I loved running track in my time. Watching my kids now is terrible. This sport needs to be updated. Even baseball was able to limit crotch adjusting to move things along. Any ideas?
I loved running track in my time. Watching my kids now is terrible. This sport needs to be updated. Even baseball was able to limit crotch adjusting to move things along. Any ideas?
Run every event at once
but watch out
Have to chuckle at your post. I've been going to my kids' high school and college indoor meets for the past twelve years and at pretty much every one, towards the end when they're running what seems like the 79th heat of the women's/girls' 200 with 20 more to follow and then 91 more men's/boys' heats to follow, I think exactly what you're thinking. I also think that when for some inexplicable reason people stand at the starting line for 10 minutes before the race actually starts. I've told people that if they want to experience what eternity feels like that it's like watching the 200 meters at an indoor track meet but shorter.
But the thing about high school meets and even most college meets is that they are designed for participants, not spectators. So if you have hundreds of people wanting to run the 200, you have dozens and dozens of heats so they can. If someone wants to watch a meet where that happens they can do it. But I don't think you can expect the meet to be organized for your convenience and viewing pleasure. But pro meets are different and need to be run efficiently without stretches of time when spectators are looking an empty track or endless heats of a particular event.
Watching great performances is still very entertaining. Maybe your kids just aren't very good?
are your kids good? wrote:
Watching great performances is still very entertaining. Maybe your kids just aren't very good?
Yes, great performances are always very entertaining. But they rarely come in the 4th heat of the 800 or the 6th heat of the hurdles. Even if his kids are turning in great performances he still needs to spend a lot of time watching far from great ones.
Confirms that T&F is the #1 Sport in the World
HRE wrote:
are your kids good? wrote:
Watching great performances is still very entertaining. Maybe your kids just aren't very good?
Yes, great performances are always very entertaining. But they rarely come in the 4th heat of the 800 or the 6th heat of the hurdles. Even if his kids are turning in great performances he still needs to spend a lot of time watching far from great ones.
Why do you have to watch all the other races?
The Sport is #1 in the World wrote:
Confirms that T&F is the #1 Sport in the World
Its brutal, worse then my torture in captivity cuz my hemorroids act up even when I remember to bring a seat cushion.
Go for a run. Even though track meets aren't know to stick to a ridge time schedule you can usually get it within an hour. That means you can go for a run, cool off, grab a coffee, some lunch, go back watch a kid run for 2 min, then go do something else until the next event.
That being said, I do remember showing up to meets at 10am, and not racing until late in the evening. It sucked.
I agree it’s about the participants, but this is worse for the participants than it is for the spectator. To say that the meet starts at 11am, and you are running the two mile, so try to gauge when that might be, is ridiculous.
Also, too much standing around between heats. We are no longer timing with volunteers and stopwatches.
As for getting a run in during the meet or going to get a coffee, these are good ways to mitigate the pain, but being stuck in another town all day is limiting.
Some of my recommendations are as follows :
1. Combine slower heats of the mile and two mile, even if it means combing boys and girls
2. Consider separate meets for boys and girls so neither gender has to wait for the 11 heats of the other. The total time may be the same, but the athletes can more predictably gauge their start times.
3. There should never be multiple heats with 2 or 3 athletes in it. Combine the heats.
4. Consider separate distance and sprint meets. Give ample time for rest for those doubling and it will still be far less time than 7 hours between a 4x800 and a two mile.
are your kids good? wrote:
HRE wrote:
Yes, great performances are always very entertaining. But they rarely come in the 4th heat of the 800 or the 6th heat of the hurdles. Even if his kids are turning in great performances he still needs to spend a lot of time watching far from great ones.
Why do you have to watch all the other races?
Maybe you don't. But what if he has more than one kid running? Or what if his kid is running, say the mile, which comes early in meets around here, and also a leg of the 4 x 8 or 4 x 4, which is at the end? He still could leave and come back I suppose, but often there's not many other places to go.
I also think that the idea that long meets like this is bad for the sport is wrong. Track is a sport where even at the professional level many if not most of the spectators are former or current athletes themselves, Olympics exempted. So those hundreds of people slowing up that indoor meet are going to be the people buying Millrose Games tickets in the future.
How were the concessions?
Like watching the grass grow wrote:
I loved running track in my time. Watching my kids now is terrible. This sport needs to be updated. Even baseball was able to limit crotch adjusting to move things along. Any ideas?
My wife recently gave birth. Many family members have been like, "Robert, you were a runner, I bet you are hoping he's a runner." I'm like, "I hope not. Sport is way too boring and long. I hope he's good at soccer or baseball or something"
Concessions were terrible and typical. Gummy Fruit Snacks, Gatorade, piles of pizza boxes with lukewarm pizza, and various Halloween type candies.
A food truck at these events might make a pretty penny come to think of it.
Rojo, you are wise beyond your years. Basketball is the best kid sport to watch though. Exciting at any age. Over quickly. Decent seating (rather than sitting on the floor at the second turn). I love basketball games and I’m not a basketball fan. Also have to watch soccer, which is interesting, but outdoors in the fall for a tournament in most parts of the country can be miserable.
Xc has also been easy. In and out without a hassle. Races only last 1630 :)
I’ve been track meets with 3 heats of the 10k and the first heat is the only one with someone under 32 minutes.
On a different note, the best track meet I’ve ever been to had like 30 heats of the 4x100. It was awesome because at least 70% of the heats had someone fell really hard. It was the best track meet I’ve ever watched. Never laughed so hard for so long.
I’m flashing back to my own HS indoor meets as I read this thread. Everything said in here about how long and terrible they are for athletes and spectators alike rings true in my memory. I still remember the feeling of sitting on the track for hours, nervously trying to plan warmups around an infinite number of heats. Even small-time college meets were like this.
The only way I can think of to avoid this is to just get rid of indoor or make every meet a limited-entry (and limited team count) affair. Neither of these is practical, so I guess HS and low-key college indoor meets will always suck.
How many heats of the 200? That is the slowest, dullest event at big meets.
The all day invites were the worst. We were at a meet for over 12 hours and that was the last straw. During that meet I got the idea that we would have our schedule where one invite we would only compete in the first half then leave, the next invite we would arrive for the second half and compete in the later events.
Cut our meet days in 1/2. Plenty of events/races even if you only compete in 1/2 the meet.
Which was your fav event 2 watch. Is it the 300 IH