I have a couple concerns about limiting entries.
Mainly I (and I am sure I am not alone) have a 2 hour drive each way to
Candlestick. This means that if I run in the afternoon I'm still leaving the
house no later than 9:00AM to arrive with enough time to comfortably register,
tech, and change tires before 12:00. Saturday was a 14+ hour day for me (leave
9:00 AM, Arrive 11:00A, Run (8th group), Dinner, Home ~11:00 PM). My concern
is that SFR would turn in to DeAnza, and I'd have to leave home at 5 AM for
every event.
The other point is that I am not convinced that limiting entries is the best
solution to the problem. After running some numbers in a spreadsheet, it looks
like the key is course design, and keeping a proper overlap. Here are the
numbers I ran:
300 entrants, 4.5 runs/entrant (take care of re-runs and red flags), 5 minutes
between groups, 30 minutes for lunch/mid day course walk. 9:00 start. With a
20 second overlap, you are done at 5:30. a 25 second overlap adds almost two
hours, and you get out at 7:22. If you can shorten the overlap to 15 seconds,
you are finished at 3:37, and have plenty of time for fun runs.
Doug
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Doug Gentges
dgentges@mindspring.com
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