Pacific Spirit Park Score-O Why Just Run
January 15th 2012 10:00am
Organizers: Meghan Rance (Event Director), Karen Lachance (Host), Holly Hendrigan (Host), Brian Ellis (Host), Marg Ellis (Host), Mike Rascher (Host), Margo Mactaggart (Host)
Map: Pacific Spirit Park
Race results available.
When Alison Price and Meghan Rance woke up Sunday, it was cold, dark, and far too early. By the time they had finished placing all of the flags, with only a few minor mishaps and panicked phone calls, the sun was shining on a beautiful January morning. While they were off in the woods, their fantastic registration, membership, and refreshment volunteers set up the event stadium and made sure that everybody was ready to run (or, jog, or walk, or cycle). At 10:14am, a whistle-blast sounded the mass start, 50 people turned over their maps, and stood around looking confused (or planning their routes). There was about 30 seconds of intense silence before people began to scatter in every direction.
Meghan and Alison had an hour to change into warm clothes, enter on-the-day participants (thanks Russell and Thomas!), try and figure out how to hook up all of the gizmos of the SI system, eat some left-over pizza, and watch a random man stand in the corner of the parking lot and do all of those bouncy stretches they advise you not to do any more.
While they were finally relaxing, everybody else was finally score-orienteering. 23 competitors headed for controls south of 16th ave and 25 competitors headed north. Those participating in the 1 hour event were 2x more likely to head north than south even though there didn't seem to be a huge difference in advantage. 2nd place Scott Muma (who went north) and 3rd place Thomas Franz (who went south) had the same amount of points before time penalties. Magnus Johansson, the winner of the 1 hour event, had a north-starting clockwise route that was 10.8 km long. He cleared all controls north of 16th ave, except 36 and 32, and picked up 60 and 46 to the south.
Top Male 1 Hour 1. Magnus Johansson 140 pt 59:01 2. Scott Muma 119pt 1:00:02 3. Thomas Franz 113pt 1:01:23
Top Female 1 Hour 1. Marie-Elise Marcoux 108pt 1:04:13 2. Sara Orchard 90 pt 55:47 3. Megan Stewart 80pt 57:55
11 of 19 1 hour competitors were over the one hour time limit.
For runners in the 2 hour category, #59 was by far the most popular first control. It would have been even more popular if it hadn't been a little bit tricky to find.
For all competitors, controls 50, 51, and 53 in the south east corner of the map were the least popular, only 13-14 competitors visited them. Control 40 only received 15 competitors but there are several competitors who attempted to find it without success.
The most popular control was #46. 37 of the 48 SI sticks registered in the computer punched there.
The winner of the 2 hour category was Thomas Nipen with 300 points (all of the controls). His route north and clockwise (with some troubles on #40) was 3 km longer than the south and counter-clockwise route of Louise Oram, the only other competitor to visit all of the controls. It looks like Thomas will be the one doing all the dishes this week in the Nipen/Oram household.
Top Male 2 Hour 1. Thomas Nipen 300pt 1:54:07 2. Chris Benn 270pt 1:59:50 (phew!) 3. Christoph Rufenacht 260pt 1:51:18
Top Female 2 Hour 1. Louise Oram (2nd overall) 284pt 2:03:06 2. Krystil Koethler 210pt 1:58:34 3. Rachel Fouladi 200pt 1:55:19
1 hour GPS distances Magnus Johansson 10.8 km Terrence Rascher 8.47 km
2 hour GPS distances Thomas Nipen 23.72 km Chris Benn 21.7 km Chris Michalak 20.9 km Louise Oram 20.8 km Christoph Rufenacht 19.9 km Karl Scheffer 15.9 km
Chris Oram and Meghan Rance's photos of the event can be found here
Alison Price's photos can be seen on the GVOC facebook page.
