Have you heard the old joke that asks "Suppose they gave a war and no one came?" Well, "Suppose they designed a course and No One finished?" Read on and see that it actually happened.
Weather was gorgeous, despite forecasts, 78F, not too hot for April 3 with brilliant puffy white Florida clouds. Once again, however, LBE forced us to stage out of Barr Street and as usual our permit also limited the total number of people we were allowed.
In an attempt to work within the limitations of the permit, we decided to split the field into two or three parts. The Introductory and Intermediate courses would start and finish at Barr Street while the Advanced courses would register at Barr Street and carpool to Starts at either Snow Hill Road or Geneva Wilderness Area. But when we asked the LBE rangers, they said we could not even carpool starters to Snow Hill Road, even though all would be hiking back to Barr Street. ....You may be getting the same feeling I've been getting about the level of respect we enjoy in the eyes of the park administrators. ....All we can do, as you know, is continue to behave as we always have, exposing more members of the public to the state forest lands, minimizing our impact (as if we have any measurable impact) pick up all the trash we see and generally just follow their rules to the letter until they someday soften up a little.
Our planned three staging areas shrunk quickly to two. All the Advanced course entrants were routed to GWA, where we are understandably limited in parking and toilet facilities, but they're very nice about it and also just happened to have a construction site job-johnnie convenient to the parking lot. I could not in good conscience design a Brown course that started at GWA and ended at Barr, due to the sheer distance: over 5 km as the crow flies. So I set up only a Green and a Red. At Barr Street we combined White and Yellow into one Introductory course, but for different reasons. So on the day, we officially had only four of our usual six courses. Everyone seemed to understand and we must commend you all on how cheerfully you take these things. Orienteers are so cool!
The Green and Red courses were fun to design, being able to use legs not otherwise available from the usual staging areas. I especially liked that Red course and judging from the feedback so did the Red course runners - even the four non-finishers. Congratulations to Artur Intson on a great 114 minute run, just edging out Toby Henson and a guy named Jenkins whose name I did not recognize and whose waiver sheet is not clear, so I don't know who he is, or was. Mr. Jenkins - make yourself known please. But they all had great runs. They all had a workout, too, since the course was long and the weather was a bit warm for running, though perfect for sitting around the finish table saying to one another what a perfect day it was.
The Green course on the other hand.... Notice in the results that no one finished. Zero. Nada. Eleven entries (13 people altogether) and none of them finished. And its my fault. If anyone actually punched in at #3, they were by then so bushed or discouraged or briar-slashed or cypress-dome-waded-out, their spirits were evidently thoroughly broken. This was a classic case of the coursesetter's familiarity with the area blinding him (me) to a terrible leg design. From Green #2 to #3 I knew perfectly well that the logical route choice would be to trail run to CR#13 (the main north-south abandoned roadbed in the middle of the map), then run south on CR13 all the way to the diagonal road trending NW toward Kolokee if necessary, looking for a clear path around to the big field where you can attack #3 from behind. If you had, you would have discovered a new bush-hog track skirting the edge of the field, leading you to within 100 meters of the control. No one in their right mind would, it seemed to me, thrash the beeline at any point, either before or after CR13, just because of the briar/palmetto conditions in the areas mapped as rough-open. My thought was that even if someone tried to stay on the direct beeline west of CR13, they'd still give up quickly and head into the white-mapped woods of the cypress dome (on the other side of which lay #3) and they would then discover a beautifully open, if knee deep, dome to wade through for 200 meters or so. Reports to me after the event varied, but absolutely no one, apparently, did what I thought they should do. Most persisted in trying to hold a beeline through the worst of the junk, then even if they found #3 they couldn't find the next #4, or the next, due to general exhaustion or frustration. Heaven knows what they were mumbling about me in the midst of all this.
The finishing time of the winners on the Introductory course, 44 minutes, and Walenty Prytulo's winning time on Orange (68 minutes) tells me these were a bit longish, but reasonable courses. Looking at Orange course results shows lots of HS JROTC non-finishers, which is usually not a reflection on course design, but only on the preparedness of the high schoolers who tackled Orange that day. We also don't worry too much about them not finishing because they always seem to have so much fun regardless.
Thanks to Jonathan Linforth for pitching in as EC for this event at the last minute and doing the Results. I cannot recall all the other helpers, but: Ron set the Barr Street courses, Dave Brault retrieved all controls on an after-dark AR training run, Jonathan Linforth manned the GWA start all day, Mike Dempsey, Russ Steinke and Alisha Vaughn seemed to combine somehow to handle registration and start/finish. We need to especially thank Andy Holman who I gather functioned as chief shuttle driver to and from GWA for several trips, and also the Oviedo HS JROTC Mom and Jonathan Linforth who I believe did the same. I also want to thank very much the Titusville Dad who served as our traffic cop all day long and miraculously managed to keep the parking arranged so that just one or two slots were always open. Appreciation, too, for the cooperation of the JROTC bus drivers who drove off to park who knows where for the day, leaving our lot free for cars only. Everyone in fact, cooperated so well, everyone smiled patiently through our convoluted explanations of what was happening; it just made it all worthwhile. Thanks for coming out and enjoying the day.
Bob Putnam
| Name | Time |
| Pletenets | 41:22 |
| Planck | 44:30 |
| Jones & Pradella | 53:05 |
| Ormand/Littles | 55:23 |
| Titusville Fingers | 87:12 |
| Troop 237 | 96:59 |
| GS Troop 27 | 139:04 |
| GS Troop 1285 | DNF |
| Name | Time |
| Prytulo | 68:36 |
| Steinke, Russ | 84:38 |
| Hemness | 89:22 |
| Mike & Marilu Dempsey | 93:49 |
| Tony & Justin Merrill | 104:26 |
| Bates/Vaughn | 104:28 |
| Tindall | 108:10 |
| Flying Kiwis | 108:26 |
| Little family | 116:00 |
| Jones, Vallery | 129:56 |
| Boudreau | 134:28 |
| Woricheck, Chuck | 138:20 |
| Strawn, Trey & Kevin | 140:37 |
| Pelfrey, David | 142:02 |
| Greg Poole/Laura Theiss | 148:25 |
| Hanna, Greg | 161:26 |
| Outdoors & Active | 163:00 |
| Gibbs Team 1 | 169:50 |
| Evans/Wolf | 175:00 |
| Bates/Wilson | 177:41 |
| Gibbs Team 7 | 178:22 |
| Bissett, Chris | 178:26 |
| Metzenroth, Mike | OT |
| Oviedo HS Shultz + | OT |
| Holley, Rick & Rachel | OT |
| Gibbs Team 2 | OT |
| Gibbs Team 3 | DNF |
| Gibbs Team 4 | DNF |
| Gibbs Team 5 | DNF |
| Gibbs Team 6 | DNF |
| Mathews, D & E | DNF |
| Dunham, Courtney | DNF |
| Oviedo HS, Tindall + | DNF |
GREEN (Clue Sheet error - No finishers)
| Name | Time |
| Maliszewski, Joe | N/A |
| Ludwig, Tony | N/A |
| Seward, Vernon | N/A |
| Benson, E | N/A |
| Mark & Abby Rosenberg | N/A |
| Pridemore/Mowry | N/A |
| McCarthy, Dan (THS) | N/A |
| Kopesky, K | N/A |
| Rodemeyer, John | N/A |
| Oviedo HS, Scioli + | N/A |
| Barker, Bret | N/A |
| Name | Time |
| Intson, Artur | 114:22 |
| Jenkins | 118:18 |
| Henson, Toby (THS) | 118:41 |
| Nettlow/Wysock | 134:22 |
| Holman, Andrea | 137:20 |
| Bryant/Chizlett | 141:00 |
| Tallent, Kyle | 142:02 |
| Barolet, Bill | 154:20 |
| Dirty Fish | 148:45 |
| Bohn, Derek | 160:28 |
| Richmond, Ken | 167:56 |
| Sirmans, Jerry | 174:50 |
| Akers, Scott | OT |
| Older Than You | DNF |
| Johnson, Adam (THS) | DNF |
| Misa, Jeffery (THS) | DNF |
| DNF | Did Not Finish |
| DQ | Disqualified (Missed Controls) |
| OT | Over 3 Hour Time Limit |