By Rex Winterbottom (Regional Event Coordinator — Sierra Nevada)
This was unprecedented. Fun. Thrilling, for me at least. Contingencies arose. And the participants were great sports and great helps.
When I did this last year at Indian Valley, I enjoyed and appreciated what we accomplished, and came away with ideas for refinements and making it a smoother, better experience for the participants.
Rule #1: Don't introduce new variables when you're trying to smoothen something out.
That variable: SFMuni, the city's bus system. We waited over an hour for a #5 Fulton bus that's supposed to come every 12 minutes. After finishing the first Sprint, we were supposed to head about 3 km west to the western edge of the park, near the beach.
Still, if I were to do an event like this again, I would use public transportation. I think we had a pretty extreme case of bad Muni.
The main lesson learned was that a more enlightened procedure for reseeding participants should be developed to ensure fairness when a few people drop out, thus making it challenging to recalculate seedings and groupings. Something less complicated, more elegant, but still interesting...
I think seeding everyone according to the standings at the beginning was fair and fine. John Kewley, a visitor from the U.K., pretty much torched the field and was able to make it to 3rd place in the end, although starting almost last in the first sprint. So there was some payoff to having participated in other sprints, but people who participated less could still advance. Having no points at all and getting to 3rd place shows what one can do.
Some people don't care about all this ranking and seeding and stuff, and I have to say they seemed to enjoy themselves with the fun variety of courses. Lots of routes were discussed, and the tricks I put in the mix did trip up a few experienced navigators. Overall, I just would have liked it to take less time. If I didn't have bananas, I think some more would have dropped out than the few that had hockey games, friends in town, family to attend to, or the odd foot or ankle injury. Those who stayed, my hat's off to you. Thanks for experiencing what I had long and carefully prepared.
If we didn't have the 1-hour bus delay, I think we would have finished by 2:00, an hour later than the predicted 1:00. I feel I was able to put out and pick up controls fast and efficiently, and parallel-process it while participants would walk to the start/warm-up; going out with the last competitor and picking up, but being careful not to get ahead of anyone. What did affect the timing more than I anticipated was the range in finish times of the participants.
Sprint #1, in the eastern half of the park, near the museums, was the most normal sprint—9 controls, 1.7 km, nice park-O terrain. I put one control bag low on the "east foot of a hill"—I had actually placed it low so it would not be a dog leg. Technically, I don't think it was exactly in the center of the circle, but it was in the circle. Unfortunately, if you took a roundabout way to get there, and didn't look low enough... well, some spent more time there than they would want to. The base of the hill was where I put the control bag, but perhaps the description would lead you to believe it would be low on the hillside.
Sprint #2 seemed to generate the most excitement. I put groups of 4 runners in a 0.6-km, 5-control pinball machine, complete with a windmill, many barriers (bumpers), and it spit them out through a tunnel to a restaurant with a jazz band (the Beach Chalet?? not sure what it's called). It might be the most challenging White course you've ever done. Dan Greene was impressed with the park-O nature of this section of the map, which was enlarged to 1:2500.
Sprint #3 seemed to generate the most discussion. Also a 1:2500 map, and very short at 0.7 km with 3 controls... participants were challenged to pick and execute efficient routes through a variety of terrain types.
The unforeseen Bay-to-Breakers setup in and around the polo fields made Sprint #4 impossible unless I made changes to the preprinted maps and removed a control. All participants were informed to skip control 2, and to note the whereabouts of the massive uncrossable fence circumscribing the field enclosure. This course probably had the most technical spots of fine navigation up until #4, then finished with a footrace through the last 2 controls.
Do check out the RouteGadget routes, a few have been added for each Sprint, and you can see the courses.
I would appreciate comments on the course design—feedback. I did receive some, but it would be nice to hear from more. I was so busy constantly throughout this event that I barely had time to breathe, while y'all had plenty of conversation opportunities that I missed!
Even working every second from start to finish, this would have been impossible without help. Everybody pitched in. Zan Armstrong, whose parents Rick and Fran were participating, graciously assisted in directing the proceedings. Zan figured out results and finishes, and then started people using a variety of seeding and grouping techniques. She was very dependable. Noah Flower assisted with this as well after aggravating an injury. Zan deserves a special thanks for making this event possible—I could not have done it without her experience, expertise, and wisdom.
All the participants were not only good sports, they pitched in wherever possible, carrying stuff, sorting results, assembling and disassembling controls, and picking up the last course. Thank you all! Your help enabled me to focus on the critical tasks of setting up and taking down the courses on the fly.
We had an awards ceremony and certificates were handed out to the winners in the compressed age and gender classes. Terry, I still have yours! Congratulations to all the club sprint champions for 2008, listed in the results. Besides better bus service, less fences, and refined organization, the thing I hope for next year is more competition, particularly in the M21/F21 categories. Thanks to all who showed up and made it a great event! I'd love to participate in something like this next year, hopefully someone can step up and take it on!
Results
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA
Saturday, May 17, 2008
White/Yellow/Orange Results
Pl Name(s) Time
White Course (2.1 km, 15 m climb, 9 controls)
1 Sebo family 32:25
2 Janice Ko 40:00
3 Alice Masuko 45:00
4 Kim Roland, Cherie Zeiler 58:50
5 Green Raccoons 1:02:10
Abyd Al-Zain DNF
Panthers DNF
Yellow Course (3.7 km, 45 m climb, 10 controls)
1 Rick Baraff 32:00
2 Tim Keunster 32:33
3 Nick Mills 40:33
4 Dwight Freund 43:32
5 Ed Ow 51:50
6 Peter McCorquodale 54:00
7 Adam Doti & Parker 55:30
8 Brendan McWalters 59:00
9 Rich Israels 1:02:20
10 Brian Koga, Joyce Lin 1:07:48
11 Mike Hecker 1:16:05
12 Dan Comway 1:28:04
13 Kim Roland, Cherie Zeiler 1:31:00
14 Brad & Lisa Melton 1:34:07
15 McKeay family 1:39:10
16 Kevin & Sol Rugg 1:49:15
17 Meribeth, et al. 1:50:07
18 David Harrison 1:53:58
19 Bye family 1:54:00
Lena Eydelberg DNF
Orange Course (5.9 km, 70 m climb, 9 controls)
1 Jon Bonwick 44:20
2 Rick Baroff 46:26
3 Adam Doti 47:30
4 Tony Pinkham 49:25
5 Guy Whittaker 50:50
6 Chuck Spalding 52:25
7 Greg Ehrensing 55:45
8 Tim Kuenster 56:20
9 Matej Sebo 1:02:47
10 Scott Aster 1:08:18
11 Marina Keating 1:12:39
12 Nick Corsano 1:13:57
13 Joe Maffei 1:15:00
14 Alex Solomatnikov 1:15:09
15 Matt Sheehy 1:17:53
16 Adam Ruskin, Eric Wilkinson 1:20:25
17 Wes Erck 1:24:20
18 Marsha Jacobs 1:29:27
19 Gina Christopher 1:29:30
20 Katy Robinson 1:32:30
21 Steve O'Keefe 1:33:30
22 Jeff Lanam 1:36:26
23 Arlie & Tomer Maymon 1:38:10
24 Brendan McWalters 1:39:27
25 Jennifer Kerr 1:43:44
26 Cecil Conkle 1:43:48
27 Garrett Short 1:45:55
28 Linde & Jeremy Scott 2:00:23
29 Wendt Burbank 2:01:30
30 Mike Whelply, Joyclin Hashimoto 2:04:50
31 Nancy Lindemann, Shirley Pierce 2:08:40
32 Sanders & Hughes 2:12:45
33 Fred & Diane Ciaramaglia 2:21:49
34 Lisa Fawcett 2:50:35
35 Jane Parody 3:26:55
Harold Lischner DNF
Eileen Everett DNF
Neal Lischner DNF
Ed Wirth, Jen Grafe & Reesa DNF
Redfield-Subiantaro DNF
Abyd Al-Zaim DNF
Joey & Randy Brett DNF
Darren Don DNF
Marcel Good DNF
Johanna Merris DNF
Aja & Nick Brown DNF
Chris Mellor DNF
Jim Masters DNF
RouteGadget