With rain in the forecast, but no clouds in sight in the early morning, we prepared fun, but challenging courses on the Kenston Campus and surrounding woods.
All courses included a mix of both traditional “in the woods” orienteering, with sprint elements on the open campus.
Andreas Johansson (Event Director, Course Designer, Setter) started around 9AM to set controls and to get things ready. And then the rain started!
Rain commenced from about 10:30 until well after the last orienteers had come back – but it certainly didn’t seem to slow anyone down!
James Price arrived first, to help with timing and starts, but we sent him out (he looked ready!) to wake up the controls instead. Registration, handled expertly by Jae Russ, (with help from Emelie and Oskar as door attendants) started slowly with a few club regulars trickling in around noon (Bob, Randy, Todd, Ivan) and we thought maybe that would be it, due to the rain.
But, around 12:45 droves of eager orienteers arrived, with several youth competing alone or in teams, and families with kids! So much fun to see new faces, and folks braving the elements (at this time, rain was coming down with a purpose!)
Todd Pownell took first place on RED with 46:51, followed by a close second in Randy Mitchell. Team Burden took first on ORANGE with 65:46, and one of the team members from Team Belizinskas (part of a Lithuanian Scout Troop) won YELLOW with 48:47. There were no runners on WHITE or GREEN.
A first for Kenston, all courses included a common GO control under the tutelage of Bob Boltz (and in his honor), and we were eager to see winning times in the sprint from the playground to finish (see results below). A GO control is the last control before finish, and is often used to push runners to sprint using whatever energy they may have left.
Many larger races, like those at national levels, can / are determined in seconds, so sprinting can really pay off! For example, the difference in club member Andreas Johansson’s time for 2nd place at the recent Flying Pig event in Indiana, and first place, was only 23 seconds!
All athletes were off the courses by 2:45PM, and we had already begun picking up a few controls. The challenge in designing great courses for different levels with only 30 controls comes at the end – several controls are used on multiple courses, so pickup usually has to wait until the end.
James Price and Todd Pownell helped by grabbing a few each at the far corners of campus. Emelie and Oskar collected two from the playground and marsh behind the building, and Andreas picked up the rest. All in all, we were picked up and headed home by 4PM.
As a bonus, we also registered 33 participants total for the World Orienteering Day 2017!
A huge Thank You! as always to our volunteers who help make the events what they are!
- Kenston Schools and Kenston Community Education (KCE) that let’s us use their beautiful campus!
- James Price – setup help, control waker-upper, control pickup, and zip-loc bag tester
- Jaelithe Russ – registration, e-punch stick assigner, workflow expert, donut-supplier, and moral support!
- Randy Mitchell – on-the-spot fill in during a busy time
- Emelie – chief morale officer, control pickup
- Oskar – snack tester, Gatorade commentator, control pickup
- Andreas Johansson – some of the other stuff…
RESULTS
These results are preliminary (we haven’t pulled actual data yet from the e-punch system) so a few of the splits may change, etc.
WHITE - 2.1km / 12 controls NO RUNNERS YELLOW - 2.4km / 16 controls 1. Belizinskas #1 48:47 2. Belizinskas #2 49:17 3. Belizinskas #3 49:55 4. Belizinskas #4 52:16 5. Team Claypoole 53:28 6. Team Ingram 63:12 7. Team Coniglio 66:10 8. Team Bettac 76:32 9. Team Loya 82:52 ORANGE - 3.6km / 20 controls 1. Team Burden 65:46 2. Sanae Rogers 79:54 GREEN - 4.3km / 24 controls NO RUNNERS RED - 5.2km / 28 controls 1. Tood Pownell 46:51 2. Bob Boltz 62:22 3. Rich Perrenoud 86:00 4. James Price 87:58 --- 5. Randy Mitchell 49:43 (punched 53 out of order) 5. Ivan Redinger 74:43 (missed control 43) GO CONTROL TOP 4 1. Todd Pownell 0:22 2. James Price 0:28 3. Bob Boltz 0:30 4. Team Burden 0:34
RESOURCES
- AttackPoint Advanced & Detailed Split Analysis
- Simple Results and Splits
- RouteGadget (GPS Upload and Course Review) (Upload your .gpx track today!)