"Neither rain, nor snow, nor ...." Well we didn't have the snow, but we surely had the rain, and thunder, and lightening, and even some sunshine came along to brighten things up.

The skills workshop started the morning under threatening skies and occasional drizzle. About 20 people came out to participate in the map reading, pacing and compass clinics put on by Kathy Bannister & Jim Tappon. Later they had a chance to participate in a Line-0 and a Memory-0 designed by Rick Lavine and Kathy Bannister.

Later we had 49 starters - mostly on the longer and advanced courses. The weather and first e-punching likely had something to do with that.

Starters on courses: White - 4, Yellow - 8, Orange - 12, Green - 11, Red - 15.

Dayle set courses on the long side to let everyone get warmed up for the Rogaine next weekend. Given the rain and wet ground, most of us felt that it was a good thing that *most* of the course was actually flat. Of course, that meant that the 180-200 m of climb on Green and Red came all at once (well actually twice but it sounds better and makes a better story all at once!). The most fun of course was coming DOWN the hills in the rain. The hills at Letchworth have a fine silt soil that has the traction of wet ice in the rain! And when the rain came - it really came. Very heavy downpours and an occasional burst of thunder got everyone's attention. The one that turned off the PC tracking results really got the attention of those running the start/finish!! Fortunately, (barely) enough backup was in place to recover the results for the non e-punching crowd.

Everyone survived and made it back to the finish. Ravi tried to loose a shoe (yes Ravi, the marsh was mapped and just because it looks green doesn't mean it isn't MUD) but managed to find it and still finish with a respectable time.

E-punching drew a number of visitors to the meet. CSU was represented by Ross Sith and Suzanne Armstrong. Ross ran an exceptional time on the Red course, but had his finger covering a control, so he ran past #10 - ran only about 20 m away from it!! Oh well, it means that Suzanne DID beat him today, and took second overall on Red. AOK sent us Scott Pleban and Michelle Barnes, and both took a first place, Scott on Red and Michelle on Orange, and took part in most of the skills workshop exercises as well.

Buffalo was represented by Jackie Novkov, Lincoln Blaisdell and Gary Maslanka who faired well in their races. For a first try, e-punching was rather successful. No major problems (some minor ones), and the electronic timing of the manual punching runners showed promise (although the power glitch prevented using it for results generation).

Course Setter: Dayle Lavine

 White 2.5 km
 Place Name                                  Time
 1 Matt Frame & Mike Carnahan               42:12
 2 Jennifer Cumbo & John Kowalczyk            42:53
 3 Vikram Vijay & Alex Jospe                  48:18
 4 Andrew Turnquist & Kevin Brayton           51:36

 Yellow 2.75 km
 Place Name                                  Time
 1 Paul Navik                                32:14
 2  Jenna Colquitt                           37:58
 3 Kerstin Gunter                            39:55
 4 Susan Davis                               44:00
 5 John Kowalczyk& Jennifer Cumbo           1:13:00
 6 Lee Doohan                               1:26:00
 7 Jennifer Strohmeyer &Zag & Amanda          DNF
 8 Vikram Vijay                               DNF

Orange 3.1 km
 Place Name                                  Time
 1 Michelle Barnes                            49:20
 2 Daniel Burge                             1:04:09
 3 Lincoln Blaisdell                        1:24:32
 4 Bob Williams, Barbara Crole, 
Stephan Wolford, Debra Wolford              1:24:59
 5 Mark Haydanek, Sara Haydanek             1:28:54
 6 Chad Putnam                              1:35:00
 7 Susan Davis                              1:36:00
 8 Penni Orlando , Liam & Ruari             1:48:41
 9 Colla Orlando                            1:49:34
10 Kell Orlando                             1:50:34
11 Rob Phipps, Jonathan Phipps              3:00:06
12 N. Bielmeier, Douglas Bielmeier, Christie 
Bielmeier, Suzanne Bielmeier                3:23:00

 Green 6.5 km
 Place Name                                  Time
 1 Doug Brooks                              1:43:12
 2 Rick Slattery                            1:46:39
 3 Jackie Novkov                            1:48:26
 4 Jim Russell                              1:49:55
 5 Eric Barbehenn                           1:50:31
 6 Rob Grant, Tony Messana, 
Jeremy Deming                               1:57:06
 7 Ravi Nareppa                             2:07:51
 8 Larry Colquitt                           2:14:50
 9 Bob Bundy                                2:16:51
10 Archana Hedge, Kiran Hegde               2:40:35
11 Parette Barella                            DSQ

 Red 7.5 km
 Place Name                                  Time
 1 Scott Pleban                             1:01:18
 2 Suzanne Armstrong                        1:14:01
 3 Sergey Dobretsov                         1:19:17
 4 Pavel Korniliev                          1:20:08
 5 Chris Colquitt                           1:26:24
 6 Jim Tappon                               1:46:47
 7 John Lam                                 1:55:54
 9 Alex Jospe                               2:12:59
10 Joel Shore                               2:19:27
11 Ken Masker                               2:27:51
12 Shawn Gardner, Darwin Gardner            3:12:49
13 Jack Wallenhorst                         3:32:40
14 Ross Smith                                DSQ
15 Gary Maslanka                             DSQ