Register | Login
Attackpoint AR - performance and training tools for adventure athletes

Discussion: Billygoat course notes, map, results

in: The 35th annual Billygoat Run (Apr 21, 2013 - Amherst, MA, US)

Apr 19, 2013 1:47 AM # 
PG:
Try here (html), or here Word document, or just read the following....



Welcome to the 35th Billygoat Run. You might find it useful to read the following.

Start for both the Billygoat and the BG Lite will be at 11 am sharp, with brief instructions at the finish area at 10:45 and then a walk to the start.

Both courses will get the same map. The BG has 24 controls, one of which (but not the first control) may be skipped.

For the BG Lite, you also must go to the first control, and then you bypass #'s 2 to 7. From then on, to adjust for the fact that the course is a little longer than I intended, you get to skip 2 controls. The only restriction is they cannot be consecutive. Reminder -- for the BG Lite, you go to #1, then 8, 9, 10, and so on. Just to be clear, since you are "bypassing" #'s 2 to 7, you are allowed to skip #8 as one of your two skips, if you so choose.

If you decide at #1 that you wish to change the course you are doing, that is OK. Just let us know at the finish.

The entire course is on one map. For reasons of clarity, the line connecting 7 to 8 is slightly bowed. Likewise the line connecting 19 and 20 is slightly bowed. Whether this affects your navigation is up to you.

There will be water at controls 7, 10, and 16, plus a little bit of food at 10, plus a reasonable route from 19 to 20 passes the finish area, where you may partake of the general refreshments or your own special brew. There still may be lengthy stretches between water stops, and anyone concerned about dehydration is encouraged to carry water.

The time limit to get a shirt is 3 and one-half hours, or 2:30 pm. Control pick up will start at 3:00 pm, so please be back by then. Awards will start at 2:15 pm at the finish.

Earl's Trails is hilly, for sure, but not rocky and the woods offer good runnability and good visibility. The thicker vegetation does not have distinct borders. Light green is generally saplings, or younger hemlock, or (rarely) mountain laurel. All are easy to get through. Medium green is denser stands of hemlock or mountain laurel and is still passable. Dark green is to be avoided.

Control codes are in honor of the first 24 finishers last year. Careful observers will note that there are three duplicates. For example 13 and 19 are both JT. If you wish to go 12-19-14 instead of 12-13-14 we will not DQ you, as we will be laughing too hard.

Safety:
1. There are numerous bike trails on part of the map and there will be bikers out. Just keep your eyes open, and be courteous.
2. Stay away from all houses. If you can see a house, you are already too close.
3. There are cups at the water stops. Use them.
4. The ticks are alive. I had two of the larger kind on me on Friday. Check yourself.

The map is 1:10,000, 5 meter contours. The clues are on the map.

Thank you to Holyoke Range State Park and supervisor Jesse Carter for permission to use their woods, and to Amherst College for permission to use the finish area.

Parking will be as much as possible along Military Road. Portable toilets will also be there. Please use these, not the toilets in the Visitor Center. Overflow parking will be in the field below the Visitor Center.

Check-in -- pick up your bib number and control descriptions, pay any remaining fees, turn in any signed waivers, sign any other waivers needed, and in general just be really mellow -- will be either at the end of Military Road or out in the finish area, haven't decided yet, but certainly not at the Visitor Center.

There is about a 300-meter walk from the nearest road access to the finish area. We would be grateful for assistance in carrying gear and refreshments in, and then later in carrying gear out.

The two recreational courses are White and Orange. Registration on the day for both. Anyone on Orange will not be able to start before 11 am as it uses some BG controls.

Peter Gagarin
Advertisement  
Apr 20, 2013 12:44 PM # 
PG:
Apr 21, 2013 3:52 PM # 
cmorse:
Word from PG - Ian Smith & a couple cadets leading at #7 by a couple minutes over Wil Hawkins. They may have already skipped. At #10 Wyattt Riley, Sergei Zhyk and a few others have joined lead pack
Apr 21, 2013 3:54 PM # 
cmorse:
Start photo posted to OUSA facebook page
Apr 21, 2013 4:24 PM # 
cmorse:
will hawkins 1, jacob grant 2, wyatt riley 3rd @ spectator
Apr 21, 2013 4:30 PM # 
cmorse:
wyatt for the win!
Apr 21, 2013 4:31 PM # 
cmorse:
will hawkins 2nd, sergei zhyk 3rd
Apr 21, 2013 7:26 PM # 
BorisGr:
Whoa! Sounds like a wild race with lots of lead changes. Can't wait to hear the stories!
Apr 21, 2013 9:17 PM # 
PG:
Today's Billygoat (click on map for a larger image) --

Apr 21, 2013 9:24 PM # 
walk:
Great course in nice fun woods. Thanks Peter. Good job as always.
Apr 21, 2013 9:31 PM # 
PG:
Results --

Not sure when they will appear officially. Various electrons were not doing what they were supposed to be doing, and people much smarter than me were somewhat stumped -- some times were right, others were 24 hours too long. Should be untangled this evening?

In the meantime, scrambled a bit but got the awards done on time and I think accurately.

Until more official stuff (and splits) gets generated, here's the results order --

1. Wyatt Riley 90:10
2. Will Hawkins 91:04
3. Sergei Zhyk 91:36
4. Brendan Shields 95:03
5. Zachary Schroeder 97:58
6. Nolan Miles 98:00
7. Ethan Childs 100:19
8. Ian Jones 100:55
9. Vadim Masalkov 100:58
10. Ian Smith 101:08
11. Niels Lyng-Olsen 105:36
12. Greg Balter 106:57
13. Yakir Goldner 108:16
14. Theodore Fong 108:41
15. Jonathan Bangert 108:41
16. Alex Jospe 111:27
17. Ted Good 112:27
18. Jacob Grant 114:06
19. Andrew Eck 124:52
20. Jim Arsenault 124:56
21. Nadim Ahmed 124:58
22. Patrick Richardson 125:11
23. Dan O'Leary 125:18
24. Ben Gallup 125:28
25. Will Tucker 125:39
26. Tim Parson 126:04
27. Jeff Saeger 126:36
28. JJ Cote 127:12
29. Ari Ofsevit 127:36
30. Davis Onkst 128:08
31. Pavel Korniliev 128:19
32. Mika Latva-Kokka 129:04
33. Elina Breton 132:53
34. Anna Shafer-Skelton 133:23
35. Peggy Dickison 133:26
36. Anna Breton 133:37
37. Glen Tryson 134:27
38. Carl Adams 134:28
39. Angelica Riley 134:51
40. Alar Ruutopold 137:29
41. James O'Keefe 140:14
42. Bob Lux 141:36
43. Phil Bricker 141:59
44. Neil Martin 148:11
45. Tom Eisiminger 150:07
46. Aleck Breton 152:31
47. Bernie Breton 152:56
48. Dave Yee 153:02
49. Anne Wilkinson 153:21
50. Frank Boscoe 154:34
51. Jeremy Colgan 158:12
52. Ken Walker Sr 160:31
53. Sharon Crawford 160:41
54. David Levine 160:45
55. Sam Levitin 161.28
56. Scott Turner 163.18
57. John-Eric Nelson 163:28
58. George Walker 163:28
59. Steve Tarry 171:24
60. Rich Nietupski 175:48
60. Jim Henderson 175:45
62. John Baker 177:51
63. Greg Lennon 177:58
64. Jeff Schapiro 180:41
65. Peter Goodwin 185:45
66. Tivo Ruutopold 187:20
67. Jessica Rykken 189:33
68. David Hunter 199:34
69. Sandy Fillebrown 199:49
70. Valeriy Doverov 199:51
71. Raymond Chung 200:06
72. Dean Sturdevant 201:39
73. Jim Crawford 209:05

Mostly accurate but I'd be very surprised if 100% so. Time limit was 210 minutes (three and a half hours).

Billygoat Lite (again, unofficial)

1. Carl Childs 104:01
2. Meg Parson 116:41
3. Steve Richardson 126:14
4. Pelle Wahlström 140:57
5. Trisha Underwood 150:30
6. Janet Tryson 151:29
7. Elaine Dill 155:51
8. Barb Bryant 160:47
9. Nadia Popova 171:37
10. John Underwood 199:34
11. Roger Underwood 202:09
12. Lynette Boos 203:24
Apr 21, 2013 10:04 PM # 
PG:
A couple of photos by Clint, including a nice one of the start, are at the OUSA Facebook page.
Apr 21, 2013 10:12 PM # 
bgallup:
Ian had an interesting theory - that control 14 (#135) was off by roughly 13 hours. I punched CP13 at 12:15:11, CP14 at 01:08:03, and CP15 at 12:23:58. can't tell which day it thinks the punches are on, but wrapping around like that might've added a whole day somehow. I'd be happy to chew on the splits tonight and try to patch them up if someone else isn't already on the job. Thanks for the event and all your work, I had a great time!

Oh - Ian had another interesting point - maybe the reason only some people were affected had something to do with the generation of the stick they had.
Apr 21, 2013 10:26 PM # 
cmorse:
Here's a Flickr set from today. For some reason Flickr elected to upload them in reverse order - so you may want to start at the end and work backwards to get them chronologically...
Apr 21, 2013 10:31 PM # 
PG:
Seemed like the following controls were skipped by at least one person:

6 (Ian Smith and others)
8
10 (Will Hawkins)
14 (Ethan Childs)
16
17
18
22 (Wyatt and others)
Apr 21, 2013 11:23 PM # 
acjospe:
Peter, thanks for a great event, and a wonderful course. I really enjoyed myself out there, aside from one or two climbs =)

Hopefully your army of cadets (no pun intended) acquired all the controls for pickup...
Apr 21, 2013 11:55 PM # 
z-man:
Yes, Waytt bulldozed through the woods as if he was running on a trail. Once again Congrats!
Apr 22, 2013 2:39 AM # 
PG:
Since I'm not sure when official results and splits will appear, I added the rest of the unofficial times for the BG above, plus the finishers for the Billygoat Lite.

Congratulations to all of them.

Looking at the map posted above, the BG Lite bypassed #'s 2-7, and then you could skip 2 non-consecutive controls. Straight-line distance before any skips was about 9 km.
Apr 22, 2013 2:44 AM # 
kissy:
Way to go, Peggy!
Apr 22, 2013 3:29 AM # 
PG:
Full results are on the NEOC web site. Splits will be a bit.
Apr 22, 2013 6:37 AM # 
ndobbs:
No-one skipped #!?
Apr 22, 2013 7:03 AM # 
GuyO:
Wasn't allowed.
Apr 22, 2013 3:45 PM # 
bshields:
Thoroughly enjoyed the map, course, and competition. Nice weather, too. Thanks for a great event!
Apr 22, 2013 6:44 PM # 
DangerZone:
Anybody skip number 1?
Apr 22, 2013 7:46 PM # 
gail:
No one was allowed to skip #1.
Apr 22, 2013 10:42 PM # 
PG:
Trying something here, not sure if it will work....

I took photos of 21 of the 24 Billygoat controls used yesterday. Here they are in a slideshow if you'd like to see a bit of what the terrain was like. Note that they are purposely not in order, and three controls are not shown.

Or, here they are separately, perhaps to test those of you who ran the course, to see if you can remember which photo goes with which control. Some are on the easy side, but the cliffs and especially the reentrants will require a sharp eye and a bit of luck

The map was posted a little earlier in this thread.

It was just gorgeous out there today, as I suspect it was yesterday also.
Apr 23, 2013 12:45 AM # 
acjospe:
Alrighty, I'll bite. Here are my guesses (and that's what they are, though the angle of the sun helps a little bit):

A = 1
B=13
C=4
D=3
E=15
F=11
G=16
H=5
J=23
K=14
L=2
M=12
N=10
P=8
Q=23
R=6
S=18
T=7
V=20
X=21
Z=4
Apr 23, 2013 1:30 AM # 
PG:
Didn't take long at all to find a mistake in that list.... :-)

Got 13 right. That might actually be a pretty good score.
Apr 23, 2013 1:45 AM # 
bshields:
Alex probably got A wrong because she didn't go to it.
Apr 23, 2013 2:47 AM # 
Swampfox:
How many people skipped #1?
Apr 23, 2013 2:48 AM # 
Swampfox:
Just joking.
Apr 23, 2013 2:48 AM # 
Swampfox:
But, seriously, nobody skipped #1???
Apr 23, 2013 2:48 AM # 
Swampfox:
Free Bird! Free Bird!
Apr 23, 2013 3:05 AM # 
NEOC#1:
Beautiful footing and barely any thick stuff. Indeed nice.
Apr 23, 2013 3:06 AM # 
bgallup:
a rough draft of some goofing around with the gps tracks that i could rustle up:



a bit madcap, but it's fun to see skipping 22 pay off for a number of people - namely speedy scooping ian, jima edging me out, and coach passing pasha. if you've got a gpx/tcx and want to get in on the fun, send it my way.
Apr 23, 2013 3:38 AM # 
carlch:
A6
B13
C5 OR 6
D19
E2
F11
G16
H3
J8
K14
L2
M12
N10
P17
Q23
R1
S18
T7
V20
X21
Z19
I remember a few but having the clues here helped (especially with the waterstops
Apr 23, 2013 12:41 PM # 
PG:
Carl got 15 right, 6 right. Between him and Alex 17 right.
Apr 23, 2013 1:39 PM # 
carlch:
You mean 15 right and 6 wrong I hope? the 6 wrong must be the ones I didn't go to :)
Apr 23, 2013 1:47 PM # 
PG:
Yes, 6 wrong. At least three you didn't go to, but at least one you did.
Apr 23, 2013 2:25 PM # 
bshields:
Might be regressing with this, but here goes:

A=6
B=13
C=5
D=3
E=15
F=8
G=16
H=20
J=17
K=14
L=2
M=12
N=10
P=23
Q=22
R=1
S=18
T=7
V=4
X=21
Z=19
Apr 23, 2013 3:03 PM # 
PG:
I think you're also 15-6 (my answer sheet is at home).

So far no one has used 9 or 24; they are two of the three there are no pictures of.
Apr 23, 2013 6:53 PM # 
bgallup:
Man, P and J are brutal. This is fun! Definitely highlights the controls I wasn't quite, uh, independent at. At least my overrun-the-control-and-turn-back style paid off in some recognized photos, which is nice.


A: 6
B: 13
C: 5
D: 3
E: 15
F: 11
G: 16
H: 4
J: 17
K: 14
L: 2
M: 12
N: 10
P: 23
Q: 22
R: 1
S: 18
T: 7
V: 20
X: 21
Z: 19
Apr 23, 2013 7:09 PM # 
PG:
A new record, 17 out of 21 correct!
Apr 23, 2013 8:34 PM # 
JanetT:
I found J to be quite easy - nice clue. Trouble with E, L and M.

A - 6
B - 13
C - 5
D - 4
E - 2
F - 11
G - 16
H - 20
J - 23
K - 14
L - 15
M - 12
N - 10
P - 17
Q - 22
R - 1
S - 18
T - 7
V - 21
X - 8
Z - 19
Apr 23, 2013 9:32 PM # 
PG:
14 out of 21.

The batting average so far on C and D is rather bad. Granted that for several of the reentrants it's pretty much just guesswork unless you are/were really observant.
Apr 23, 2013 10:06 PM # 
carlch:
I tried using the shadows to figure out which way north was just guessing you took the pictures in the late afernoon. Than I noticed in your log that you were there in the morning and than again in the afternoon. oooops
Apr 24, 2013 1:01 AM # 
bgallup:
alright, taking a second chance. remembering that i only saw the SI box first for 17 was key.

A: 6
B: 4
C: 5
D: 3
E: 15
F: 11
G: 16
H: 13
J: 23
K: 14
L: 2
M: 12
N: 10
P: 17
Q: 22
R: 1
S: 18
T: 7
V: 20
X: 21
Z: 19
Apr 24, 2013 1:15 AM # 
PG:
Still 17 out of 21. Do you always have trouble with reentrants? :-)
Apr 24, 2013 1:21 AM # 
bgallup:
hah! i only have trouble with the reentrants that are low on one side, and higher on the other three. and only if i need to orienteer in them. or near them. or around them. or match a map and a picture of them, apparently. back to the drawing (guessing?) board!
Apr 24, 2013 1:30 AM # 
PG:
Hmm, 7 reentrants. One is a water stop so that ought to be pretty easy. Another really is different, hmmm, everyone else got it but you aren't sure.

So I suppose the best way forward is just keep guessing? :-)

At least you figured out which three are missing (one is obvious, and JJ got the other two while retrieving the white course). Progress!
Apr 24, 2013 2:04 AM # 
jjcote:
Well, that explains why I'm not bothering to play this game: I took a quick look through the photos and thought I recognized a few, but one of them was one of the ones that I retrieved...
Apr 24, 2013 2:09 AM # 
Sandy:
A - 6
B - 13
C - 3
D - 5
E - 15
F - 11
G - 16
H - 4
J - 23
K - 14
L - 2
M - 12
N - 10
P - 17
Q - 22
R - 1
S - 18
T - 7
V - 20
X - 21
Z - 19
Apr 24, 2013 2:25 AM # 
PG:
And we have a winner!!!

Is her mathematical skills, her powers of observation, her deft analysis of where others had gone wrong, her new super slimness, or just a basic understanding of reentrants? Or all of the above?
Apr 24, 2013 3:09 AM # 
Sandy:
I played many games of Masternind when I was younger!
Apr 24, 2013 3:40 AM # 
jjcote:
Well, whatever her technique might have been, as it turns out, if you click on the word "yesterday" in "This photo was taken yesterday using a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS.", you get the pictures in the order they were taken. Your tracklogs show the order that you visited the controls in, so it ought to be easy enough from there. But for more certainty, you can click on "Additional info" for each picture and get the actual time it was taken. That allows you to download the KML or GPX file from your tracklog and determine exactly where you were standing when you took each picture (once you identify a few and figure out how far off the time is in your camera).

:-)
Apr 24, 2013 3:59 AM # 
bshields:
Hmm, that's a lot more strategy than I ever employed for mastermind.
Apr 24, 2013 8:27 PM # 
PG:
The BG and BG Lite are available on Route Gadget.

This discussion thread is closed.