Final results and splits for interval-started races, Stage One and the Middle Distance, are available. The rest of the Tournament splits are on Attackpoint; all splits are also on WinSplits. RouteGadget is up. Final overall Tournament results and bracket rehash are available. Some photos may come. Get your Sprint on... andSprint the Golden GateDiscover parks of San Francisco. Outwit the competition... Celebrate... Race... Enjoy!! The Festival of Sprints will consist of five stages over three days, Friday 12 December 2014 through Sunday 14 December 2014, held within the City of San Francisco. Stages Two through Four on Saturday will constitute an elimination tournament, and entry in this tournament is limited to 36 people. In parallel, we will offer a Middle-distance competition. All three days—up to three races—are sanctioned by Orienteering USA. The schedule and logistics of the event will be identical to our 2013 event; this includes the start windows. Stages Two and Three will be at (more or less the same) location, sharing parking. Recommended accommodations are posted under the respective tab; we will have a new dinner location. Packet pickup will be at the Sports Basement, which is a short drive from Stage One.
All About It!The Festival of Sprints will start with a Friday afternoon dash dash through Point Bonita, continue on Saturday with two Sprints at Land's End, culminate with a Final at Golden Gate Park, and finish on Sunday morning. We also offer an option of substituting a single Middle-distance race for the three Sprints on Saturday. The schedule and the structure this year are exactly the same as for our 2013 event. All races are sanctioned; the way it works is as follows. Friday's and Sunday's events will be "regular" Sprints with interval starts. Four courses will be offered at each of the two: separate courses for Men and Women, a shorter Masters/Juniors course, and a beginner/intermediate course. These courses will earn Orienteering USA ranking points on Blue/Red; Red; Green/Brown; and Orange/Yellow/White, respectively. The full Orienteering USA class structure is offered on these four courses for the purpose of results and ranking points, but awards will be given as specified below. You have a choice for Saturday. You can enter either a three-stage Sprint Tournament, or a single Middle Distance race. In the 36-person Tournament, runners race head to head and advance to the next round by winning or placing in the top two in their heat, or by showing one of the best overall times. On Saturday morning, we start with six heats of six people in each; seedings for this stage will be generated according to the results of Friday's Stage One. The fastest runner in each heat advances to the top third, which we call the Antelopes, along with the six runners with best times who aren't among the heat winners. The second- and third-place runners who haven't advanced to the top third, along with as many lower-placed runners with best times as are necessary to complete a 12-runner field, became the middle third: the Badgers. The rest of the field become the Cheetahs. In Stage Three, the goal is to make it into top two in your heat, or to be one of the runners with the fastest two times who aren't in the top two. Each of the brackets splits into the upper and the lower half: the Antelopes are sorted into the Deer and the Emus; the Badgers, into the Foxes and the Gazelles; and the Cheetahs, into the Hares and the Impalas. The six animals run one last time in Stage Four—the Elimination Final! ... those who aren't part of the Final are more than welcome to watch and cheer the runners as they make their way around the venue for Stage Four: the westernmost sand dunes and windmills of Golden Gate Park. All heats for the Elimination Tournament are gender- and age-neutral. There will be a single course (perhaps forked) for all Tournament participants at each stage. For those entering late, and for those who prefer a Middle course, we also offer this distance on Saturday. The Middle will take place after, and share the arena with, Stage Two at Land's End. The map will be redrawn at 1:7,500 in appropriate symbols. A full set of seven courses is on offer. Middle participants will earn Orienteering USA ranking points on their chosen course. There will be a full set of awards just for the Middle, but don't expect anything fancy—most of our sponsorship support will be directed towards making the Tournament a unique experience. Sunday's event will again feature interval starts, with four courses and Orienteering USA ranking points as described above. There will be a single non-competitive Map Hike category on the Beginner/Intermediate course (White course for the Middle), suitable for juniors and for adults. Participants in this category will not earn Orienteering USA ranking points. Overall Tournament prizes will be given to the top three men and women in the following categories: Open, Juniors (age 20 and under on 31 December 2014), Masters (age 40 and over on 31 December 2014), and Supervets (age 55 and over on 31 December 2014). In addition, a set of awards will be given according to the Middle Distance results. The awards presentation will be at the event banquet. A separate set of awards will be given accoording to the results of Sunday's Sprint event. Stages Two through Five, and the Middle, are easily reachable by public transit. Stage Five is a 15-minute drive to San Francisco International Airport, and an easy 45-minute trip by transit. Our Sponsors!! This event has been made possible by the following businesses and organizations. We are delighted to offer a sampling of their products as prizes for this event. Please patronize their offerings and services, and contribute to their programs:
Transit directions to Sports Basement: Bus 43 approaches Sports Basement the closest, to within about 800 m. A number of lines intersect with 43–Masonic, but there is not a single-line option from central San Francisco. Babysitting will not be offered at this event, but cooperative child care can be arranged. Point Bonita and Land's End are embargoed for training from 17 November 2014, however it is fine to visit each of the four parks and campuses without an orienteering map at all times prior to the event. Embargo specifics: The affected areas are all of the Marin Headlands portion of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area south of Rodeo Lagoon or south of Bunker Road, all of Land's End portion of GGNRA, all of San Francisco VA Medical Center, all of Lincoln Park, all of Golden Gate Park west of 19th Avenue, and all of the campus of San Francisco State University. The inclusion of a portion of these areas on the embargo list is in no way intended to imply that checkpoints will be set on that portion; the use of each area is subject to permit. 
Stage One: Point BonitaFriday's event will be a Sprint-format adventure run with interval starts. Four courses will be offered, each eligible for Orienteering USA ranking points. The results of this stage will be used to seed the Sprint Tournament. Public transit does not get you particularly close to Point Bonita; Muni bus 76 does not run on Fridays. Your best bet is to hitch a ride with a fellow navigator from the Sports Basement. Parking, arena, and the start will be at Battery Alexander. It is an about 17-minute drive for the 11.1 km from Sports Basement to Stage One parking; you will cross Golden Gate Bridge. There is no toll on the way to Point Bonita (going north), and you will have to pay toll on the way back. The Bridge no longer accepts cash. If you do not have a FasTrak transponder, your car's license plate will be scanned. You can pay the toll online in advance or within 48 hours of the crossing, or else expect a bill in the mail; if you are renting a car, your car rental company will pass the charge to you along with a service fee.
 Point Bonita is part of the larger Marin Headlands, which, in turn, are part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The area is mostly open, with breathtaking views of Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco skyline, a historic lighthouse, and the Pacific Ocean. Part of the terrain is abandoned military installations. Lower leg cover and terrain/off-trail shoes are recommended. The ISSOM symbol set used on this map is mostly forest, but there is just a bit of urban terrain with a small number of uncrossable obstacles, mapped with urban ISSOM symbols. Preliminary course specifics
These lengths are not measured around impassable obstacles; they are along straight lines. The staff for Stage One is: Administrative Director: Vladimir GusiatnikovCourse Consultant: Jon Campbell (Cascade OC)Map Coordinator: Rex WinterbottomCourse Designer: Vladimir GusiatnikovResults: Vladimir Gusiatnikov Course designer's notesThe most notable aspect of this area is coastal dune vegetation. It is somewhat fragile. On the first edition of the map, all coastal vegetation was mapped with the 409 Undergrowth:difficult to run symbol (closely spaced vertical green lines), with a 50% yellow overlay. The majority of this vegetation is better passable than that. The passability is also very granular, on a scale that is not easy to survey or depict. You may be only ankle-deep in the stuff and cruising along, and then there is a knee-deep, car-sized depression in the underlying sand, and taller, stiffer, pricklier stuff has grown in the depression, and you will instantly hurt and slow down. But the height of the vegetation is uniform, and the depression is impossible to notice until you are in it. Because of this inherent unfairness, and because of the fragility of the vegetation, we have planned the course so that it almost entirely avoids the vegetation. Where the passability is visibly good and there is some benefit to going through the vegetation, we have overlaid 709 Out-of-bounds area (vertical purple lines) on top of the green lines. If you stay entirely out of the vegetation, you will not be disqualified. If you stray into the vegetation and you are outside the purple lines, you will not be disqualified. It is not possible to not know whether you are inside the vegetation or not, since it is very distinct. We reserve the right to disqualify anyone seen in the out-of-bounds area. Black X's on this map are benches. Stages Two and Three and Middle Distance: Land's End
On early Saturday morning, 36 Sprinters will start in six heats of six. The winner of each heat of Stage Two will advance to the upper semifinal, plus six more runners with best times who aren't the winners of their heat. The middle semifinal will be composed of runners placing second and third in their heats, less those who advance to the upper semifinal and plus as many of those with best times as are necessary to make 12 runners. The rest of the runners advance to the lower semifinal. Saturday's Middle Distance competition will offer a full slate of seven standard courses, each eligible for Orienteering USA ranking points. The map for the Middle will be drafted in ISOM. The arena for Stages Two, Three, and the Middle will be at the "ghostly green vale" of Sutro Heights Park. Starts for Stage Two and the Middle will be a long walk away from parking and the arena. Finish for both will be close to the arena. Stage Three will start and finish at the arena. Stage Three will start after most of the Middle Distance competitors have finished, and provide ample spectating opportunities. The path to the top bracket in Stage Four—the Final—is to be in the top two in one of the two upper semifinal heats, or, failing that, to clock one of the two best times. As in 2011 and in 2013, we will implement a twist. The fastest of the middle-division runners can get promoted to the lower half of the upper division, but only if her time is faster than that of the slowest runner in the upper division. This slowest runner is relegated to the upper half of the middle division. A similar exchange of up to one runner can occur between the middle and the lower divisions ahead of Stage Four. Transit directions: Buses 38–Geary and 38L–Geary Limited terminate at 48th Avenue and Geary Boulevard, on the edge of the map; from there it is a 140 m walk to the arena. Parking will be in the Sutro Heights Park lot. There are two parking lots at the end of Point Lobos Avenue, a much larger lot for Sutro Baths, the lookout, and the Visitors' Center on the north side of the street, and a much smaller lot on the south side. We are in the smaller lot. The arena will be within 150 meters of the parking. Transit from downtown SF will take about 50 minutes.
 The area is a mix of urban terrain and forest, extending over the Palace of the Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, and San Francisco VA Medical Center. High cliffs frame the northern edge, dropping into the ocean. Views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin Headlands, with their stark hills, are postcard-perfect. Part of the terrain is abandoned military installations, with intricate stairways and passages. There is more of the disagreeable vegetation at this Stage than at others; full leg cover may help. Terrain/off-trail shoes are recommended. The ISSOM symbol set used on this map is mixed urban and forest, with not many but some uncrossable obstacles. Take time to study your ISSOM map symbols! Preliminary course specifics
These lengths are not measured around impassable obstacles; they are along straight lines. The staff for Stages Two, Three, and the Middle Distance is: Administrative Director: Vladimir GusiatnikovCourse Consultant: Jon Campbell (Cascade OC)Map Coordinator: Bill CusworthCourse Designer: Vladimir GusiatnikovResults: Vladimir Gusiatnikov Course designer's notesAllow for 20 minutes to walk to the start of Stage Two and the Middle from the arena. It will probably be less, but just in case. There will be a map exchange for Stage Three. Flip your map over when you run out of checkpoints on your first map. As some of you may recall, there was an issue with this map at its inaugural use with gaps between impassable walls, buildings, and buildings and impassable walls being below the ISSOM-required minium. These issues are all fixed now. Black X's on this map are usually benches, but can be a few other things. The one black O is a prominent pole. Stage Four: Golden Gate Park
Saturday's afternoon Elimination Final will only be open to the participants of the Tournament. But, everyone is welcome to watch as top Sprinters try to outwit one another! Six final brackets of six runners will be formed according to the results of Stages Two and Three. The results of Stage Four will constitute the final results of the Tournament. Transit directions: From Land's End, you can take the 18–46thAvenue, picking it up at Cabrillo and La Playa. But by the time you get to this stop, you might as well jog all the way to Old Speedway Meadow. We'll most likely travel as a group from the lunch location, most likely on foot. To return to the City from Old Speedway Meadow, travel three blocks south and one block east and catch the N–Judah train. Parking for Stage Four will be in the Old Speedway Meadow lot. The arena will be right across Chain of Lakes Drive, and visible, from the parking lot. Starts will be a very short walk away, and visible from the arena. It is an about 5-minute drive for the 2.4 km from Sutro Heights Park to Old Speedway Meadow.
Golden Gate Park, the crown jewel of SF Recreation & Park Department, was architected as the counterpart to Central Park in New York. Before the transformation, the land was sand dunes; elevation contours reflect this past. The park's western half is almost entirely forested. The vegetation is intricate and visibility varies greatly. There are many paths. Terrain/off-trail shoes are recommended. Full leg cover is not necessary. The ISSOM symbol set used on this map is forest, with very few uncrossable obstacles. The uncrossable obstacles are lakes and large fenced-off areas. Final course specifics
The staff for Stages Two, Three, and the Middle Distance is: Administrative Director: Vladimir GusiatnikovCourse Consultant: Jim Hall (Carolina OK)Map Coordinator: Vladimir GusiatnikovCourse Designer: Vladimir GusiatnikovResults: Rex Winterbottom Course designer's notesThe courses have been planned in such a way that there is absolutely no reason for anyone to ever enter areas mapped as dark green, and vanishingly small reasons to enter medium green. If you look at these areas up close in the terrain, you will notice some structure, with parts that appear easier to cross. These paths are usually carved by the indigents, who may or may not be present inside. Rest assured that something will very certainly stop or dramatically slow your forward progress if you attempt to follow these paths. Light green is fair game. Black X's on this map are mostly either benches or signs of various kind. The many black O's are light poles. There are flower beds, shown with the 528.1 Area with forbidden access olive-green symbol, that are out of bounds. Their boundaries are obvious in the terrain, and there are no additional markings on the ground to denote these boundaries.
 John McLaren Park is the second-biggest city park in San Francisco, but is far less known than Golden Gate Park. The terrain is rolling, somewhat steep, hills, covered with a variety of vegetation types from open meadows to runnable forest to fight. Visibility is mostly good to excellent. There are some paths and few buildings or other manmade features. Terrain/off-trail shoes are strongly recommended; full leg cover may be helpful. The ISSOM symbol set used on this map is forest, with so few uncrossable obstacles that they can be counted on one hand. The map is not fully ISSOM compliant because the distance between magnetic north lines is 200 m and not 150 m. Final course specifics
The staff for Stage Five is: Administrative Director: Vladimir GusiatnikovCourse Consultant: Jim Hall (Carolina OK)Map Coordinator: Vladimir GusiatnikovCourse Designer: Vladimir GusiatnikovResults: Rex Winterbottom Course designer's notesNothing about the map or the course is unusual or worth a separate mention in the notes. The few black X's are most likely benches. 
Stage Five: San Francisco State UniversitySunday's event will again be a Sprint-format adventure run with interval starts. Four courses will be offered, each eligible for Orienteering USA ranking points. This stage serves as the epilogue to the Tournament. Transit directions: Buses 28–19th Avenue, 28L–19th Avenue Limited, and 29–Sunset, and the M–Ocean View train, stop at SFSU. Ride the M–Ocean View from Hotel Whitcomb for a direct, 22-minute trip. Disembark at the stop and locate Malcolm X plaza, where the start and finish will be, about 280 m to the west. Your best bet for parking will be Holloway Ave. west of 19th Avenue, the next best bet is Lot 20 accessible from Lake Merced Boulevard (the former is free, the latter is not). The assembly, start, and finish location, Malcolm X Plaza, is 400 m southeast of the garade, and 280 m west of 19th Ave. at its intersection with Holloway Avenue. The 14.1-km drive from Hotel Whitcomb will take about 16 minutes.
The campus of San Francisco State University is rich with complex-geometry buildings, some of which encompass more than one level available for running. Extreme care will be taken to set courses that present as little ambiguity as possible. Take time to study your ISSOM map symbols! The ISSOM symbol set used on this map is urban, with many uncrossable obstacles. There is one area symbol that are absolutely out of bounds. At the 2009 Sprint Series Finals at SF State, we had a problem with disregard for the 528.1 Area with forbidden access vegetation that fortunately didn't end up costing us access to the venue—but it could have. Please do not enter or cross the olive-green-color areas. There is very little of the other kinds of green on this map, and it's best to assume all green is forbidden to enter or cross. The map is not fully ISSOM compliant because the distance between magnetic north lines is 200 m and not 150 m. Further, some of the olive-green hedges may be thinner than their minimum thickness required by the ISSOM. Full leg cover is unnecessary at this venue, and road/grass shoes may work better than terrain/off-trail shoes. Final course specifics
These lengths are not measured around impassable obstacles; they are along straight lines. The staff for Stage Five is: Administrative Director: Vladimir GusiatnikovCourse Consultant: Jim Hall (Carolina OK)Map Coordinator: Rex WinterbottomCourse Designer: Vladimir GusiatnikovResults: Rex Winterbottom Course designer's notesSome buildings at SF State incorporate multiple levels. The International Standard for Sprint Maps rightly says that multilevel structures cannot be adequately represented on a Sprint map. We'll have to work with a representation that's as adequate as it can get! There is one place in which we assumed a certain "main"level, and showed the level below it with the tunnel symbol (in less detail). Here is what this place looks like in the terrain. Both of the levels can be used for running, in perpendicular directions. The non-main level is accented on the map with the purple 708.1 Crossing section symbol. In much the same way, there is a place in which we picked the main running level to be the lower one, and showed the other level, which is above it, with the bridge symbol. We again accented the lower level with the crossing-section symbol. So, solid purple lines on this map show passageways along which you can go—not boundaries of out-of-bounds areas. There are no black X's or black O's, but there are black O's with dots, 537 Cairn, memorial, small monument or boundary stone symbols, on this map. These are usually indeed monuments or art objects. Finally, some of the olive-green hedges are drawn narrower than their minimum thickness required by ISSOM. We may be able to fix this in the three days remaining before the event, but we probably won't. Regardless, olive green is forbidden to enter and if we see anyone doing this, you will be disqualified. What does olive green look like in the terrain? any kind of vegetation that is not mowed grass or sparse trees. Some of it is flower beds, some is forest, some is high or low bushes.
Stages Two through Five, and the Middle, can be easily reached by public transit. Instructions are given on the info tab for each Stage. Directions to Friday's packet pickup are on the Schedule tab. Directions to Saturday's banquet will be given with event-day instructions. We recommend Hertz, an Orienteering USA partner, for car rentals. By booking through this link, you will be supporting U.S. orienteering. Our discount code will be displayed on the reservations page. Packet pick-up will be at the Presidio Sports Basement on Friday, and at Stage Two at Land's End on Saturday. There will be no packet pick-up at either of the hotels. Entry and RegistrationRegistration is open through Orienteering USA's Event Register. You can register for the Friday Sprint, the Saturday Tournament or Middle, and the Sunday Sprint separately, and choose a different course for each if you so desire. The registered entrant list is available through Event Register, and is updated in real time. The fees for each of the interval-started Sprints, that is Stage One and Stage Five, are:
The fees for Saturday events, that is the Sprint Tournament or the Middle Distance, are:
There is a single recreational (non-competitive) category offered, the Map Hike, on the Beginner/Intermediate course on Friday and Sunday, and on the White course on Saturday. The Map Hike is suitable for juniors and for adults. Enter the event and select "Map Hike" as your Orienteering USA category on the second registration screen. The price for the Map Hike is the same as listed above, per person. Discounts!!For each day's worth of events, there is a $5 Orienteering USA/national Federation discount. In addition, any member of an orienteering club anywhere in the world may take $5 off each day's fees. And on top of these discounts, BAOC members can take yet another $5 off, ffor a total discount of up to $15 off for each day. For example, the early price for an adult who is both a BAOC and Orienteering USA member is $24 for Friday's Sprint, $29 for Saturday's Middle, and $24 for Sunday's Sprint. A junior who is a member of both organizations can get three ranking days for as low as $30. So, why not join Orienteering USA? SPORTident electronic tag rental is included in the above prices. If you participated in our 2013 event, you are welcome to enjoy one race for free this year. We promised newly mapped terrain in 2013, but it didn't come together until this year. We hope to offer a lot more newly mapped terrain in 2015. Extras!!
Depicted is our 2013 T shirt design. Our 2014 design is similar. Go register!! We maintain a discussion board for all our events on Attackpoint. Popular among adventure-sports athletes in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries, the site is the one to go to for the latest adventure-running news, schedules, discussion, and gossip. Forum for Sprint the Golden Gate. We also post updates to our Facebook pages: Facebook event for Sprint the Golden Gate. 
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Created:
13 October 2014 |
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