Tamalpa Runners - Big Sur 5K 2010

by Lynn Walker, April 19, 2009

Harlan Lopez and Yiou Wang lead Tamalpa at the Big Sur 5k

Twenty five adventurous souls travelled to Monterey County for Sunday's PAUSATF Road Race Grand Prix event at the Big Sur 5k. While Tamalpa wasn't able to field full teams in every division, at least two teams will come away with victories, to add to two individual victories.

Harlan Lopez was the top male and overall finisher for Tamalpa, taking 9th place with a time of 15:58. While that time is slower than at last week's Zippy 5k, the Big Sur 5k course is notoriously slow and was made more so on this occasion due to a strong wind. Lopez was the only open division runner and Tamalpa will not be able to field an men's open team.

Yiou Wang was the top female finisher for Tamalpa, finishing third. Not only was Wang's finishing place higher than at the Zippy 5k, but her finishing time was almost identical; remarkable given the slow nature of this course. Wang was joined by Liz Gottlieb as the only women's open competitors, and Tamalpa will not field a women's open team either.

Other Men

Tim Wallen led the men's master team, with Tim O'Rourke, fast on his heels, leading the men's senior team. The master's team placement is as yet undetermined. The senior's team will finish a close, but disappointing second. See the story under time issues for more details.

Don Porteous won the men's super-senior division and led the fast trio that includes Arturo Rodriguez and Frank Ruona to a team victory in the division.

Hans Schmid won the men's veteran division, and led a team that included Bernie Hollander and Elmos Shropshire to victory.

Other Women

The Tamalpa women fielded a masters team of Pattie Shore, Beth Freeman and Lisa Watts, but will settle for sixth place.

The women's senior team fared better. Led by Mimi Willard and joined by Tricia Wallace, Edda Stickle and Margie Forman, the senior women will likely take second place behind the Impalas.

Tamalpa did not field women's super-senior or veteran teams

Consider the event for next year

The weather was crisp upon arrival for the early morning start, but with clear skies the temperature warmed quickly, though remaining quite comfortable for racing. A brisk breeze greeted runners on the course, slowing times somewhat. The course features rolling hills, with one at the two mile mark that takes determination to conquer. The course begins and ends on Highway 1, with a quick trip through a residential neighborhood and a steep drop onto the sandy trail of Ribera Beach looking out over Carmel Bay. The race is conducted as part of the Big Sur International Marathon, which is the premiere event of the day. Finishers in the 5k race can stand around enjoying a post-race beer and the awards ceremony while watching the marathoners finish. Traffic can be tight in the area, as the parking lot of the local shopping center becomes Highway 1 for a few hours on race morning, so be sure to arrive early in order to find reasonable parking. If you aren't in a hurry to get home, the nearby Carmel Valley has numerous areas for hiking and the time of year is perfect for spring wildflowers. Put it on your racing calendar next year.

Timing Issues

The Tamalpa Senior men's team will unfortunately be defeated by the West Valley Joggers and Striders by the very narrow margin of two seconds. There are a number of aspects of this defeat that make it hard to bear, not the least of which is each team-members realization that they could have possible found another second or two, or three, if they had just known it would matter. Too often, we think in terms of place, and if we don't need to sprint to pass or avoid being passed, we may come through the finish too casually. As though a second or two doesn't really matter. Until this occasion, when it does.

Gun versus chip time

There are other issues, like the fact the gun time is used for scoring, but a runner may take a second or longer to actually reach the starting line, so that fact doesn't factor into the team scoring. Normally it is too neglible to matter.

Official times rounded up

There is also the matter of rounding. It appears that race officials round up a runner's finish time to the next second. If the runner finishes in 19:59.00, the official results will say 20:00. This creates a potential rounding error of 1 second. If time's were rounded to the nearest second there would be a potential rounding error of half a second, but rounding to the next second doubles that potential rounding error. If each runner has a potential rounding error of 1 second, and there are 5 runners on team A and 5 runners on team B, there is a combined potential rounding error of 10 seconds. Thus, a two second loss could conceivably have reversed results if ACTUAL finish times were used in scoring.

This is all part of the system we have accepted to use, and therefore we must accept it. We can propose changes to improve the system, and one suggestion I'd make would be to have close team scores re-calculated using actual (unrounded) finish times. While this idea won't change anything for the current race, future races could benefit from a more accurate system, if instituted.

For the present, Tamalpa runners would do well to focus on the things that can be changed, our own performance. It is hoped that each Tamalpa runner will take a lesson here, to run strong through the finish, thinking not just about place, but every tick of the clock. Your team may depend on it.

Tamalpa Finishers

Place	Name	Location	Bib	Net Time	Pace	Division/Place	Sex-Age	Sex-Place	Gun Time	Age Grade
9	Harlan Lopez	Walnut Creek, CA	10220	15:57	5:08	M 19-24/3	M-24	9	15:58	84.91%
26	Timothy Wallen	San Francisco, CA	9155	17:21:00	5:35	M 45-49/2	M-46	24	17:22:00	73.45%
27	Tim O'Rourke	Fairfax, CA	9042	17:21:00	5:36	M 50-54/2	M-52	25	17:23:00	82.83%
32	Yiou Wang	Mill Valley, CA	9302	17:50	5:45	F 25-29/2	F-25	3	17:50	83.22%
40	Tom O'Reilly	Novato, CA	9079	18:13	5:52	M 50-54/7	M-53	35	18:16	83.06%
48	Liz Gottlieb	San Rafael, CA	9128	18:33	5:58	F 30-34/2	F-34	9	18:35	80.40%
61	Lynn Walker	Ben Lomond, CA	9065	19:11	6:11	M 50-54/11	M-53	50	19:11	78.87%
70	Don Porteous	Alameda, CA	9039	19:28	6:16	M 60-64/1	M-63	55	19:30	84.66%
82	Arturo Rodriguez	Santa Cruz, CA	9122	19:54	6:25	M 60-64/3	M-60	63	19:56	80.64%
84	David Ripp	San Rafael, CA	9134	19:58	6:26	M 55-59/5	M-58	64	20:01	79.03%
89	Dave Covey	Mill Valley, CA	9169	20:09	6:29	M 45-49/9	M-48	66	20:12	72.10%
92	Bill Neer	San Amselmo, CA	9139	20:12	6:30	M 50-54/13	M-51	69	20:14	73.66%
93	Patti Shore	Mill Valley, CA	9059	20:16	6:32	F 40-44/8	F-43	24	20:19	77.45%
97	Beth Freedman	San Anselmo, CA	9140	20:21	6:33	F 40-44/9	F-41	27	20:24	75.90%
102	Hans Schmid	Greenbrae, CA	9089	20:37	6:39	M 70-74/1	M-70	74	20:41	85.60%
107	Franklin Ruona	Novato, CA	9082	20:52	6:43	M 60-64/6	M-64	78	20:55	79.70%
129	Mimi Willard	Kentfield, CA	9137	21:52	7:03	F 55-59/1	F-56	42	21:56	83.68%
144	Lisa Watts	Greenbrae, CA	9172	22:54	7:23	F 45-49/7	F-47	50	22:58	71.30%
176	Tricia Wallace	Corte Madera, CA	9141	24:18:00	7:50	F 50-54/5	F-51	66	24:23:00	70.56%
186	Bernie Hollander	Novato, CA	9129	24:52:00	8:00	M 70-74/4	M-74	118	24:55:00	74.98%
206	Bob Cowdrey	San Mateo, CA	9097	25:45:00	8:18	M 65-69/4	M-65	129	25:49:00	65.16%
221	Edda Stickle	Novato, CA	9136	26:38:00	8:35	F 65-69/1	F-68	88	26:43:00	81.91%
305	Elmo Shropshire	Novato, CA	9115	29:32:00	9:31	M 70-74/5	M-73	172	29:37:00	62.17%
358	Phil Phythian	Mill Valley, CA	9132	31:30:00	10:09	M 75-79/3	M-76	198	31:35:00	61.25%
398	Margie Forman	Novato, CA	9138	33:04:00	10:39	F 55-59/8	F-56	187	33:12:00	55.32%