Track news for the week of April 26

Qualifying complete

Saturday marked the start of our championship meets. I know there were a number of PRs set on Saturday. Those, more than a top finish, are always the goal, because it means improvement.

Special thanks to the volunteers who stepped up and worked extra shifts above and beyond their team requirement, to ensure that we got out of the meet on time. Double extra thanks to the timers and recorders who battled timing system headaches, and to everyone as we gave a new app-based camera system a trial run.

What's next

All the coordinators get together for a seeding meeting on Monday night to review the results before they are published. I know the wait is difficult, especially for the events where we had multiple heats.

Practice is open to all athletes. We have only a handful left!

Tuesday we're at Pleasant Hill Middle as usual.

Thursday's practice is up in the air. See below...

Sectional Meet

The Sectional Meet is this coming weekend: the qualifiers from this past Saturday will go on to compete. Their families will be signed up help out at Saturday's meet in Livermore. We'll assign families via Signup Genius once I get our team assignments on Monday night.

In the interest of time, the 1600m event is not held on Saturday. We run each race in their own heat, which takes about two hours overall.

Due to scheduling drama this year, the 1600m event will be held Thursday April 30, at Ygnacio Valley High, starting at 6pm sharp. The league wants athletes to arrive 45 minutes early.

Treat Boulevard traffic is completely awful at that time of day if you're coming from the Pleasant Hill side of 680. Please plan your drive time accordingly. It takes me about 15-20 minutes from downtown Concord to come up Oak Park Boulevard, which may be a better route.

The coaches and I need to figure out how this change affects practice. I'll be helping conduct the 1600m, and I'm sure coaches of qualifiers will want to be there too. Stay tuned for updates.

Awards & Picnic

We have ribbons for Meet #4 to be sorted and distributed, we'll have PR ribbons from Saturday, and (I hope) a few more 7-up patches as well. And there should be ribbons from Qualifying, too. We'll keep bringing them to practice, so please keep sending your athletes in to claim them, and maybe get a little exercise as well.

Unclaimed rewards can be gathered at the picnic on May 31. I hope you're planning to attend, and have RSVP'd:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0B49AEAB2AA3F94-20151

This is lots of fun, and super low-stress. We recognize some athletes with special team awards voted on by the coaches. We also hold the super-helpful volunteer family prize drawing, marvel at the lost and found pile, and eat far too much.

The picnic is for the whole team and families.

Thank You!

If your family is done for the season, thank you for your support and your time, and for helping out with CYO. It takes a lot of cooperation to make these weekends a success, and a lot of patience to stick out a four- or five-hour meet. I hope your athletes had a good time this season, and will think about track next year, too.

In late summer, CYO also has a cross-country program: think track, run in a park. This is getting more popular every year, and if you're looking for a change from soccer -- and your athlete wants to tackle some distances -- cross country would be worth a look. You'll see a lot of familiar faces, and will get email about signups when they come around, typically in August.