By Nick Corsano
The big surprise of the day came early: Arriving at Huddart Park when the gate opened on Sunday morning, I found yellow caution tape blocking a hiking trail down which White runners would be heading in two hours. A ranger came up to me and explained that there had been an encounter between equestrians and yellow jackets on that trail Saturday afternoon. One rider had actually required a call to the paramedics. The rangers had sprayed the yellow jacket nest late Saturday, and were in the process of doing it again. They were hopeful that they could re-open the trail in time for our event, but maybe I should come up with a Plan B. In turned out that Plan B wasn't required—the trail was deemed safe, with just a cone set up at the nest site to alert folks. Both the registration team and the start team informed all the White course participants of the situation, and we had no incidents.
There really weren't any more surprises, except perhaps for the higher than expected attendance, which required some map recycling and redrawing. Supported by an excellent group of volunteers and blessed with extraordinary Indian Summer sunshine, the event ran quite smoothly. Runners, even those who endured the arduous Green and Red courses, had generally positive feedback.
These are the people who made the meet a success. My gratitude goes out to you all, and to any others I may have missed.
Matthias Kohler – Chief course setter
Mikkel Conradi – Vetter
Bob Cooley – Map printing
Brad Wetmore – Insurance and website updates
Alan Glendinning, Trinka Gillis, Mark Blair – Equipment acquisition
Dennis Wilkinson – Setup and early runner
Peter Graube, Nancy Lindeman – Setup
Steve Haas, John Marold – Registration
Dan Greene – Beginners' clinics
Ben Legg – Refreshments
Esther Heller, Judy Cronin, Tom Cronin, Ankitha Satyam, Bob Strauss – Starts
Joe Knapp, Jeff Lanam, Tim Erickson, Rosemary Johnson – E-punch
Greg Ehrensing – E-punch and results
Cassie Pelayo – Cleanup
Peter Graube, Luc Poppe, Cedric Lasfargues, Theo Verhoeven, the entire Sebo family, Steve Haas, and Matthias Kohler – Control pickup
Pam Noyer – Head ranger and yellow jacket exterminator
The White and Yellow courses started near the assembly area, and used the extensive trail network on the eastern side of the park. I set a rather challenging Yellow course, which required close attention to the map in a couple of places. Paul and Alex Morgan turned in the fastest time on the White course. Sasha Iakovlev was the official winner of the Yellow course, although the fastest time was recorded by Erika Kikuchi, running a second course.
Runners on Orange, Brown, Green, and Red had a brisk walk up a big spur to their start. All those courses began with a collection of fairly short, zigzagging legs on the spur. Orange then came downhill and had a fairly uneventful series of controls leading to the eastern end of the park, where more interesting navigation resumed. The duo of Julian Lallemande and Brian scored a narrow victory over Fedor Karpelevitch on Orange.
A big challenge for runners and course setters alike at Huddart is how to handle the monstrous, steep, boulder-strewn re-entrant that runs south to north and splits the park in two. We brought the Brown, Green, and Red courses down into the re-entrant, with controls placed to lead runners to optimal crossing points. Beyond the re-entrant is a part of the map that I call "ugly white". This entire hillside is mapped as runnable forest, although I feel it would be just as accurate if one splattered various shades of green at random across the area. Both Green and Red had strenuous legs with about 75 meters of climb here. All three advanced courses concluded with a string of mostly common controls in the more navigable northern section of the map.
On Brown, Joe Knapp led the field, with Chuck Spalding and Krists Krilovs close behind. Kent Ohlund had a comfortable victory on Green. On Red, Jonas Kjall eked out the win, just five seconds ahead of Joseph Doetsch.
There was a fairly large number of DNFs at this event. While this is not unusual on the longer courses in terrain like this, there were also four DNFs on the White course and eight on Yellow. The problems seem to have been concentrated at the beginning and end of the courses. A couple of White entrants struggled with the beginning of their course, while five of the Yellow DNFs simply missed the Go control. I spent a lot of time trying to work out the optimal arrangement of Start, Finish, and Go. This mundane-sounding task is more of an art than a science, especially when runners are setting out and returning in multiple directions.
RouteGadget