The point of the special rules was to get everyone to finish at about the same time, making for better opportunities for course analysis discussions, award ceremony, fewer people lingering late in the woods. The carrot: prizes to those with the latest start time. The stick: everyone who misses the deadline is disqualified.

The predicted finish line crunch at the 1:00 deadline never happened. Of the 70 participants who were not deterred by day's steady, warm rain, only a handful were paying attention to the special competition, and they finished in a spread which began at about 12:45 and it's hard to say when it ended.

When the awards ceremony was called at about ten past one, a dozen or so orienteers gathered. As I looked around for potential winners, it was evident that not many of those present had finished the courses specified for their age group. The first award went to Ceire Fleming, who put off her start on the White course until just 24 minutes before the deadline, making her easily the most effective procrastinator of the day. She received a Nalgene water bottle and a bar of Swiss chocolate. The next award was for M-Open (the Red course), a similar bottle and bar to Doug Martin. He crossed the finish line with 8 minutes to spare, asking on the spot whether he had met the deadline.

After that award I looked around for more winners, almost in vain. But there was Terry Keegan, the only one at the ceremony who had completed the Green course in time, and furthermore he is known to be over 45. He was surprised to be designated the winner, accepting a bar of Lindt chocolate and choosing a strange pen.

Sitting at my desk I find the awards ceremony missed two more winners. Samantha Saeger was the only woman to complete the Red course by the deadline. She missed the awards as a result of turning around and running Orange right after Red. Bill Pullman (M45 Green) finished with plenty of time to spare and was not present for the awards. To emphasize the importance of hanging around, I deem Terry to fully merit an M45 Green award. However, I will save two of the remaining awards and pass them on to Samantha and Bill in the future.

It was fun, but was Procrastinate-O a success? No, too few gave it much thought. The competition could have been more organized. Nice weather would have helped the event. Aims Coney was on the mark when he said that most people were intrigued but thought the competition involved too much luck. They preferred to focus on the regular event.

Thanks to Ed Tulloch for managing starts for the entire time, and to Jim Paschetto for handling finishes and picking up controls until the last participant came out of the woods. Philip Turner set and unset the White controls, among many duties. Stephen van Ness helped at the 1:00 crunch time, and Aims Coney volunteered his waterproof canopy, perfect for the conditions.

In each of the following categories, those who finished within the deadline are listed in reverse order of start time.

* would have started later except for another commitment. Overshot his personal time estimate by 8 minutes.

One race, scored two different ways, two sets of results. Below are the results of the same event, ranked in order of time in the woods.