BU Valentine Entry Troubles

I like the idea of counting strikes, but if a runner has run the event this season that should be their seed time.

When I raced at BU in college, they just simply only took a certain amount of people for the distance races. They could limit and verify times, and then take a certain number of others with unverified times but some type of race record for that indoor season that could justify a slightly faster time.

People have put speculative/predictive seed times in for forever. And there are good reasons for it—old PR that doesn’t represent current fitness, etc. That isn’t a problem itself—direct athletics has a seed time plus a spot to put a blurb in to explain. I’m a normal meet the meet director can look and seed people appropriately.

The problem is that BU’s track is one of a kind so EVERYONE wants to be there and given the limited shots out of towners have on the track, they want to be in a good heat so they juice the seed times a bit more than usual. So there an exponentially more seed times to assess and the times are extra big. It’s a huge time suck to go through the usual process of assessing runners to place them in appropriate heat. BU needs to either just go with actual PRs and strike anyone who lies about their PR or limit entries to a number they can do the normal process with. Lots of meets do one or the other or both. Not sure why BU doesn’t.

Are these ALL indoor Mile times, or outdoor 1500m converted times?

The irony of the BU coach on Twitter complaining about people lying about their mile times, while he puts BU athletes well ahead of their PRs

Lol that was pretty funny, but honestly the BU coach is super fair for a high level meet director.

The seeding BS in Europe is a million times worse, local athletes regularly bump guys who are way faster out of meets (not just into a lower heat). I think it’s fine that he can seed his guys ~1.5s fast at their own meet when we consider how much BU does for every single other college runner.

It’s their meet. If they want to put their runners in better heats I don’t have a problem with that

Lost respect for the BU coach with his meet management and that tweet. Make it so only verified marks count. Direct athletics has an option for that, it's easy.

To blame his poor meet management on coaches for an issue that he created is foolish.

What about 1500/Mile conversions and pros/club athletes who aren’t on Tfrrs?

Oregon is the worst in the nation at this. But it’s Oregon so meet directors bend the knee.

Thats fine, but why is he on twitter complaining about people doing the same exact thing he is doing.

You are right, this is Carpenter's fault. That tweet was disrespectful. The reason coaches are making up times is because he incentivized them to do so.

The proof is that he lies about times more than anyone else.

Nope. BU director calling it out is what’s needed. Amazing how so many qualifying times land perfectly on .00

This is a problem for some, since they seemingly knocked back some athletes to their real PR’s, but left others at their overseeded times. I bet we will see some really weird heats this weekend. With some 4:15 runners seeded at 4:07 and then actual 4:07 runners being in the same heat as them. They f’ed up by only moving some athletes from the 3:55-4:05 seeds back and letting all the 4:05+ overseers stay.

Some sort of fine.

3 or more athletes that do not run their seed time is a one year suspension from all BU meets for the team.

Point blank: this is an issue of mismanagement of the Boston indoor track facilities/community as a whole (particularly: Reggie Lewis, Harvard, BU, and NBTrack(new to the scene).

Reality: high demand exists for high-level indoor racing year-after-year + 4 world-class indoor tracks within a ~3 mile radius (RLC, Harvard, BU, NBTrack) = and yet meets like this get wildly over-subscribed every year.

I like the $1 penalty per second idea (obviously scaled for various distances ie. say, $1 per 0.01 sec for 200m, $0.50 per 2 seconds in the 5000m).

Also: have more meets. BU is pretty good at this as they've been booked every weekend lately. But where'd the mini-meets go this winter? Why not have weekday meets where local teams could compete (I remember running high-level early season quad-meets at BU while in college)? Harvard/RLC/The TRACK - maybe these facilities could consider holding more meets?

Does anyone understand the economics of holding these meets? The revenue is apparent (participants per event * entry fee) but what are the costs? If money is not the issue, is it just these directors/facilities playing the pretentious gatekeeper-role?

I though DFV/Gill was building a facility in Brockton? That would take a lot of the southeastern high school track volume out of the equation... and probably be better for the kids/parents too...

Also: WHY IS NO ONE ELSE BUILDING AN ASYMMETRICAL PLYWOOD TRACK!? Harvard has the funds. So do others. Instead we get these hydraulic tracks that aren’t actually fast. Increase supply and demand will even put.

geoffreyburns.com

It pays be to be compliant: the physics of indoor track and “optimal” surfaces — GB

Geoff Burns

45 years ago, a young lad hailing from a southern suburb of Dublin ripped around the interior of Madison Square Garden 11 times. By doing so faster than six other gentlemen making the same prestigious rounds, he was crowned c...

Link:www.geoffreyburns.com/stream/it-pays-b...

The pro teams the worst offenders. NB Boston’s 1:58.00 for Schoffield in the women’s 800? She has an outdoor PB of 1:59.8 and indoor PB of 2:05.

Puma Elite entries just ridiculous. Too many to even write down. Didn’t realize they had three women all run 15:00.0000 in the 5k recently.

In this day an age, there should be a fine for misreporting times. I’m 100% ok with the host meetings placing athletes in top heats at their discretion. After all, it’s their meet and can do what they want, but the coaches lying is just getting tiresome.

He is the biggest culprit. Literally all of his athletes are entered much faster than their actual time. He needs to shut up and do his job better.

All of these coaches are paying big money to attend this meet and he insults them publicly on twitter for playing by the rules that he himself made?