For those who don’t know the Street Challenge format, it’s usually a long Score-O with a 3 hour time limit and multiple choice answers for each location question that can only be answered at a specific location. In years past the run/foot division and the bike division would not really race against each other. For this year’s Challenge the race directors decided to mix it up and make the running class and the biking class a little more competitive with each other using a couple of rule changes - two course maps and bonus points.
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| Mike Bading directing his first O meet. |
Changes
Course 1 was optional and could only be raced on foot (no bikes). The advantage of Course 1 is that it would include a majority of the available bonus points in the meet. Course 2, was open to both running and bikes, covered a larger area, had larger point questions, and more overall points available than Course 1 but with few bonus points available.
The hope from the race directors was that it would encourage people to strategize between the two courses and considering how to maximize their points (and bonus points). Thus some of the bikers would run as least some of Course 1 before starting on Course 2 and (hopefully) spur a little more head to head competition.
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| Ready to go! |
Planning / Pre Start
Racers were given 40 minutes to plan ahead of the 11 AM start time, and sure enough, at 10:20 AM, 10 racers showed up to get their maps and then retreat back to their cars and benches to plan their best race strategy. The weather near start time was a windy, cool 41F , but still dry. There was speculation that maybe the weather would abate and help the competitors. However, the mostly cloudy skies responded with daunting swirls and gusts and more clouds moving in.
As expected each team had a different twist to the new Street Challenge rules. By the time of the start there were: A 3 person all bike team (calling themselves “the rainbusters”) starting on Course 2; Two racers that planned a run / bike strategy starting on Course 1 and the rest of the 5 racers planned to run only and start on Course 1.
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| Jerry Stewart plans his route choice. |
Meet
Using wisdom that often escapes us more youthful orienteers, the self-proclaimed “70 plus” gang consisting of John Murray, Bonnie Coiner, and Norma Bailey used the best strategy of meet, the strategy for staying dry. They did this by invoking a one hour time limit for themselves. John came in first at 58 minutes, 7 seconds, while the team of Bonnie and Norma came in just under 6 minutes behind John at 1 hour, 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
Sure enough, somewhere between the 90 minute and the 2 hour elapsed time from start, the rains came in, the wind swept stronger and it continued to pour throughout the rest of the meet.
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| The pure bike team: Innes, Katrina, Kerry. |
The 3 person bike team of Innes Wright, Katrina Wright, and Kerry Kelly were the first to come in after the rains began to pour down. The team came rolling in at 2 hours, 9 minutes and 30 seconds with water dripping from the top of their helmets all the way down to their shoes. There was a mention of changing the name of the team to “wet and cold” after their rain busting attempts abated, but with smiles they trudged on pushing their bikes off to get warm. This all bike team scored a total of 260 points and a 5th place finish.
Jerry Stewart, a CTOC club regular, stayed on Course 1 for his entire race and came in at 2 hours, 38 minutes and 10 seconds. Jerry collected 270 points from Course 1 and a 60 point bonus for a total of 330 points and an official 4th place finish.
Bill Leahy was the only racer to run both courses. At just over an hour (1:00:58), Bill came in from Course 1 and switched to Course 2. When he finished his meet with just over 3 minutes to go (2:56:51), and barely ahead of Melanie at the finish line, Bill was also the only racer to clear a number of firsts:
1. He was the only racer to get the CORRECT answer to a location question even thought the answer sheet did not have a correct multiple choice answer to chose from (a race director error).
2. He was the only competitor to not receive any bonus points from either course.
3. He visited more controls on both Course 1 & Course 2 than anyone else in the meet.
For getting the correct answer to a question without any clues, the race director decided to award him a bonus of double points for that control (20 points). Bill’s final point total was an impressive 720 points. and scored him a 3rd place finish.
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| Melanie Wright is cruising in the first hour. |
Melanie Wright was the only racer to truly embrace the Course 1 Run / Course 2 Bike strategy. She came in from Course 1 in 1:58:00 well after it started raining. Although already drenched from the rain, she continued on and raced forth with a smile. She came back to the finish during a heavy down pour at 2:57:00, just 3 minutes shy of the time limit. Melanie’s extra 240 bonus points from Course 1 brought her to a total of 730 points, just enough to get her 2nd place.
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| Doug LaMott checks the box near Idaho Power. |
The final racer to come in was also the winner of the CTOC 2017 Boise Street Challenge. Doug LaMott, came at 2:59:00 with 10 seconds to spare. And surprisingly he did not come in on his bike. In pre-race, he looked as if he came prepared to do a Course 1 Run / Course 2 Bike strategy. And at the starting line, he was still thinking about the Run / Bike option.
But as time ticked by toward the time limit, it was apparent that Doug never came in off of Course 1 (and thus switch to Course 2). It appeared instead that he changed his strategy and decided to maximize his effort on the bonus points on Course 1. Doug almost swept the entire Course 1, except for 2 controls (1 missed, 1 incorrect). Doug’s totals were 540 control points, 240 bonus points and a 30 point penalty, which brought his total to 750 points and an official 1st place.
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| Final Results: click to enlarge. |
Conclusion
As with all November Street Challenge meets, weather plays a big factor in how many people show up. We were very happy to have 10 competitors at this year’s meet with the pending forecast for rain to start about halfway through the time of the meet. Thanks to everyone who showed up, in spite of the rains that did come. A hearty bunch they are...
Mike Bading (co = Jeff Black)
Meet Directors
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