BU mini meet S-Show

Hey Webster Ave, speak for yourself. Just because they run a slower time doesn't mean they don't care about their time. I live with a woman who was in the third heat who was pretty pissed to have her time reported over a minute slower than she ran.

I realize that we should all be happy to have a facility like this to run in. I really was happy to get indoors on Sunday and be dry and warm. But the fact is they messed up the lap counting and timing of that last heat. This is a heat that had many younger runners who probably were not familiar with running a 3k indoors. Laps were miscounted for the first runner (who actually ran another lap because he knew the officials had miscounted) by those officiating the race which led to some other younger runners running only 14 laps. This led to total confusion timing wise.

This was really unfortunate. I hope next time they give the same attention and care to the third heat as they do to the first heat.

Chris,

I meant no disrespect about mentioning the third heat. Sorry if it came of that way. I was only pointing out that a bit of gratitude is probably due and that these types of things can happen in Mini Meets the day after Christmas. It was probably tough to get enough people willing to work the meet.

I had the same thing happen in a road race a few years back, had timed it myself and made sure the results were corrected before posting on cool-running.

I wasn't going to post again, but this one got me back. There were 3 of us volunteers trying to keep track of the more than 10 people who started that heat. With the lapping, double-lapping, and triple-lapping, it became increasingly difficult to tell three people, all approaching the finishing line at the same time, how many laps each person had left (red singlet, 2 laps! green singlet, 3 laps! tall guy. . umm. . also 3 laps? etc). Yes, some of the younger runners stopped early because they thought we meant them when we told someone else one lap to go. However, it's not that we didn't care about the runners in the 3rd heat. The first heat saw Barnicle and Jenkins lap 3rd place, and that was it. We had to keep track of Barnicle (easy!), Jenkins, (no sweat!) and a big pack of guys running between 8:45-9:05, which didn't even really split up until the last 600. It's much easier to do that than it is to keep track of about 10 relatively spaced out athletes who might be finishing up to 2 minutes back from the lead. Again, I'm sorry I didn't do a better job, but it had nothing to do with not caring about runners in the 3rd heat, and everything to do with the practical difficulties in keeping runners who might be running 11:30 separate from those running 12:20. A few more experienced volunteers would have been awesome, but between school vacation and the impending storm, not a lot of the usual suspects were able to make it into Boston. We did our best, which unfortunately wasn't good enough for the athletes in the 3rd heat. However, we didn't mean to appear uncaring or sloppy. Apologies again for an unfortunate mistake.

I was put of town and was bummed to miss this meet. After reading this, I'm still bummed. There are hardly anyeets like this anywhere else and people gripe about it?? They postponed an NFL football game...bu still runs the meet and people complain about it?

It must be a tough life. Santa must not have brought some of these posters all the toys they wanted.

[quote]CMahoney wrote:

Hey Webster Ave, speak for yourself. Just because they run a slower time doesn't mean they don't care about their time. I live with a woman who was in the third heat who was pretty pissed to have her time reported over a minute slower than she ran.

Again, sorry. After I thought about it, that was a pretty stupid thing to imply that someone in the third heat should be given less attention.

No worries Webster Ave.

Craig, Sorry to sound so harsh. I know you guys are out there trying to put on a good meet for everyone. I just thought it was disappointing for those in the third heat. Now that I know that volunteers were in short supply it makes sense. If I had known I would have volunteered to help count laps for that heat. Sorry, again for coming off so harsh. It truly is a great thing to have these meets.

CMahoney wrote:

Hey Webster Ave, speak for yourself. Just because they run a slower time doesn't mean they don't care about their time. I live with a woman who was in the third heat who was pretty pissed to have her time reported over a minute slower than she ran.

Were you there? Did you count her laps? Did she go up to the booth and ask why her time was incorrect? Sounds to me like sour grapes....

I'm sorry but if you aren't aware enough of your own pacing and your expected finish time in a race that you end up running the wrong number of laps then your time doesn't matter. If they cared they would have realized finished 45 to 60 seconds early and would have run another.

Yes, Yes, and times are not posted till well after the meet.

CMahoney wrote:

Yes, Yes, and times are not posted till well after the meet.

I will bet if you contact the coaches there, they will make the correction and repost to coolrunning....The posting did say :

Section 3

this third heat likely has errors

it's a friggin developmental meet

Good job to all!

lksdre wrote:

it's a friggin developmental meet

Good job to all!

FYI- Bruce, Steve, and the other timing guy (sorry, dont know his name) were still there at 4pm doing their best to correct the results. They care about everyone who participates.

For those people to pay 10 bucks and not even get an accurate time deserve their money back. Its basically having them throw their money at a D1 Program that goes no where, probably not what they want to do with it.

it's a developmental meet at one of the best tracks around.... hard for BU mini meet 2 to manage with only a couple of people, but in some ways that's not surprising as the meet

1.took place the day after Christmas

2. took place on a day the Governor of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency because of blizzard (by Noon)

These mini meets are developmental meets for when the real action begins. You want to race? there's one more mini meet next Sunday on 1/2, then mark your calendars for these meets...

1/23 GBTC Invitational @ Harvard

1/29 Terrier Classic @ BU

2/12 Valentine Invite @ BU

2/20 USATF New England Championship @ Harvard

& plenty of others can be found on directathletics.com as well as the USATF-NE website

Chokay wrote:

For those people to pay 10 bucks and not even get an accurate time deserve their money back. Its basically having them throw their money at a D1 Program that goes no where, probably not what they want to do with it.

reminds me of just one time that I've run a road race and been directed the wrong way, only happened 1x, and i did get my money back. i really felt bad for the meet staff though, they were just some people collecting registration fees for charity and at 2.5miles happen to have like an 8 yr old volunteer point me in the wrong direction

Just curious, is there a time limit for entries at Terrier Classic and Valentine Invite? I only ask because it seems a number of slower runners come to these BU mini meets but then dont compete at meets like Terrier or Valentines perhaps because they may be intimidated by how good the fields stack up.

I can't comment on this meet, but I went to the one on 12/18 and it was run really well. I heard some people complain about the lack of food/water (even though you can bring your own/there are multiple water fountains within the facility) but I still thought it was a great opportunity to race against good competition on a fantastic track. I really hope these meets continue to be available in the future.

Let me guess: Your team qualified for baby nationals. Congrats!

Rofl