Clermont 2009 PowerPoint presentation online here
Meet organizer Don DeDoon today sent me this PowerPoint file outlining Clermont’s bid for the 2009 USATF National Masters Outdoor Championships. (It was shown at Indy.) The Florida home of the National Training Center beat a SoCal bid in voting a few weeks ago. The presentation file is a monster — 3.7 megabites — so don’t bother downloading if you’re on a dial-up connection. The most obvious thing from the slide show is: BYOS — bring your own shade. There ain’t none. No trees in sight. I’ve sent Don some quickie questions on how the meet will handle the heat, and he’ll get back to me when time allows. (We’re all swamped at this time of year.) Just hope they don’t swamp 2009 entrants the way they did at Charlotte.
6 Responses
Hum – 2009 – I will be at the top of my age group – maybe a good year to sit out the National Masters – there is the WMA meet in Finland and the World Masters Games in Australia – cannot do them all that is for sure. And I might want to keep my record of not having been to Florida since 1958!
Unless the schedule eliminates the heat of the day as competition time, this meet may not be on my schedule. I am not planning on spending the summer in the south acclimating to heat and humidity. Others may find the heat and humidity of Florida to their liking, but it does not work for me.
Just my opinion
Hmm. “Bring your own shade” and he will get back to you when time allows reference the heat. That makes me really want to spend $4,000 for a hot humid week in Florida in August. How about if we have nationals right here in Phoenix during the first week of August. I guarantee you that it would be better conditons than Florida or Charlotte. And we already have stadium lights.
According to what the Masters Committee was told in Indy, the shade will come from a large number of tents of all sizes (something that was conspicuous by its absence in Orlando in ’99). Again, the committee was also told that putting in lights to hold sessions in the evening is anticipated, although that decision is up to the Games Committee, not the local organizers.
Let’s give Don DeNoon a break. He’s a serious masters competitor for many years (hall of famer!!) and has the best interests of the athletes at heart. He was very clearly serious about using the facility at Clermont (where he is the director and has control) to provide a quality experience for us as masters athletes. Commitment to a good meet for the athletes is unquestioned.
As I’ve said elsewhere, neither of the bids this year was perfect, but Clermont was clearly the better of the two and as a result won a clear victory in the voting. If you don’t like warm weather sites in summer, get out there and help find sites in places you like. Stop complaining and become part of the solution!!
Call it complaining if you like, I think that the “comments” refer to past experience in normally hot climates where the LOC and meet directors did not take into account that evenings are cooler “even” in the south. Had that been the case then a lot of the “complaints” would not have been made. An exception should be made for the experience in Charlotte where the meet director simply ignored the situation and had to be forced to postpone events until the evening one night and then failed to provide sufficient shade, electrolytes for officials etc.
I am not “complaining” I am simply stating a fact that as a northerner who does not have the opportunity to acclimate to high heat and humidity, a middle distance competitor and as one who is getting older as well, I will look carefully at the schedule before making a decision about a meet held in Florida or any other geographical location that has normally high temperatures in August.
I will also point out that at the WMA meet in Puerto Rico in 2003, the event managers took great care to schedule middle and long distance events in the cool of the day – be it early in the morning or the evening. They even had a wading pool filled with ice water at track side as well as medical staff on hand to treat anyone who showed signs of physical stress from the heat and humidity,
The older age groups in the x-c, the 10k and the 5k where scheduled to run their events either very early in the morning or in the evening when the sun had set. The marathon was held very early in the morning. The LOC expected heat and humidity to be an issue and took actions to schedule events accordingly.
It is understandable that some of us are wary of another southern meet and a director who will “get back to us” about shade. Of course we need to be patient and see what provisions are made. The comments or complaints – if you perfer – are being made by some of us who experienced Charlotte and want to make sure it does not happen again.
I am one who comments – complains – all the time about poor lap counting in the distant events. I do so in hopes that those of us who are victimized by this lack of adherence to the rules (lap counters must write down the split times of each competitor) will not have to experience this in meet after meet. Unless attention is called to the problem, it is ignored. It is my hope that by bringing it up repeatedly that those in charge of meets will make sure that the lap counting is done properly.
My “complaint” about making adjustments in the schedule to avoid the heat of the day is made with the same hope. Having no power or authority to whistle up a meet in my backyard I do not see how I can be part of the solution. Calling us complainers is not a solution either.
I ran clermont two years
ago, and told myself that I
would not go back. why?
1. heat-the temperature was in the 100’s, because of the bowl like setting of the track. my bottled water was starting to boil at the end of the day.
2. parking- you have to drive down an “Oklahoma” red dirt road to a limited parking area.
3.bugs- I was swatting at them up to the point of
“runners take your mark”.
4. toilets-only port-a-johnnies.
I like the heat and humidity being from kansas
and charlotte did not bother me. but, clermont
with the bugs and that type of heat?
so,you have been warned!
I will be there only, due to the nationals.
Regardless of how prepared Clermont is for the conditions, the meet in Charlotte put a lot of doubts in athletes minds about future meets in that region. Personally, I flew a family of four from Phoenix to Charlotte and took a week off from work. and then I find out that we are given two warm up throws and four throws with no finals because of the number of heat related mishaps that happened the first day. When I asked a high rannking official why we could not have thrown that night (Saturday) and take all six throws, the reply was that the dinner for the officials was more important.
So, will I fly coast to coast to possibly endure the same thing again? No way.
I had great experiences at the prior three nationals going back to Eugene, but the ball was dropped at Charlotte.
I hope the meet is a big success for the sake of the masters athletes, but I won’t spend my paycheck to find out, and the feeling from other throwers here in the Phoenix area is that they won’t either.
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