Eastshore: Sunday, June 13, 2010

Miller Knox

Rosie the Riveter

Albany Hill

 

Even the "Short" course was epic and breezy - short being a relative term. Folks on the Long course had it warmest at the start in Miller Knox. And the Middle was meaty. This experience will never be duplicated, at least by me - it was an interesting corridor to use once, particularly on the Long course, giving a tour of the waterfront from Richmond to Berkeley. It was a dream of mine to do such an event and I'm glad I realized it.

There were so many different course categories with foot / duathlon, age, and length that it seems almost everybody won something. Great spirit and energy from all the participants seeking an adventure into new places in their own backyard - er, frontyard, since it's the coastline. Bruce Wolfe must know everything about the East Bay and he went to a few unfamiliar spots (and he didn't even see all the Long course, since he was on the Medium.) Sorry about the challenging checkpoint Q & A at Albany Hill and the Albany Bulb.

What a diverse group of participants. We had almost as many women as men, one junior, and folks from their 20s to their 70s. Experienced veterans, fast learning newcomers, and some intermediates. Orienteers from the Bay Area Orienteering Club, adventure race teams such as Crossfit Adventure, and other folks who were looking for adventure. I am especially impressed by all the individuals and teams who did the Long course on foot - it was over 24 miles actual distance, according to one GPS track. And we had some faraway visitors - Dean from the Adventure Turtles returned from Texas, and Bill and Heidi of the Whidby Island Nerds happened to be visiting from Washington state.

Thanks to everybody for making it such a great time. A big thanks to hired hand Ben Legg who helped with registration, friendly navigation clinics, checkpoint pickup at Miller Knox, and retrieving the remote aid station. Ben also rented out his sharp Berkeley waterfront map which was used on all the courses.

click any photo to see the
event album!

Results

Short - Foot - Open Women

Anonymous 77:45

Short - Foot - Open Men

Anonymous 44:16
Alex Van Hoff 107:25

Short - Foot - Masters Women

Judy Koehler 127:40
Rosemary Johnson 149:33
Sally Sweetser 176:00

Short - Foot - Masters Mixed

Adventure Turtles - Nancy Lindeman, Jim Fish, Dean French  150:54
John Pattillo, Laura Pattillo 197:37

Short - Choose Your Own Adventure  - Masters Men

Alex Newman 154:30

Medium - Foot - Masters Men

Deron Van Hoff 127:49
Mark Blair 209:30

Medium - Duathlon - Open Mixed

Anonymous, Stephen Pepe 140:28
Michelle Bender, David Galuszka 189:33

Medium - Duathlon - Open Men

Jason Lorenz 149:18

Medium - Duathlon - Masters Mixed

McKinley - Robin McDonnell, Susan Church 246:10

Medium - Duathlon - Masters Men

Bruce Wolfe 122:21

Long - Foot - Masters Mixed

Whidby Island Nerds - Bill Cusworth, Heidi Cusworth 318:45

Long - Foot - Masters Men

Greg Favor 302:47
Steve Haas 338:20

Long - Duathlon - Open Mixed

CrossFit Adventure - Nathan Brammeier, Carolyn Scalia, Doug Scalia, Gary Maldonado, Jen Merlo 293:43
Anonymous 296:50

Long - Duathlon - Open Men

Steve Gregg 229:12

Long - Choose Your Own Adventure - Masters Women

Vicki Woolworth 248:20

Long - Choose Your Own Adventure - Masters Mixed

Skinner Family - Nadine Skinner, John Skinner 390:00

Long - Choose Your Own Adventure - Open Men

Shura Kretchetov 272:46

Original Announcement

Register online (see Registration form, waiver) | return to terraloco home

It's Urban. It's Wild. Grab your Map, and get those Checkpoints!

Maybe you're up for a fun 5km or 10 km jaunt around the Albany and Berkeley shoreline... or start at Point Richmond for the long haul course: 30 km connects all the dots from Miller Knox Regional Shoreline to Aquatic Park in Berkeley. Checkpoint highlights include: Eastshore State Park, the Albany Bulb, Albany Hill, Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina, Rosie the Riveter National Monument, coastside neighborhoods, and some historical industrial zones.

All courses feature a custom-made 1:15000 map; interesting, non-trivial navigation; and awesome checkpoints. At some checkpoints, you will find a colored bag with a unique pin punch to mark your course passport; at others, you will answer a simple multiple-choice question on your passport regarding a feature at the checkpoint.

Enjoy the adventure on foot or as a duathlon - the Medium and Long courses will have a segment where you may use a bicycle to complete it. Do it solo or in a team.

More detailed course statistics and information will be published prior to the event.

Event Schedule:
09:00 Registration open, Miller Knox Regional Shoreline, 30 km Long course
09:30 Mass Start, 30 km Long course
11:00 Registration open, Aquatic Park, Berkeley, 5 km Short and 10 km Medium courses
11:30 Mass Start, 5 km Short and 10 km Medium courses
11:31 Individual Starts available on 5 km Short and 10 km Medium courses until 01:00
01:00 Starts close
02:00 Awards
03:00 Courses close

Event Details:
1. Required gear: suitable shoes and clothes for trekking in the weather, cell phone, pen or pencil.
(No "bushwacking" is necessary, so shorts are okay. But, there are some steep off-trail slopes on the Long course, so pick shoes accordingly.)
2. Recommended gear: personal hydration system, snacks, sunscreen
3. Optional gear: compass, bicycle - and if you bring a bicycle, you must have a helmet and a lock
4. Prohibited gear: GPS (a tracker watch with no map display is okay, or use a sealed envelope if you want to record your track with a display device.)
5. Provided gear: terraloco gives you an 11" x 17", double-sided map in a clear, plastic map case with a passport for recording your checkpoints
6. Aid stations: the start point at Miller Knox and the start/finish at Aquatic Park are also hubs for segments / loops on the course, water and snacks are available at each.
7. Picnic! We have a picnic spot reserved at Aquatic Park; terraloco will provide some goodies, but also bring your own!
8. Results & Awards: Categories for each course include foot and duathlon divisions and Open and Masters (average age 40+) age divisions.

Cost and Registration:

register by Friday, May 28

register by Monday, June 7

register after Monday, June 7

Short Course, about 5 km

$10 per person
$12.50 per person
$15 per person

Medium Course, about10 km

$15 per person
$20 per person
$25 per person

Long Course, about 30 km

$25 per person
$30 per person
$40 per person

How to register and pay: use terraloco's online registration form for this event. Then, I will send you a Google Checkout email invoice for the appropriate price - see the table. You may either pay the invoice by credit card or send a check to the included address. Or, you may pay at Miller Knox if you're doing the Long Course. (However, payment cannot be accepted at Aquatic Park for any course, as per City of Berkeley regulations.) You may cancel your registration for any reason and receive a full refund; I will also do this if you are unable to make the event.

If you're on a team, each team member must do the registration and payment process individually. On the event day when you sign your forms, you may also sign up your team on the list of teams for results purposes.

Course Statistics:

1. Long = 27.4 km total = 2.4 km trek on foot + 18.4 km bike or trek + 6.7 km trek on foot; climb from sea level to 360 ft. in Miller Knox and from sea level to 300 ft. on Albany Hill.
2. Medium = 16.2 km total = 9.5 km bike or trek + 6.7 km trek on foot; climb from sea level to 300 ft. on Albany Hill.
3. Short = 6.7 km trek on foot, minimal climb.

Maps and terrain and hazards:

The map is a "combo" of photos, orienteering maps, and orienteering symbols on top of a USGS base with 20 foot contours, produced at a scale of 1:15000.

All courses:

All courses will use Ben Legg's sharp map of the Berkeley Marina and Aquatic Park. 1:10000, 2.5 meter contours, ISSOM standard. There will be some 1:5000 detail blowups provided. There are some grassy patches you'll have to negotiate but I didn't observe any poison oak, I just came out with a lot of stickers in my socks. Make sure you don't go in or through the forbidden areas, not only are they marked olive green on the map, they are also fenced off.

Medium and Long course:

The portion of the course in Albany and Berkeley will mostly use a street map; Albany Hill will show the USGS base with some streets and trailheads, but it won't be completely field checked. At the Albany Bulb, there's about a mile long round trip on dirt trails which are more appropriate for a mountain bike; a road bike might get a bit banged up. Or just lock your bike at the end of the pavement - there's a rack of bike locks.

Long course only:

Miller Knox: There's an orienteering map laid over the EBRPD map; the trails on the EBRPD map are accurate, but note that a few more unofficial ones have been added by people making shortcuts. The contours should help you figure out if you're at the proper trail junction or not. Off trail on the orienteering map part of the map, things have very much changed in the rough southern third of the map. It's not recommended you cross the rough open with scattered thick vegetation down there. Off trail on the EBRPD part of the map - going on the more open hillsides is not too bad, but beware, the rest is thick vegetation with a lot of it poison oak. Stay on the trails to stay out of it! You'll still get exposed to the grass which is high and encroaching on many of the trails.

The rest of the "First page" of the map: You'll see a sign that says "Bikes Go Back" if you follow the optimum route to checkpoint b3. Ignore, and proceed. Just be careful not to trip up your bike on the train tracks in the street. After checkpoint b4, headed to b5, b6, and b7, there are many gated communities in the Marina Bay development. You need not (and cannot) go through them to get checkpoints. On the map, I've put uncrossable fences across the streets going into them to help you.

Final Details:

1. So what do I wear? I could do the whole thing in shorts and trail runners. In Miller Knox and the Berkeley Marina there are some "stickers" / foxtails to deal with, which make my legs itch a bit for a few moments, and populate my socks with seeds. If I had nice breathable pants I might want to wear those - perhaps switch them on and off?

2. No poison oak! Unless you are determined to find some - that would require bushwhacking. But the course is designed to reward the elegant planner who avoids the bush. Seriously, this is the most overgrown time of year, after a very wet spring. The grasses are covering many of the trails at Miller Knox. In most cases, bushwhacking is not helpful.

3. Biking - recommended on the Medium and Long courses! Not available on the Short course. If biking, you need a lock! If solo, and you need to go where a bike can't go to get a checkpoint, you'll need to lock your bike up. Most all of it can be done on a road bike, but there is a section - about 1 mile roundtrip - that's doable on a road bike, but better with a mountain bike. You have the option of locking the bike up and trekking it too. Even if you have the mountain bike, it won't get you all the way to the checkpoint, so you'll need to lock it to itself after going as far as you can, or have your partner wait with it. About 50% of the Medium course distance is bikeable... about 75% of the Long course distance.

4. Transit / logistics. I think there's enough to go on in the web page, but let me know if you need help figuring out how to make it work for you. For Long course participants, plan on arriving no later than 9:15 at the Richmond Ramblers clubhouse at Miller Knox. Everybody else, no later than 11:15 at the end of Bancroft in Aquatic Park, Berkeley, for the mass start, although you can solo start up until 1:00.

5. Checkpoints: All simple question and answer - multiple choice with three possible answers. Except, there's a few pin punch control bags at the beginning of the Long course. There will be one card you carry to circle answers and, if needed, punch, so you need a pen or pencil.

6. Aid stations: The start / finish in Aquatic Park will have water and snacks. There will be snacks put out on the Bay Trail, marked on the map, for Long course participants, almost halfway through the Long course. Also, there will be water and snacks at the start for the Long course which is also a transition point on the course.

Directions:

To Aquatic Park (finish for all courses): Take Interstate 80 to the University Ave. exit in Berkeley, and head east towards the hills. Make the first right onto 6th Street. After three blocks, make a right onto Bancroft Way, and take it until it dead ends. Hopefully, you'll find parking on the block before the dead end, but you may have to backtrack a bit more.

Public Transit to Aquatic Park: You can take a bike on AC Transit buses, BART trains, and Amtrak trains, and all will get you close. It's 1.6 miles from the North Berkeley BART station. The AC Transit 51B line runs down University and can pick you up not far from the North Berkeley BART on University and take you down to 4th St., where you travel south to Bancroft Way and make a right. Since the Amtrak station is at 4th Street and University, traveling directions are the same as arriving on the AC Transit 51B. Schedules are available at http://actransit.org and http://bart.gov and http://www.capitolcorridor.org.

To Miller Knox Regional Shoreline (start for Long Course only):

From I-580 West in Richmond, exit at Canal Boulevard. Turn left at the light onto Canal.

From I-580 East (coming from the bridge), exit at Canal Boulevard. Turn right at the light onto Canal.

Going on Canal, turn right at the light onto W. Cutting Bl., then left at the stop sign onto Garrard Bl. Proceed through the auto tunnel; Garrard becomes Dornan Drive on the south side of the auto tunnel. The first parking lot on your left after about 1/4 to 1/2 of a mile is in front of the Richmond Ramblers clubhouse. You'll see a control bag on your left at the entrance to the parking lot. Turn in there and park, I'll have a table set up and a few chairs.

Public Transit to Miller Knox Regional Shoreline:

From the Richmond BART / Amtrak station, take AC Transit bus 72M towards Point Richmond, and get off at South Garrard Blvd. / Dornan Dr. & Railroad Ave. / E. Richmond Ave. - this stop happens to be at Judge G. Carroll Park. Walk on Dornan Drive south towards the bay - you must go through a tunnel - once you're out of the tunnel, follow the "driving directions" in the preceding section.

The 72M bus runs every 30 minutes on Saturdays. It's about a 10 minute bus ride to the stop where you start walking toward the park. Schedules are available at http://actransit.org and http://bart.gov and http://www.capitolcorridor.org.

How can I plan for the long course?
1. Take transit! Both the start and finish are conveniently located - see the directions above. If you're biking, it's a short ride from BART and Amtrak in both places.
2. Car buddies: Park one car at Aquatic Park, and park the other at the Ramblers lot in Miller Knox Regional Shoreline. It's about a 15 minute drive from one spot to the other.

Event Contact: Rex, 5 1 0 - 6 8 1 - 6 1 8 1, rex@terraloco.com