Track news for the week of April 12

Relay meet recap

Despite a wet start to the week, we ended in sunshine and fine weather at DVC for what may have been the shortest relay meet ever. Despite the small numbers, there were many exciting finishes and excellent effort on the track yesterday, with only a flaky PA system to contend with.

Thanks to the volunteers who navigated the unfamiliar shift arrangement. Our first experiment with Signup Genius was a success, at least from the coordinators' perspectives. I juggled far less email about signups, changes, and cancellations this week than usual.

Practices this week

Assuming cooperative weather, we're back on our normal practice locations:

• Tuesday, April 14 at Pleasant Hill Middle, 5:00-6:30pm
• Thursday, April 16 at College Park, 5:00-6:30pm

Awards

Ribbons from the March 28th meet went out last week, and should arrive at practice soon. I also have a handful of Seven Up Club awards to distribute. Athletes have two meets left to try to earn one of these exclusive, high-fashion accessories.

Practice Meet #4, Saturday April 18 at DVC

The final practice meet of the season is coming up Saturday at DVC.

Athletes need to compete in at least two practice meets to be eligible for the Qualifying Meet on the 25th. If you've only been to one practice meet so far, then you need to attend this one as well for Qualifying.

• Setup: 8:00am
• First Shift: 8:15am (note earlier time)
• First Event: 9:00am
• Away-side: 10:00am

The St. Isadore/St. Joan of Arc team from Danville/San Ramon is hosting this meet. Please give them all the courtesy, cooperation, and flexibility you can. I'll be attending a first communion ceremony that day, but know you're in good hands with the St. Isadore coordinators.

The jobs assigned to our team appear online here:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0b49aeab2aa3f94-meet

I'm playing around with the format on the site, since St. Isadore's likes to arrange the shifts differently.

All of the positions on this sheet need to be filled by CTK/SC/SS volunteers.

The signups forms lock down the day before the event so we can get schedules out to the teams.

Future Event Signups

While you're in the volunteering mood, you can also:

Sign up for the Qualifying Meet on April 25:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0B49AEAB2AA3F94-2015

Claim a team job for next season:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0B49AEAB2AA3F94-2016

RSVP for the end-of-season picnic:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0B49AEAB2AA3F94-20151

All the team's signups are now linked from the top of our Schedule page:

http://ctktrack.org/schedule.html

Qualifying Meet, April 25 at DVC

On the 25th, we'll be hosting a Qualifying Meet. This is the first honest-and-for-true "real" meet of the season, and as a consequence, we have the run the meet pretty tightly.

I'll recycle and re-send last year's post as we get closer, but in short:

• Attendance is required to be eligible for the Sectional meet on May 1 & 2
• First and second graders are promoted into third graders via CYO magic
• Events -- especially field events -- will close down by grade: no latecomers
• Relay teams members must be a single parish, gender, and grade
• Top overall finishers qualifies in each grade and gender's event

Athletes may attempt any events in which they are eligible -- no third-grade high jumpers, for example, but it can be a new event to the athlete, too.

Athletes cannot do more than three individual events: the usual 2 races and one field, or 2 field and one race. I have to scratch their results if they go over. Relays are unlimited, provided they follow the single parish/gender/grade rules.

Sectional and Diocese Meets

The Qualifying is the start of the process that picks the fastest of the fast to send to the Sectional meet on May 1 and 2.

From the Sectional, the top finishers go on to compete at the Diocese meet May 8 and 9.

"Top finishers" means the top three places overall in an event, plus an alternate. Alternates are not guaranteed to compete, but alternates in field events usually have better odds.

If your athlete is on a qualifying relay team but cannot make the Sectional meet: we are allowed to make substitutions on relay teams for another athlete of the same parish and gender.

So, athletes who missed Qualifying could still be called upon to substitute into a relay team. We've had cases where someone was not able to run at sectionals, and we brought in a substitute leg on the relays.

Once we complete the Qualifying meet, coaches who put a successful relay team forward will be very interested in the availability of athletes in their groups for the final two weekends of our season.