Detailed schedule for Winston-Salem indoor nationals being shared
USATF has received the “final schedule” for indoor nationals. As of 1:20 p.m. Pacific, it’s not yet posted, but I was sent a copy by Masters Mole 121127. See the sked here. Keep in mind that this isn’t official until posted on the meet page. The meet in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is a rare back-to-back affair, since outdoor nationals were held there last year — at Wake Forest University. Lemme know if you spot any problems with this schedule. Hope y’all have a good time! (Here’s more info on JDL Fast Track venue.)
JDL Fast Track is hosting its first masters nationals starting March 20.
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Well, Ken, it’s different, that’s for sure. I’ll make a brief comment, but I’d like to hear what the athletes have to say.
Let’s say that you’re in the M30 400 dash on Friday. If you just glance at the schedule you will think you’re running at 11:00 AM, but my best guess is that you’ll run about 12:40 PM. Why? As the schedule makes very clear, there is one time for all. After you check in you just wait for your race.
Similarly, the women’s 3000 begins at 1:00 PM, but I’m guessing that if you’re in the third of three sections (the youngest) you’ll hear the starter’s gun about 1:55 PM. Is that OK for a schedule?
I don’t know.
What do the runners, jumpers, and throwers think?
Although it’s obviously difficult to devise a complex schedule like this, I do agree with Peter. Last year in Boston, we had a “fixed” schedule even if times got shifted whenever things slowed down. In addition, I note that just for the W80-84 group there are some unfortunate conflicts. Eg, Sunday at 9, they have both the high jump and shot put scheduled so that makes things tough for Christel Donley with a good chance to win both. And what about the M5059 heptathlon starting at 12:30? Hopefully that’s a typo.
Well it’s no longer March 5 in the Eastern time zone. I guess the committee could go for Hawaii or Guam time, and upload the schedule in about 10 hours and still say they met their March 5 promise!
My guess is that they did not have the final schedule finished yet yesterday.
We are beyond the heats, which were published months ago. This schedule is the semis.
The final schedule will have the running times for individual age groups, rather than one time for all age groups.
I can’t believe they would go without posting individual race start times at the national championship.
Any bets on it?
This meet is extremely difficult to schedule. A distinctive Masters problem of doubling, tripling, etc in disparate events like the shot and triple jump make this impossible to schedule without conflicts. In meets for younger athlete(Open), you would not find athletes competing in such a wide variety of events. Even a 60m/400m double would be rare anywhere but a Masters meet.
I agree with Mike. Some athletes will compete in 4-5 events. To have absolutely no overlap is almost impossible. The meet would have to be much longer…..
I dont disagree that this is a tough meet to schedule. In planning for the events we would undertake, however, we relied on last year’s detailed schedule with the hope that there might be some predictability as to when events might be held this year.
I’m also sensitive to the fact that things are different at the “Open” level, but at least for meets at the elite level, you have a fixed schedule in advance so you know whether to enter an event or not. This system almost becomes a lottery — sign up for as many events as possible, and then hope for the best. Sort of like the Lyon Worlds.
At the W80 group I referred to earlier, there are only 2-3 athletes involved in the conflicts early Sunday morning. Why wait to devise a final schedule (after entries close) if you don’t even take them into account? I don’t claim to have the answers – I’m just asking.
Less than 2 weeks to the meet and still no schedule posted ?? This is a problem …..people DO make airline reservations. The best airfares occur 3 weeks out. If the USATF wants more participation…..they should finalize their schedule sooner.
The final schedule is now up at the USATF website. To take just one example (referenced above), if you’re in the M30 400 you’re shown with a start time of 11:00 AM. In fact, that’s the start time for men 85+ in the 400; if you’re in your early 30s you’ll probably go about 12:40 PM (in my opinion).
In fairness, the schedule does contain an easily understood explanation of this new approach. The only thing I don’t like as an announcer is that I like to tell the crowd and spectators how ahead or behind we are. If every male 400-m athlete has a listed time of “11:00” that will be very hard to do. Oh, well.
I guess we will need very frequent reminders of what’s going on on the track or in the field (throws and jumps) — otherwise, people may be a little confused about whether they need to get ready in another minute or another 30 minutes.
Looks like the detailed schedule is up. The change I see is the 4 x 200 and 4 x 800 relays are after the 60 hurdles on Saturday making it late in the day. Pete, I used my rudimentary excel skills and came up with 872 entries as of today.
The JDL venue has a very interesting history. Thank goodness for track people with vision and initiative!
http://dailyrelay.com/5-questions-with-craig-longhurst-of-jdl-fast-track/
Jim, you are far more clever than I am. A week ago I used my “trusty” method of dividing the total number of “event entries” by 2.3 and came up with an estimate of 893 actual entrants.
Given your figure, Jim, of 872 entrants, it appears that the average entrant signed up for 2.3555 events.
Regardless, I’m almost ready to go (will drive down a week from Thursday).
The posted schedule does not provide much recovery time between the hurdle prelims and finals. Prelims at 1430 and finals at 1500. If I recall correctly from previous indoor championships, the relays were scheduled between the hurdle prelims and finals. This schedule is a definite disadvantage to the hurdlers that have to run a prelim. In my opinion, not smart track & field thinking on the scheduler.
Thad
Ok 2age groups jump at 11am and they get 6 jumps each
X15 Wow long day
It is going to be tricky for some. Doug Osland is doing the pentathlon on Friday. No problem there, but on Saturday he is doing the HJ 10am; pole vault 11am and long jump 11:30. Since he is one of the favorites in HJ he will probably not start to jump in HJ until 11am. He will have to do pretty much all three events at the same time…
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