7  Gavin Wyatt-Mair       BAOC    2:20:55    66:07    23:45
    8  Jake Niebaum           BAOC    2:26:05    71:17    34:09
       Rex Winterbottom       BAOC      MSP                      
       Andrew Petersen        NAVX      DNS                      
       Jeffrey Goodwin        BAOC      DNS
       Mikkel Conradi         BAOC      DNS
       Taylor Pospisil        BAOC      DNS

1 We use this event to remember Greg Ehrensing, a dedicated BAOC member, who died in 2018 (at orienteering age 60). Greg particularly enjoyed this event "in his backyard" (since he lived nearby). He directed and course-set this event several times, as well as always helping out at this event and many others with whatever was needed even when he wasn't on the crew that day.