By Terry Farrah
It was a perfect Indian Summer day for our annual B meet at these neighboring preserves — sunny but not too hot. Recent rains had softened the ground nicely. Thistles and grasses had been beaten down slightly, but were still an obstacle. Beginner and intermediate courses were set in Skyline Ridge, and visited Horseshoe Lake and the Christmas tree farms. Advanced courses were set in Monte Bello. All courses used epunch. Total attendance was 201.
Here's a link to a few photos from the event.
The feedback from the advanced courses indicated that there were sufficient navigational challenges and route choices to provoke some interesting discussions. Take a look at the routes recorded on the RouteGadget for this event for more details.
Phillip Kopisch won the White course with an excellent time, six minutes ahead of second place Nan Cullinane, and third place Emily and Chris Linn. This was all the more remarkable given that Phillip's map got wet at the beginning of the course due to a leaky hydration bladder valve and was in shreds at the finish. Viktor Passinsky was equally impressive with a ten-minute win on the Yellow course, followed by Kevin Hu, and another top-three placement from the Kopisch family, this time by Daniel.
Valeria Fedyk had a great time on Orange with a five-minute win over Tatiana Fedyk, followed in third place by the Want family.
Alan Glendinning had a great time on Brown, nine minutes ahead of Hilary Hardcastle, and also ahead of Mike Fleishman who came in third. (Alan, perhaps you think that you are out of practice, but consider running the Green course next time.) On the Green course, Dennis Wildfogel was at a huge disadvantage in third place. Even though he feels that he is fairly familiar with this venue, how can you compete on the Green course with Ido Green and Dan Greene? Ido, with an excellent time, was almost four minutes ahead of Dan and Dennis, Dan edging Dennis by four seconds. (With the use of electronic punching, that's a very decisive edge.) Stephanie MacLean had a great time as first female on Green.
Tapio Karras won the Red course by a large margin, beating the estimated winning time by a couple of minutes. Tapio's time is very competitive when compared to the times of Blue runners as well, given that many controls were shared by the two courses. Mutsumi Sugizaki had a good run edging out Derek MacLean. Derek rebounded nicely from the previous week's DNF. There was a fairly tight race on the Blue course, with recent ORCA transplant Ben Legg edging out Christian Degen by two minutes, followed by Andrejus Masalkovas another 2.5 minutes behind. Penny DeMoss, the only female on Blue, finished with a good time as well.
Thank you to all who carpooled. Leaving enough parking spots for other preserve users is the goal, and we were successful.
Due to the many conditions on our permit, this event requires more volunteers than an average BAOC event. The advanced start and both finishes were unstaffed to reduce volunteer needs, and that seemed to work out fine. A total of 44 people were involved in putting on this event. Thanks to all:
Setup: David Donovan, Chuck Spalding
Registration: Ev & Jean Beuerman
Parking Director: Harold Lischner, Oleg Shakhnovsky, Mattias Kohler
Remote Radio Station: Clare Livak, Mark Prior, Greg Khanlarov
Beginner Instruction: Ken Livak, Sharon Evans
Intermediate Instruction: Dan Greene
Skyline Ridge Starts: Manfred, Daniel, and Phillip Kopisch, Bud Laird
First Aid: Marty Katz, Scott Aster
Crossing Guard: Sharon Evans, Lakshmi Yerneni, Russell Neilson, Galina Shakhnovsky, Scott Aster
Control Pickup: Greg Favor, Marina Keating, Mike Fleishman, Theo Verhoeven, Jan Vanhoutte, Mattias Kohler
Tear Down: Joe Maffei, Ben Legg, Brad & Andrew Johansen, Penny & Harold DeMoss
Insurance: Brad Wetmore
Maps: Bob Cooley
Epunch: Trinka Gillis, Bjorn Widerstrom, Bill Straka, and Rory Maclean
Equipment: Alan Glendinning, Mark Blair, Penny & Harold DeMoss
Vetting: Mikkel Conradi
Special thanks to Bob Cooley for setting out maps and cases, to Nancy Lindeman and Frank Markowitz for reporting a missing control (we had forgotten to put it out), and to Jeff Lanam for remedying the situation.
Terry Farrah, Event Director
Kent Ohlund, Course Setter
RouteGadget