No Water (not very much at least) to slog through - Cool!
Lots of People - Whew!
Lots of surprises....
Last year at Moss Park we had 350 people surprise us, without enough helpers on hand to cope with the crowd.
So this year we wrote to a few people to line up enough helpers 'just in case', though we weren't really expecting quite that large a crowd again. A few helpers mercifully stepped forward and guess what? "Only" 330 of you showed up this time.
If you were there, you saw what chaos looks like. If you were helping you must know down deep in your soul that you were appreciated, even if you weren't properly thanked on site. Appreciated too, is the patience displayed by all in such a situation. You Orienteers really are a unique bunch of people, it seems.
But bizarre things did happen. We ran out of maps, even though I'd brought along over 120. That had never happened before and was attributable to two things. All the groups seemed to want to buy extra maps so that everyone could carry one. Great idea and we're so happy to have people approach group participation that way. We just have to be ready for it. The other factor was that we forgot to hand out the smaller Moss-Park-only map to those on White or Yellow, who were using only Moss Park and not Split Oak Forest. By the end of the day we were approaching finishers to trade new and clean Moss Park maps for their used full maps.
After 164 events, you'd think we'd have this figured out better. But as long as we keep being surprised by large crowds, you won't hear (m)any complaints.
Nor will we complain when the famously-often-wet causeway turns out to be bone dry, as was the case Saturday.
And the courses were terrific. I heard nothing but praise for the challenging Red, Green, Brown and Orange courses using Split Oak. Arild Orsleie did a great job of showing us both difficult choices (such as: should I try to plunge through 80m of dark green, trying to hit a prong of white forest - or should I run all the way around for an extra 500m to be safe) and a grand tour of the beautiful open forest at the north end of Split Oak.
You may have noticed the newly enlarged trails in Split Oak, dug using about a 15' wide harrow plow. It makes for horrible footing and not a very attractive trail. I know they're counting on it as a fire break but it sticks in my craw that FLO is limited in our access to Split Oak because the Administrator there believes our footfalls "are too great an impact to the area". We couldn't do that kind of damage with 10,000 people if we ordered them all to tear up the terrain! But enough rant.
I saw lots of DNF's on those advanced courses, but since they were mostly JROTC groups, I assume they were moving up for the challenge and it does not reflect on the courses. I hope the cadets are learning a lot, of course, because I know how it feels to not finish a course. That is, I NOW know how it feels not to finish a course. I failed to visit one of my red course controls and DQ'ed for the first time in years, and I surely do hate that feeling.
But otherwise the day was a complete success. I want to especially thank the couple from Titusville, parents of a JROTC'er, who jumped in to help out at registration when things were at their worst, and whose names I have of course forgotten. Thank you so much. Thanks also go to Arild both for his course designs (and all control setting) and for his non-stop start finish Split Oak duty from 10:00 am to the end. Equally laudable was Tami Jicha's start-to-finish duty on the White/Yellow table all day long - and then she retrieved all White/Yellow controls for us. Mike & Marilu Dempsey took over for most of the day's registration and helped pack up at the end of the day. Bret Barker hung around to help Arild and Joe Maliszewski retrieve the Split Oak controls. Many Thanks to all!
And we were also able to placate the park rangers by staying away from the picnic pavilions - they had told us not to use them or we'd be charged the daily fee. Everyone respected the posted signs. Thanks.
All in all, a wonderful day, from the deer browsing among the trees next to us to start the day, to the sand hill cranes trying to chase us away, to the clear blue skies and balmy (?) 90°F temperatures. We hope everyone had fun.
Bob Putnam
| Name | Time |
| GST 408 #1 | 35:00 |
| GST 408 #2 | 36:00 |
| Seth Julin | 37:00 |
| David Brault | 48:00 |
| GST 408 #3 | 57:00 |
| Trista Neilson | 64:00 |
| Name | Time |
| Oviedo 5 | 23:00 |
| Adam Hugoboom | 25:00 |
| Mark Rosenberg | 27:00 |
| Kevin Jimenez | 28:00 |
| Helen Thompson | 28:00 |
| Alan Horn | 30:00 |
| ypress CK ROTC | 32:00 |
| Daniel Meehan | 32:00 |
| Jeff Taylor | 34:00 |
| Keven Schmidt | 38:00 |
| Doug Ernst | 39:00 |
| Jalayah Taylor | 40:00 |
| Milliken Zach | 40:00 |
| Cypress CK ROTC | 40:00 |
| GST 408 #4 | 43:00 |
| Tommy Howard | 45:00 |
| Seth Julin | 47:00 |
| Pack 183 F.Dyer | 50:00 |
| C.France & JJ Richards | 55:00 |
| GST 1804 A | 60:00 |
| Cypress Creek | 62:00 |
| BSA 183 | 64:00 |
| Pack 183 | 66:00 |
| Pack 183 | 71:00 |
| Susan Smith | 75:00 |
| BSA 183 | 76:00 |
| Koerner | 77:00 |
| BSA 183 | 77:00 |
| Pack 183 | 78:00 |
| BSA 183 | 79:00 |
| JG Feudner | 82:00 |
| GST 1804 B | 89:00 |
| BSA 183 | 91:00 |
| Michelle Morse | 98:00 |
| Dona Zielinski | 126:00 |
| Name | Time |
| W Prytulo | 45:23 |
| Mike & Marilu Dempsey | 57:56 |
| Denny & Javie Gibbs | 60:40 |
| AHS Group 6 | 70:55 |
| Yeadon | 80:55 |
| Oviedo 1 | 86:30 |
| Justin Partridge | 86:50 |
| Rosenburg | 89:58 |
| Delinda Karnehm | 90:45 |
| AHS Group 3 | 91:45 |
| Michael Deliz | 96:30 |
| AHS Group 7 | 96:47 |
| Guinn Family | 99:40 |
| Marlene Pagan | 102:16 |
| Pack 183 Washburn | 102:37 |
| AHS Group 1 | 103:04 |
| Alicia Padrich | 105:17 |
| AHS Group 5 | 105:33 |
| Heather Frazier | 107:30 |
| Pardy & Luther | 112:50 |
| John Kremer | 114:14 |
| AHS Group 4 | 120:02 |
| Oviedo 3 | 127:10 |
| Troup 524 Group 2 | 140:32 |
| Troup 524 | 143:29 |
| AHS Group 7 | 167:40 |
| AHS Group 8 | 182:30 |
| AHS Group 2 | 183:58 |
| AHS Group 1 | 196:15 |
| Pack 183 | DNF |
| Carol Franke | DNF |
| David Frazier | DNF |
| Thoreson | DNF |
| Oviedo 2 | DNF |
| Oviedo 4 | DNF |
| Name | Time |
| Akers | 97:08 |
| Wordell & Ludwig | 103:01 |
| Bret Barker | 109:45 |
| Mark Fischer | 113:02 |
| Cheryl Flynn | 129:15 |
| Elsie Turner | 174:00 |
| Name | Time |
| Rodney Counts II | 92:15 |
| Mike Denham | 99:23 |
| Bohn & Dorjan | 110:58 |
| Liz Earle | 148:35 |
| Mitch Jarvis | 144:18 |
| Tischer | 147:00 |
| Clayburn | 167:50 |
| Bret Zielinski | DNF |
| Effard Henson | DNF |
| Scott Sloan | DNF |
| Name | Time |
| Ron Eaglin | 69:19 |
| Chris Johnson | 75:38 |
| Ken Miller | 88:25 |
| David Cutler | 89:04 |
| Norman Lei | 103:24 |
| John Hollingsworth | 108:35 |
| Greg Lundin | 115:20 |
| Joe Maliszewski | 118:48 |
| Glen & Andrea Holman | 124:36 |
| David Schuman | 126:18 |
| Keith Escue | 130:27 |
| D. Jenkins | 139:30 |
| Kyle Tallent | 140:20 |
| BCHS, Ammy, Wayne | 146:20 |
| JW Feudner | 176:00 |
| BCHS, Braun, Patrick | 177:49 |
| Lewis Bennett | 185:02 |
| BCHS, Milillo | DNF |
| BCHS, Brooks, Ashley | DNF |
| BCHS, Tortusa, Winch | DNF |
| BCHS, Amorski, Jason | DNF |
| BCHS, Scott, Dusan | DNF |
| BCHS, Yakes, Chris | DNF |
| BCHS, Tortosa, Gigi | DNF |
| BCHS, Diaz, Angelica | DNF |
| BCHS, Mediros, Jim | DNF |
| BCHS, Degrawez, Mik | DNF |
| Amanda Seymore | DNF |
| Mark Ritchhart | DNF |
| Bryan liles | DNF |
| Bob Putnam | M12 (60:42) |
| DNF | Did Not Finish |
| M12 | Missed control 12 |