Monday Night Fun Running

This picture of Peter Maloney sprinting into the finish says it all - multiple maps covering a small area, fast moving, quick decision making - all adding up to provide an enjoyable run for the 90-100 people that took part in the event.

The weather was kind to us - and with few other events available many folks decided to try out the sprint event at Carlton Gardens - home of the Royal Exhibition Buildings and the Museum. Some, like Bryan Ackerly, took part in other events on the way into the city - with Bryan winning the Respond for the Kids Fun Run at Westerfolds Park in Templestowe. Running 10Km in a little over 35 minutes earned him 1st prize - a $1600 trekking holiday - all expenses paid.

The competition in today's event was pretty fierce - with several runners on 42 minutes...until Matt Schepisi shattered this time with 38 minutes 55 seconds. Jun Okabe pushed hard to drive this time down further - but could only manage 40 minutes 31 seconds.

While 3 runners in the B course got all controls only Jim and Bob Pincini managed to do it within the allotted time - a terrific result - well done gents! Interestingly, Daniel & Simon Spivak competing in power-walking managed to finish their single loop and then do ALL controls too.

Sincere thanks to everybody that pitched in to help make the day successful - to Judy Hopkins and Jun Okabe for helping to set up the course, to Judy and Schon for looking after the administrative tasks for the whole day and to folks like Peter Yeates and Mark Jarvis who always pitch in with good humour to help a struggling organisational team run what turned out to be an excellent event! 

The only negative about today's event was that some cretin stole control #19 from under our noses while the event was in progress. While early runners did punch this control, later runners discovered that it was no longer there. Apologies for the confusion - we repalced it with a spare control as soon as we realised what had happened.

Feedback

• From Don Fell
  
  Great event Geoff - one thing though which orienteers are bad at!
  
  Don't run through the garden beds marked out of bounds even if they look like lawn!
  You had warnings in the instructions, but these were ignored by others who overtook me as I ran around the beds.
  This issue is getting a lot of attention and people going through out-of-bounds areas are being disqualified.
  In sprint orienteering it is considered legitimate for course setters to use OOB garden beds as a means of increasing
  the complexity of route choice.
  
  If this occurs in the Vic Sprint champs in November, people will be disqualified.
  Can you please put a warning on the web page.