Greetings fellow O'ers! A crisp, overcast day greeted new and old hordes of eager orienteering fans eager to try their hand at the first meet of 2005. The controls were hung in the trees with care, in the hopes that some speedy orienteer would be there…well, perhaps a bit too late for that version of the poem now. But surely the controls were waiting… Given the inherent complexity of the Simplot lands, the meet director opted to design only two courses as designing a true advanced course of any distance here is rather a challenge in itself. Perhaps if I borrow some of the mini controls from the Ritzenthalers next time…and give everyone two loops for their money... The short course had no lack of takers, especially for friendly family competition. David Ritzenthaler chose to chase his wife Kristin, who both pregnant and with a stroller made a relatively even match with David just eking her out at a good hard sprint. The Cullum family split into two teams and made it mighty competitive themselves. The Guerra brothers learned the basics of the sport very quickly from Ben (my apologies not knowing about an announced 10:30 class) and even ran the course against each other first time out, with Ryan eking out the lead. (Perhaps Ben slowed Erik down a bit. ;) Bob and Mitchell stuck together, with son Mitchell making most executive decisions and father Bob providing a bit of very minor course correction here and there. Kathryn, a veteran from a few park meets last year, took off on the short course only to be quite confused by the control pickup that happened just minutes before. I caught up to her on control 4. My apologies to her also for this mistake on my part. But she cheerfully completed the remainder of the course sans controls - which requires just a bit more skill given that no control was there waving at her in the distance! Many brave souls took on the vast distances of the long course, perhaps exaggerated a bit by the meet director's conversion mistake in course length, including the fresh Riverstone graduates of the Sergey/Black two hour school of orienteering. Not all of the students were so sure but the course director felt confident they were capable on this map. Lee Scott, with his fast pace and prior experience (you may recall he found the undocumented passage under Veteran's Parkway in the last Score meet) took top honors with only one blip as a short course control deterred him slightly. Jim Cullum didn't take much longer, even after the sprint through the short course (a few overlapping controls gave him a slight advantage perhaps, but then that was counterbalanced by the rumor of a few zealous competitors suggesting he was going the wrong way...) Hot on their cushioned heels were Doug LaMott and Bill Leahy respectively, keeping up the speedy reputation of the multi-sport clubs. Ken Beckner, along with his father Paul, were right behind them. Even without his adventure racing son, Dan Herring edged right up there with the leaders as his running legs still showed their endurance. Fresh from the challenges of Maze-O and other San Diego winter meets the prior weekend, Karin followed shortly afterward breaking in a pair of brand new O shoes with serious spikes to grab hold in the mud and rock of the hillside. A mark of the experienced orienteer. Then came the Riverstone grads: Blake, Daniel, Stefan, and Nam - all of whom successfully pulled off the long course their first time out, although controls 8 and 9 on the technical hillside were a bit tricky. As they were intended to be! Andy talked Elijah into doing the long course for the first time, with the only blip being the infamous last control being confused with the short course. Great job by all. We're looking forward to seeing more of the Riverstone students and Ben at future meets, especially as the challenge and terrain gets progressively more interesting…we'll arrange to have independent scoring for the students at selected meets! Thanks go to Doug LaMott and others for helping with control pickup! Results: Short course: 8 controls, 2km, 10m climb Name Time (hour:minute) ---------------------------------------------- David Ritzenthaler 0:14 Rochelle, Dan, and Conner Cullum 0:18 Kristin Ritzenthaler 0:19 Jim, Natalie, and Karly Cullum 0:22 Ryan Guerra (Riverstone) 0:27 Erik Guerra, Ben Brock (Riverstone) 0:29 Bob and Mitchell Leibowitz 0:34 Kathryn Engle 0:36 Long course: 12 controls, 3.5km, 25m climb Name Time ---------------------------------------------- Lee Scott 0:22 Jim Cullum 0:22:35 Doug LaMott 0:23 Bill Leahy 0:23:36 Ken Beckner 0:25 Paul Beckner 0:27 Dan Herring 0:28 Karin Didesse 0:30 Blake Shah (Riverstone) 0:31 Daniel Flobe (Riverstone) 0:37 Stefan Eigenmann (Riverstone) 0:51 Nam Nguyen (Riverstone) 0:53 Andy and Elijah Hill 1:31 Your meet directors, Jeff Black and Dondi Dawley See you in McCall next month for the Ski and Snowshoe O!