Street Meet: Did AnyOne Go?

I did and had a great time. I got Usain Bolt's autograph so that made my day early on. There were a lot of non-runners there checking things out which was good to see. They let you spray paint on fence so check out my tag.

-Mango

i enjoyed it. watching the boat race come in was pretty cool too. not enough free stuff though..

icanmakemynameobnoxiouslylong wrote:

watching the boat race come in was pretty cool

Boat race? I thought we were talking about the PUMA Street Meet, not an ultimate tournament after-party!?!

The races were cool. The guys 1k was great...Abdi took it out the first few laps, Brett Johnson hammered the last lap, but Andrews got him at the line. And in the relays, the team made up from the fastest people "off the street" (determined by the other races during the day) actually beat St. Jago (Jamaica) and the other US team. Plus I got to meet Bolt. So, yeah, it went well.

does anyone have any times at all?

why haven't results been posted yet?

The results were all about how you finished, not really about times. The turns in the course were the real challenge. The runners would have to re-accelerate 5 times per lap. This was very entertaining to watch. The best acceleration when you were tired (in the "street k") won the race.

The high school age boys field for the street k was pretty well stacked. I think the slowest guy in the field was a 4:15 local Mass. high school kid.

It was a great time. The only thing I would like to see next year is for the location to change to the South End of Boston. I think that area of Boston is fairly unique to house both a good number of upper-middle class professionals and lots of people occupying the subsidized housing. The place that they usually have the SOWA market is really just an empty parking lot. That place could work well. Any other suggestions for location change?

wesmantooth wrote:

does anyone have any times at all?

why haven't results been posted yet?

The Street Meet definitely isn't about times. I couldn't believe the course when I first saw it. Hairpin turns on a parking lot. The racing reminded me most of short track speed skating.

I see dyestat has something up on it:

I'm glad I went up for it. I applaud Matt Taylor for trying to do something new with the sport. The street meet was held next to the Volvo Yacht Race (not sure of the official name). After seeing how many people will come out for a yacht race, it's clear our sport needs to do more to entertain people and this was a good first start.

People are obsessed with Usain Bolt. At one point I saw a crowd by the porta john. Then I figured out what had happened- Usain was in there.

I definitely like seeing people try new things like this also. It was a fun way to spend a couple hours on a nice day. That being said, if getting into the event had cost more than $2 I probably would have: not paid, or paid and felt a little gipped. It had that feeling of an event mostly run by volunteers that showed up that morning (which it was, and that didn't cause any problems, but it decreased the 'value') and I thought the biggest problem is there wasn't really enough to do. Maybe it's my fault for not reading the schedule more closely, but I showed up close to when it said things were starting (1pm), took one look at the situation and walked the 20 minutes to DT boston to spend a few hours. I got back at 4ish, did all the little races/games they had set up (which were enjoyable), and then watched the invite races at 4:30. The boys 1k was a good race, the girls 1k where the two Jamaican girls finished wayyyy behind had that feeling of, something went wrong in planning. The relays were fun, but just about too goofy for their own good, even for this whole 'spirit of jamaica' thing.

I'm sure Matt didn't want it to feel like a huge marketing deal for Puma, but I wouldn't have minded maybe someone there talking about spikes or shoes or some non-Bolt athletes there just to chat with people. I don't know, there needed to be something else to do, and I would have been ok with even some corporate marketing.

Re: alternative track events like this in general, I think the level of success this one had was based heavily (if not solely) on Bolt actually being there. He _was_ this event for probably 80% of the people there. I don't think too many people would have just showed up to watch people run around a parking lot and buy t-shirts w/o him there. Not to say that means this meet was bad or unsuccessful, it did what it was designed to do. But I do think there's a larger, more consistent demographic that can be attracted to events in the same vein if the attraction is the event itself, not a person. It's hard even for me to say "let's ditch this method that clearly showed a decent level of success in attracting fans," but I really think there's something out there that can do even better, and even get people to pay for it.

Say, for example, some 3rd party (not a shoe co.) hosts an event at a track. They bring in Nike, Adidas, Puma, Flotrack, RunnersWorld etc to set up booths. Those companies bring in some athletes and personalities (I'd spend 10 minutes talking to the flotrack guys if they were just there hanging out). The meet could have some side-attractions along the same lines as the speed trap at the Street meet, and a few other little things that keep people's interest over the course of a few hours.

Then on the track, setup an all-inclusive race that people are actually there to do. So a "real" race, but still just for fun. Running around in my cargo shorts racing a kid in sketchers definitely met the off-the-cuff feeling the Street Meet was going for, but personally I would much prefer an event where I can actually get into the race a little bit and lace up my spikes. Maybe I'm just too competitive or too big of a track nerd, but I think more people would be attracted to that kind of thing. I'm coming to that conclusion based on how other 'sports for everyone' things work; flag football or adult softball leagues are fun, but they pit friends against each other and have a certain level of competitiveness. I don't think those would be as prolific as they are if they were "street" like this puma meet was.

My idea for a good track event that's different and people can have fun with is like a last man standing type of thing. Every lap. who ever crosses the line last gets pulled. Each race would be different and engaging because the runners are dictating strategy, and the strategy is unlike any normal track event. That obviously caters mainly to distancy runners, so to get sprint types, multisport HS athletes, younger kids etc, a similar event could be done as a shuttle. And at the end of the night there could be a couple seeded heats with the local HS talent, or maybe some bigger names. But even if there are no huge names, I think there's still a very real attraction to seeing 10 or 12 sub 4:15 anybodies actually putting a real effort into some sort of unusual race. In this kind of event, each part builds onto the others, whereas the Puma meet was just kind of like show-and-tell Usain Bolt, and there was some other stuff going on.

Nice suggestion, actually. I was there as well - and Puma did a great job organizing it. I arrived at 1:00 p.m. as well, and by 4:30 was ready for some real action.

All in all, though - it was a great concept, and it was nice to see so many kids getting involved. I missed seeing some people that I had hoped to, but it was still a fun day of running.

wejo wrote:

I'm glad I went up for it. I applaud Matt Taylor for trying to do something new with the sport. The street meet was held next to the Volvo Yacht Race (not sure of the official name). After seeing how many people will come out for a yacht race, it's clear our sport needs to do more to entertain people and this was a good first start.

That yacht race is actually the Volvo Ocean Race, and Puma is the title sponsor for one of the boats so I'm sure the timing wasn't coincidence. The Volvo Ocean Race is something akin to World XC's or a major marathon. It's a huge deal in the sailing community, but not quite the biggest deal. So don't let it get you down if there was a bigger crowd for that race than the average college track meet.

did this meet strike anyone as...um ghetto?

Where'd you get that from? I was there all day and never got that feeling. You must not get out much. It was random off the cuff racing with the people who were at hand. That was a good mix of city kids and others who came in from the suburbs. A little view of Jamaican lifestyle is good.

The part I liked best was watching the young kids that were inspired to race against the Bolt machine or run through the speed trap. I could see developing some grass roots programs that could run at low cost with just those two machines. That might get some kids to say "Hey, I'm fast and I'm going to keep running!"

For some reason I had thought that this "street meet" was going to be actual surface track/mondo layed down on a street. You mean to tel me that they were just literally running through a parking lot racing on concrete?

Hmm... my knees would not have been too happy with that.

For a first ever event, it seemed like a big success and had a bunch of fresh ideas. Here are a few photos/videos from it.

http://www.runnerspace.com/PumaStreetMeet

it was pretty cool