Columbia Village March 12: The Scouts Came and the Rain Didn't

It was threatening rain all week and predictions for Saturday were about 50-50, yet the novice race directors neglected to bring cover.  To Sergey's query about the canopy, I calmly replied "It's not going to rain."  Since I'm doing the writeup, I get to make the somewhat questionable conclusion that it didn't rain.  I also missed the very obvious "Big Blue Box of Doom" in the storage when picking up controls – which contained all sorts of important things for an event, like the official clock.  I'm certain if I had taken my savvy Co-Director Katrina with me to the storage shed that would not have happened. We managed without it.

One way to make terrain with "too many" features more interesting for advanced orienteers is to speed up the pace, with a short course, short-fast legs, and lots of direction changes. The 2.5 km "Urban Sprint" was designed with this approach in mind. Knowing that this wouldn't satisfy our longer distance runners, we also threw in a short slightly more classic course using the terrain to the west of the soccer fields, with some long legs in and out, navigating the busy soccer fields and fans (our "Stretch" course).  For our beginners, we offered a 1.4K course and for those moving up, we offered a 2.2K advanced beginner/orange course, which shared many of the same controls as the Advanced Urban Sprint.  

We had the pleasure of having not one but two groups of girl scouts, representing several troops, plus the Busacker's bringing along 4 speedy boy scouts.  Troop 573 were lined up to go right at the whistle.  They started together and split into smaller groups on the Beginner Course.  The "Girl Power" scouts included girls from multiple troops, started a little later, but with a similar approach. Jonah Thomson and family also took on the Beginner course. Three teams of two boys took thee white course competitively and ran it like a true sprint.  Aleksi and Nicolai Morgan took it on after a round on the Advanced courses and the two Busacker boys teams warmed up on the Beginner before teaming up to take on the Advanced Beginner course.  The competition was tight with all three pairs finishing within 2 minutes of each other.

Beginner course results
Trevor Orchard & Cole Busacker	12:58
Brennan Busacker & Isaac Shelton	13:21
Aleksi & Nicolai Morgan	14:38
Jonah & Eric Thomson	37:20
GS Troop 573	44:19
Girl Power Scouts	50:44

Worse than forgetting important things, was my misplacement of control #11 on both the Advanced Beginner and Urban Sprint course.  Fortunately, Jeff Black started the Urban Sprint early and got through it quickly to let me know, so that I was able to get to it just in time to catch Emily & Aleksi and Audrey Thomson on what I think was her first solo course.  I gave all 3 compensation for a little bit of wandering and head scratching.  Bringing home the win on the Advanced Beginner course were Alecia Hoobing and David Murray, who decided to challenge themselves a bit more and set out for the Stretch course. First time orienteer Norma Bailey and new club members Mike and Linda Teller also made their way through the Advanced Beginner course, woo hoo!

Advanced Beginner Results
Alecia Hoobing & David Murray	37:05
Brennan, Isaac, Cole, Trevor	40:03
Claire & Brandon Busacker	43:02
Norma Bailey	44:25
Audrey Thomson	47:48
Mike & LInda Teller	50:25

We had our regular slate of Advanced orienteers come out and try the Urban Sprint and Stretch courses.  The Morgan family also split up to try both. Ben Brock sneaked in at the last minute to take the win on both courses and the combined competition. Alecia and David received a time bonus for bringing home the glove I misplaced while scouting the course the weekend prior.

Advanced Urban Sprint
Ben Brock	15:54
Mike Bading	17:02
John Murray	20:56
Jeff Black	22:18
Emily & Aleksi Morgan	35:47
Advanced Stretch
Ben Brock	22:17
Jeff Black	23:20
Mike Bading	24:50
Jay & Nikolai Morgan	34:01
Melanie Schuster	34:10
Alecia Hoobing & David Murray	41:20
Combined Advanced Competition
Ben Brock	38:11
Mike Bading	41:52
Jeff Black	44:38

Thanks to Sergey for help with map planning and course setting.  Thanks to Jeff for help with getting everyone started, including me.  Katrina deserves special acknowledgement for planning and setting the Beginner course, tracking starts and finishes, and covering a lot of ground on control pickup, including controls from all 4 courses!