Florida Orienteering
Rock Springs Run State Reserve
April 11, 2009


Courses: WHITE | YELLOW | ORANGE | GREEN | RED | BLUE | NOTES

Let me write about another spring event marked by some overcast skies and balmy breeze to keep the temperature below 85F. We could not ask for better conditions.

What a relief it was to enter a freshly clipped parking area provided by the John Deere Co. As you know, the grass was calf-high at the last event in September ‘08 and no one wanted to park in the grass making the shoulders of the road a parking lot. This upset the park rangers -- due to safety concerns for emergency vehicles. So, we were blessed in having the field available for parking cars in organized rows. Most JROTC schools were out on Spring Break, so only 2 yellow buses were our beacon for the O’ event.

We had some traveling visitors, like always, but this time Amy Williams came down from GAOC with her son, John, who by the latest USOF announcement has been accepted to the US Junior Team to compete in the Junior World O’ Championships. Amy was attempting to get John to as many events leading up West Point event, 12 events in 13 weeks, if I got that stat right. I bet Amy sees all the traveling has paid off now that he has made the team. John missed out on not having Bob to even the competition. HA! (Note that John, at age 16, turned in a fabulous time of 82:05 on Blue).

We had some concerns and discussions on a few controls that were not placed correctly and a new one on me, all this makes for a lively event. Safina England came up from Stuart, fresh from her 1st event at Oleta River. She has been bitten by the O’ bug and is really charged up to learn a new skill. She stayed to help out on control pickup, which is training itself. There were some late registrants on BLUE that blew the brush down and their times reflected it. I had someone beg me for water out on the course – I have to bring a spare bottle for such care. NOTE to Starter: Everyone has water??

I want to thank all of those who helped out on this event: Janet Putnam and John Ide, for registration; Bob, for event prep and instructions; Donna Flugel control setting, (the Flugels’ have retreated north for the summer); Russ Steinke, Greg Owens and Mike Dempsey for Start/ Finish; President Jerry Sirmans, neophyte Safina England, Sheriff Rodney Counts with his pooch and Amy & John Williams for control pick-up. Please forgive me if I failed to mention you.

Ray Bruneau (Event Coordinator)

I’ll add my thanks to Ray’s list above by thanking Ray as well for serving as Event Coordinator – and his Red course time wasn’t too shabby either.

I took a chance at this event and set out the more remote controls two weeks beforehand, hoping that only rangers would see them and they would not be disturbed. Then Donna Fluegel set the remaining controls the day before, plus a few the morning of, the event. That should have been that.

Then the first Blue course finisher came in with a story I had not anticipated. “That Blue #4 was torn apart and thrown out into the field – It was plainly visible still, so I left it there.”

The only logical explanation: pigs. The shredded flag had been torn off its admittedly fragile mooring and apparently fought over and torn on every side. I can envision two or three baby pigs finding it because it smells funny, then having fun with it, pulling and tearing as though it was the pig-equivalent of the plastic poppy-bubble packing material we all have fun with. Then Momma pig steps in finally and tells them to get serious now and go do something else. They leave it where they finished; about 50m from where it had been hung.

It was only the timely clear-cut mowing operations that allowed the torn up control to be plainly visible at its newly pig-placed location, since under normal circumstances the dog fennel in the field would have prevented anyone from ever finding it.

As for results, check out the Green course finishers – the top 5 especially. Margins there of 25 seconds; 35 seconds; one minute: Great competition. Note that Christ Johnson’s time on Orange, seems to skew the otherwise desirable winning times for each course, but remember Chris is a Blue-level runner who just wants some extra exercise by running Orange. Thus, M. Roberts would be the legitimate Orange course winner.

I see a 19% overall DNF rate, which is a bit disappointing in light of the otherwise close-to-target winning times for these courses. But I note several DNF’s were among the Boca Ciega HS cadets, and another by Safina England on Red at only her second event, so I trust they all got some good training in this day at least.

These were “runners’ courses” in that they involved lots more open field and trail running than usual. I did manage to find one particularly beautiful completely fresh control site on Blue (#7) that I trust everyone appreciated. And Donna Fluegel was the one who noticed the “Wow” factor for Red and Blue courses resulting from the Blue having 10 controls on an 8.5km course and the Red having 9 controls on a 7.5 km course. Average leg lengths of about 850m! Don’t see that too often. Red & Blue courses tend to average about 600-700m per leg. FLO veterans will recall that this RSRSR venue was the site, a few years back, of the all time champ of average-leg-length courses when the 6.8 km Red course had five controls. Fun, right?

All for now.
Bob Putnam (Course Setter)


WHITE

Name Time
Nikki Rupert 41:00
Krieger 68:00
Walters 72:52

YELLOW

Name Time
Camden, E. 35:45
Eaglin, L 72:35
Generth, K 75:55
Samorao, R 82:38
Troop 8 89:10
Walters 89:48
Chicks/Kaiden 117:00
GO’s 134:21

ORANGE

Name Time
Johnson, C 36:10
Roberts, M 51:20
Greg/Natalie 51:40
Hendrix, J 66:46
Guthrie, S 72:50
Becker, R 78:30
England, S 80:28
Barrios, J 80:30
Williams, A 81:08
Ambil 81:32
Ivester, D 82:30
Domroski, R 85:15
ATT 99:10
BDK 111:57
Doty 115:33
FBC 134:45
WOHS #1 138:35
Meeker, R 162:50
Weighill DNF
Burnhardt, W DNF
Katie DNF
Cutler, W DNF

GREEN

Name Time
Hollingsworth, J 61:50
Kurzawa, K 62:15
Barker, B 62:50
Hearn, G 63:50
Dempsey, M 67:07
Mante, K 84:45
Ide, J 102:33
D & C 109:02
Cash, J 113:12
Crane, D 117:53
Counts, R 133:55
Hawkins/Lunt 136:00
Mosaic 138:10
Kalmbach, G 141:05
Bishop, V 148:02
Pais, M DNF
BCHS #4 DNF
BCHS #2 DNF
Warburton DNF

RED

Name Time
Bruneau, R 84:56
Canelos, A 129:05
Team Griffield 136:30
TSPA 151:00
Got Game 165:05
BCHS #1 169:58
BCHS #3 DNF
BCHS #5 DNF
Scott, D DNF
England, S DNF

BLUE

Name Time
Moule, M 77:05
Williams, J 82:05
Johnson, C 85:48
Roberts, M 88:33
Fluegel, D 122:10
Sirmans, J 125:37
Cuypers, M 164:55
Hunter, B OT
Owens, D DNF
Eaglin, R DNF


NOTES

DNF   Did Not Finish
DQ Disqualified (Missed Controls)
OT Over 3 Hour Time Limit


Created 15-April-2009