Track news for the week of April 14

• Meet #3 is in the bag

Our penultimate practice meet is complete with a gloriously sunny day at Ygnacio Valley: much better for running than the chill of the relay meet.  Results will be up in a day or two.

If you hired a high school student and have not paid me yet, please settle up so I can write a check to the YVH boosters. You can pay at practice with cash or  check in an envelope handed to me. Please make sure your name goes on the envelope so I know which family to credit.

• I goofed!

Many of you noticed a shortfall of helpers on Saturday. It appears that yours truly mixed up "STM" (St. Mary) with "STMA" (Santa Maria) on the schedule, and so assigned jobs to a team that wasn't supposed to run with us.

I'd like to apologize to all those who got drafted into a position last-minute and wound up spending an unexpected day in the sun. I'll be crediting appropriately, especially where I placed our phantom team.

Coincidentally, need a volunteer coordinator on our team for next season. We're OK for this year, but having someone dedicated is the norm for a team our size. You'll spend time in the care and feeding of spreadsheets, and juggling names around on the same. Families who work team jobs -- such as volunteer coordinator -- are excused from the requirement to work at meets.

• Final practice meet April 20 at DVC

We have one more practice meet to go, this weekend at DVC. We're running with St. Isidore/St. Joan of Arc, which is a very large team. They also host meets, and so are very familiar with the running of the same (they created the away-side 50m/100m strategy, for example.) This is good news for me.

They also have a lot of jobs pre-assigned to their parish, which is good news for you, the lucky volunteers! Many of you many find yourselves shuffled around if St. I/St. J has already filled the positions that you requested. It'll all be fine.

• Qualifying meet April 27 at DVC

After our upcoming meet begins the championship season. There are three meets here, starting with the Qualifying Meet on April 27, again at DVC. There are a number of things that make the final meets special, and I've got another post spelling them out in detail. Athletes must compete and place at the Qualifying Meet to progress to the next meet. There are no exceptions: if you cannot attend the meet, the athlete does not qualify.

That last part typically means the end of the competitive season for many of our athletes, either because of schedule conflicts (hello, First Communion families!) or because the athletes do not place high enough in the results. There's more about this in the other post, which I'll send around soon.

• Ribbons

We should be caught up for the first two meets, plus the relay meet. I've heard reports that there are a handful of athletes without them. There's three possibilities for missing ribbons. (Four, if you count "I lost it in the parking lot!")

1) The primary coach has them

Did your athlete miss a practice? Murphy's Law says that was the day when they were handed out. Please check with your primary coaches first.

http://ctktrack.org/coaches.shtml

2) A different coach has them

This often happens for relays: a younger athlete's ribbon is in the group with the older kids they ran with, or a girl's ribbon wound up with the boys. We might have it, and the coaches just need to sift through their leftover pile and the roster.

3) Nobody has them

If you've exhausted the other options, then it's perfectly possible that for one reason or another a ribbon didn't get printed. I've requested blanks from the league, and can run off a new label so we can add it to your athlete's collection.

I have a short list going already. If your athlete's heartsick over a ribbon they never received, send me their name, the meet date, and the event where they placed. I'll look up the results and run off the appropriate ribbon for them. If it's a Personal Best, then I'll do the same.

We like handing out awards, no matter how long it takes to actually get them to their rightful owners.