It was our busiest Track & Field Season ever! We timed meets in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. Some weeks, we timed events everyday, including Sundays (Swim Meets on Sundays). We weathered pollen, rain, wind and thunderstorms! Thanks to all of our employees and family that helped this season! The kids even helped by getting hip numbers ready for meets. Our Exact Timing end of the year party will be in June. Then we will time a few road races over the Summer. And back to the grind for Cross Country in the Fall!

Police Officers are not course monitors.
At a road race, the role of the police officers is to manage the safety at road intersections. That is, to make sure runners do not get injured or worse from car traffic. As a race director you should never assume the police are familiar with YOUR road race course and will instruct the runners as to which direction to run. At critical intersections you must also place a knowledgeable course monitor to ensure that the runners follow the course correctly. That way your runners do not get lost and they stay safe.

When hosting a track meet one thing to never forget about are the starting blocks. If you are like most sites you have one complete set of eight blocks; if you are lucky you have a few backup sets. With this said, keeping up with them becomes very important. We suggest you assign a small group of volunteers to mind the blocks. This team will be charged with pulling them between each heat of the 400 meters (so finishers don't trip) as well as pulling them after the conclusion of each sprint event and transporting them to the general area of the next sprint event. Having the blocks in the correct location on the track before each sprint event throughout the meet will help you avoid unnecessary delays.

Great job to all the high school runners in the Region 4 4A Championships. The Woodward girls and Druid Hills boys won the day. For the girls the Woodward ladies ran well and dominated with a perfect score of 15 points. They were lead by region champion Brooklyn Carr with a winning time of 20:33. On the boys side, it was a close one. However, the Druid Hills boys were able to sneak out a victory in a hotly contested meet. With a score of 31 to 35 Druid Hills was able to prevail. They were lead by the region champion Ermias Tewolde with a time of 16:33.

Last week was pretty busy with three cross country meets in a row; each two days apart! We started off with the DeKalb County JV Cross Country Championships. Then we traveled to Alabama for the JSU Foothills Cross Country Invitational, where Kevin got to see his collegiate coach from GA Tech (GA Tech was competing in the meet) and his high school coach (spectator)... pretty cool meet for him! Then back to Atlanta for the DeKalb County Varsity Cross Country Championships. All the meets ran smoothly. No mis-reads, except for athletes that lost their chips on the courses; but they were pretty easy to add back into the results. Tip from the three meets... Cable ties instead of twist ties for chips :-)

Thank you for reading our first blog!  We took a short break from timing due to family medical issues, but we are back this coming Thursday with the DeKalb County JV Cross Country Championships at Druid Hills Middle School!  Then we have a very busy week...  JSU Foothills Cross Country Invitational in Oxford, AL, on Saturday, October 1, and back to Druid Hills Middle School for the DeKalb County Varsity Cross Country Championships on Tuesday, October 4.  Follow us as we write about each event including things that went well, things that did not go so well and event tips!