Lake Herman Recreation Area 2026

Date: Feb 28, 2026 (Saturday)

BAOC

Location: Lake Herman Recreation Area; Benicia, CA

Directors: Scott Aster (415.456.8118)
Course Setters: Petra Sundstrom

Type: C; Low-key local. Offers a subset of courses of the regular local event

Event for beginners through advanced; beginners and non-members are welcome; free beginner instruction will be available

Event Write-Up

By Scott Aster,
Event Director

A beautiful, warm day greeting over 100 participants at Lake Herman. The unusual warmth (at least for February) pleased most competitors, though also brought out a lot of sweat and red faces at the finish line!

Course setter Petra Sundstrom designed courses to take advantage of the rolling terrain, utilizing the many similar features to confuse people who thought they were heading out into "easy" navigation. The winning times confirmed the appropriateness of both distance and climb, with many short legs interspersed with longer ones, tempting people to lose track of which spur/reentrant they were on/in! In places, the grass was quite short thanks to herds of goats brought in earlier in the month to minimize the summer fire danger, and while the ground was soft from all the rain we've recently experienced, muddy bogs were few and mostly easily avoided.

Quite a few people trying one of the three beginner courses enjoyed them so much they went out on a second course. Hopefully, those people caught the bug, and will be coming out to future events soon!

The only blemish on this great day pertained to two White course controls going AWOL — discovered when they were all being collected. We are hoping they just got moved, and will be looking for them next week. Losing controls is always a potential hazard, especially ones right on trails, but fortunately are rare occurrences.

I have lots of people to thank for the success of the event.

  • First, course setter Petra Sundstrom designed the great courses, and set out all the controls herself on Friday and Saturday morning. She also printed the maps, and helped set up the Junior table, along with Julia Doubson, near registration.
  • Jeff Lanam and crew John Blakkan, Phil Lacroute, and Rosemary Johnson ably ran the E-punch station without a hitch.
  • The registration crew of Sarah Williams, Steve Haas, Chuck Spalding, and Matthias Kohler got everyone signed in and paid in a quick and efficient manner. Online registration and the on-site electronic pay system have simplified and sped up on-site registration greatly!
  • I gave a couple of beginner clinics.
  • Starts were handled by Kat Lan, and Olga and Gary Kraght.
  • I had a wonderful crew of control pickers to get everything in quickly: Tac Sugiyama, Cedric Lafargues, Deron van Hoff, Olaf Sundstrom, Vicki Woolworth, Rex Winterbottom, and Recinda Shermin visiting from LAOC!

Lastly, I want to thank Dominguez Dickerson, the Permit Director for the city of Benicia, who made getting a permit for this event a snap. He treated us like desired customers of his service, and thinks our events are a great use of the park.

Thank you all for coming out. Now on to our wonderful terrain at Morgan Territory!

Short White Course

(1.6 km, 35 m climb, 12 controls)

                                                            Time  
   Pl  Name                    Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  John Blakkan            BAOC      26:46              1:09  
    2  Cisar family            BAOC      43:26    16:40    12:50
    3  Team Lynx Fox           BAOC      55:29    28:43    18:40
    4  Team Sumegha            BAOC      58:07    31:21    15:10

Long White Course

(2.9 km, 190 m climb, 14 controls)

                                                            Time  
   Pl  Name                    Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  Anna Shane              CHSOC     52:16              8:27  (2nd course after Green)  
    2  Gracie Shane            CHSOC     52:23     0:07     9:17  (2nd course after Brown)
    3  Aliyah Heyder           CHSOC     52:34     0:18     8:31  (2nd course after Green)
    4  Carmen Mills            CHSOC     52:36     0:20     9:10  (2nd course after Orange)
    5  Dixon Singleton         CHSOC     53:04     0:48     8:30  (2nd course after Orange)
    6  Piper Jensick           CHSOC     53:29     1:13     9:18  (2nd course after Brown)
    6  The Dallies                       53:29     1:13     7:32
    8  Jamie & Tristan                   55:43     3:27     8:29
    9  Team Castillo                   1:05:11    12:55    14:35
   10  Emma Sanchez                    1:08:15    15:59    23:31  (2nd course)
   11  Lisa Wilson                     1:11:28    19:12    25:11
       The McDawsons           BAOC      DNF                      

Yellow Course

(2.6 km, 80 m climb, 14 controls)

                                                            Time  
   Pl  Name                    Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  The Snack Barr                    48:55              8:59  
    2  Lauren Wemmer           BAOC      52:33     3:38     8:53
    3  Little Horse            BAOC      53:48     4:53    10:45
    4  Jason O'Connell         BAOC      56:41     7:46    12:58
       Julia Doubson           BAOC      DNF                      

Orange Course

(3.4 km, 125 m climb, 16 controls)

                                                            Time  
   Pl  Name                    Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  Ingert Svaerd           BAOC      43:21              4:05  
    2  Steven Rodrigues        CHSOC     54:27    11:06     5:00
    3  Marie De Vre            BAOC      57:00    13:39     6:01
    4  The Tweetybirds         BAOC    1:14:55    31:34    10:05
    5  Carmen Mills            CHSOC   1:22:47    39:26    36:38
    6  Dixon Singleton         CHSOC   1:31:45    48:24    44:12
    7  Water Baby              BAOC    2:18:36    95:15    44:20
       Jamie & Tristan                   DNF                      (2nd course after Long White)  
       The Dallies                       DNF                      (2nd course after Long White)

Brown Course

(3.5 km, 130 m climb, 19 controls)

                                                            Time  
   Pl  Name                    Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  Steve Gregg             BAOC      37:25              0:23  
    2  Kat Lan                 BAOC      49:04    11:39     8:21
    3  Chuck Spalding          BAOC      50:16    12:51     6:09
    4  Stephanie Maclean       BAOC      54:24    16:59     7:29
    5  Steven Rodrigues        BAOC    1:02:00    24:35    10:55  (2nd course after Orange)
    6  Steve Haas              BAOC    1:03:04    25:39    14:14
    7  Johanna Merriss         BAOC    1:03:58    26:33    15:53
    8  Vicki Woolworth         NAVX    1:04:50    27:25     9:26
    9  Gracie Shane            CHSOC   1:07:33    30:08    31:26
   10  George Minarik          BAOC    1:12:43    35:18    10:47
   11  London Baker            CHSOC   1:14:37    37:12    34:11
   12  Piper Jensick           CHSOC   1:15:24    37:59    27:29
   13  Evan Custer             BAOC    1:18:29    41:04     6:33
   14  KB & RNT                BAOC    1:18:54    41:29    20:23
   15  Sarah Williams          BAOC    1:20:39    43:14    16:31
   16  Up Bottoms                      1:25:47    48:22    25:27
   17  Jeff Lanam              BAOC    1:36:33    59:08    15:24
   18  Patrick & Johann        BAOC    1:36:37    59:12    29:41
   19  Sydney Heyder           CHSOC   2:31:00   113:35   108:29
       Fred Toh                BAOC      DNF                      
       Rosemary Johnson        BAOC      DNF
       Jasmine Slater          CHSOC     DNS                      

Green Course

(4.4 km, 190 m climb, 18 controls)

                                                            Time  
   Pl  Name                    Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  Graham Brew             BAOC      45:06              6:03  
    2  Tapio Karras            BAOC      47:20     2:14     3:19
    3  David Colman            BAOC      49:09     4:03     1:08
    4  Phil Lacroute           BAOC      50:45     5:39     3:02
    5  Marie-Josée Parayre     BAOC      52:53     7:47     0:53
    6  Tac Sugiyama            BAOC      55:11    10:05     3:12
    7  Kyle Poland             GCO       58:01    12:55     4:55
    8  Enxun Wei               BAOC    1:01:38    16:32     7:48
    9  Matthias Kohler         BAOC    1:03:11    18:05     5:47
   10  Nik Weber               LAOC    1:05:25    20:19     6:38
   11  Rahel Schneider         BAOC    1:05:36    20:30     5:25
   12  Stan Barrett            BAOC    1:06:32    21:26    17:14
   13  Anna Shane              CHSOC   1:06:45    21:39    21:11
   14  Recinda Sherman         LAOC    1:27:41    42:35    19:27
   15  Aliyah Heyder           CHSOC   1:30:46    45:40    37:27
   16  Team Rami                       1:31:52    46:46    19:32
       Derek Maclean           BAOC      DNF                      

Red Course

(6.0 km, 250 m climb, 25 controls)

                                                            Time  
   Pl  Name                    Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  Rex Winterbottom        BAOC    1:05:11              0:00  
    2  Andrej Masalkov         BAOC    1:16:47    11:36     3:08
    3  Deron van Hoff          BAOC    1:18:09    12:58     4:25
    4  Josh Munic              BAOC    1:23:29    18:18    13:48
    5  Liam                            1:26:53    21:42    18:45
    6  Ronald Ward             CHSOC   2:15:04    69:53    32:31
    7  Peter Woodbury          CHSOC   2:15:53    70:42    33:37
       Mattias Vangbo          BAOC      MSP                      
       Gary Kraght             BAOC      DNF                      
       Olga Kraght             BAOC      DNF

Blue Course

(7.7 km, 335 m climb, 25 controls)

                                                            Time  
   Pl  Name                    Club      Time     Behind    Lost
    1  Paul Roome              BAOC    1:02:46              0:00  
    2  François Léonard        BAOC    1:06:54     4:08     2:08
    3  Wayne Staats            BAOC    1:17:04    14:18     4:16
    4  Greg Khanlarov          BAOC    1:18:12    15:26     6:56
    5  Fanny Jacobsson         BAOC    1:22:07    19:21     3:41
    6  Lubomir Šebo            BAOC    1:25:06    22:20     8:57
    7  Weichun Fong            BAOC    1:28:31    25:45     6:28
    8  Tom De Vre              BAOC    1:32:31    29:45     8:58
    9  Matteo Guareschi        BAOC    1:35:26    32:40    12:31
    10  Cedric Lafargues        BAOC    1:41:02    38:16    13:16
DNF = Did not finish (one or more controls missed)
DNS = Did not start
DSQ = Disqualified
MSP = Mispunched (one or more incorrect controls)
OVT = Overtime
Updated: Apr 2, 2026, 10:17 PM PDT Edit