Grasslands Event

September 12, 2010

Course set by Marie-Cat Bruno

Running around in the rain at 6AM, hanging controls, we were wondering.... "I hope they come". Organising an orienteering event is always a leap of faith because you never really know how many people will come to enjoy it, no matter how much effort you put into it! But some people know this because they came, even in the rain! some even said "we knew you guys were out there setting it up in the rain... we had to come". Thank you. Some even pushed it further and stayed, despite the rain, to help us pick up controls at the end of the day. That was amazing! Thank you Brendan, Murray, Alan and Allan.

The courses featured a remote start: a hike gaining more than 80m of vertical! I got some dirty looks when I pointed where the start was. But the result: humane use of delightful terrain in the higher plateau just west of the road. It also made for some blistering times on the long course with 5 participants going under 10 minutes/km on a demanding 8.2km course!

Course 1 was pretty challenging, offering very tempting but risky route choices. I was a bit nervous until the 1st team came back in, all smiles with a blistering time of 35 minutes! Pfew! It ended up being the hardest course to win! Only 7minutes separated 1st from 4th place! Experienced Rachel May came out on top, edging “up and comers” Alexander Corbett and Mark Larson. Impressive performances by all (full results below).

Course 2 was also challenging with some longer legs than usual. It also made use of very technical pockets where the terrain is extremely complicated and all looks the same. As in course 1, it was won by a female! Frances Vyse beat them all with a comfortable lead of 10 minutes over Murray Foubister (who came out despite not feeling so great - what a trooper!).

Course 3 was something very different. First I wanted to give Brian (May) a challenge, and second, I wanted our members that have never been to an A-meet to get a feel of what long courses are like. I might have pushed it a bit far when Brian said: "wow, a butterlfy loop - this is like a World Cup"!!!

A butterfly loop is a tactic used to spread racers in big events but also to make the best use of a small area of high detail. You end up coming back to the center of the loop many times, but from a different direction. Like Wade noted: "even though I'd already been to control 95 (the center of the butterfly) twice, coming from a different direction I still found it hard to find the 3rd time around!". Course 3 also featured a spectator leg where most competitors came through the finish area on their way to the last cluster of controls and 2 long legs for route choice, one of them being almost 2km long! Brian ended up winning, followed extremely closely by Phil Wallensteen (a remarkable performance), both of them breaking the hour on a 8.2km long! Trevor Wallensteen probably had one of his best races, clocking just over an hour, good for 3rd.

Thank you again everybody for coming!

Marie-Cat & Tim

Course 1 - 2.8km:

1.Rachel May 32'33

2.Alexander Corbett and Mark Larson 35'04

3.Miya Kosonick 37'05

4.Trond May 39'37

5.Keeya Corbett 71'10 

Course 2 - 4.6km

1.Frances Vyse 65'26

2.Murray Foubister 75'06

3.Sheena VanDyk 80'48

4.Jude Corfield and Vivian Morris 90'56

5.Cheryl Ogloff 111'37

6.Jim Fulton and ? 116'09

7.Carol Davidson 72'24 - missed 2 - injured :-(

Course 3 - 8.2km

1.Brian May 54'16

2.Phil Wallensteen 57'55

3.Trevor Wallensteen 64'32

4.Allan Stradeski 74'15

5.Abbigail May 74'38

6.Alan Vyse 85'31

7.Brendan Matthews 94'20

8.Wade Tokarek 101'40

9.Guy Paulsen 123'04 - missed 4