Dartmouth gears up for another indoor masters meet
A year ago, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire offered a full set of masters events (field as well as track) at the annual Dartmouth Relays indoor meet. W70 vaulter Flo Meiler set an indoor WR at the meet. New England was the main source of entrants, but some Canadians and at least one gent from Florida competed. (See these results.) Well, the meet is coming up again — on Friday, January 11 — and the deadline for entry is very forgiving — “Masters athletes may register the day of the meet — UNTIL 2:00PM — for $ 15.00 per event.” Here’s the entry information. Sounds like fun. Anyone planning to attend Jan. 11?
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The Dartmouth Relays has offered a pretty full slate of masters events for years – and not just one year ago as Ken’s note suggests. It is always on Friday afternoon/evening. And for years the officiating was pretty darn good. Last year seemed to have been a transition to a new set of officials. For the 1500m race they just tossed the entire bunch of us (13 men, 2 women)into one heat – ranging in age from 37 to 73. As we lined up the official told us to sort ourselves out and count our own laps. Then they proceeded to turn off the finish line clock as the first male finished his race in 4 min.37 sec. There were no split times given after that, no lap counting, it was just a do it yourself job. The last finisher – in something like 9 plus minutes was finally told that probably he had run enough laps and should stop.
I have run the Dartmouth Relays over the years and never have I experienced that sort of ridiculous situation. How much work is it to turn the finish line clock back on after the first finisher has crossed the line?- or perhaps just not turn the clock off. And how much of an effort is it to have someone calling out the time if the “on button” for the finish line clock is too hard to find? As for lap counting – tell me ahead of time that I am on my own and I can recruit a friend to do it for me I left shortly thereafter and did not get to watch what they did to the folks in the 3000m race.
As much as I have enjoyed the Dartmouth Relays in the past, I am staying home this year and will not go again until I hear that some semblance of sanity has returned to how they handle races over 4 laps and that they stop turning off the finish line clock in the longer multi-age group races.
I have enjoyed the Dartmouth Relays for the past 2 years and find the meet competitive and well organized. This will be my 3rd year participating and I have not found the problems Mary encountered in the sprints and hurdles. It is wild running in a heat with different hurdle heights all in the same race but I am getting used to it! I like the fact that I can ski after the meet as Killington is close by and Dartmouth has it’s own ski hill also.I am a bit injured this year but look forward to getting out of Florida and running my first indoor race.
The Dartmouth Relays has been a great event on the north east track circuit for years. I first competed in the meet in 1978 in the open division. The last two years I’ve made it a father/daughter event: I competed in the masters events on Friday, and she competed in the high school events on Saturday. Now I may need to stay for the entire weekend since she is now a college freshman, and the open/college events are on Sunday.
It’s a shame that the distance runners had a bad experience last year. I usually compete in the 60m, LJ, HJ, and SP and have always had top notch officiating.
The town of Hanover is a fun place to visit. Typical college town atmosphere with lots of interesting pubs and shops.
I see M Harada New year resolution lasted 3 days……
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