chaos in the track schedule
After a successful outdoor season opener with our home Optimistic Invite, the schedule has been chaotic due to the ever-changing spring weather. We didn’t compete in our second meet as it was moved four days earlier. That was too quick of a turnaround and felt too much like a high school season.
The next week wasn’t much better. The distance runners snuck in some good 5k’s in Platteville on Thursday with Cole Stencel leading the group with a 14:26. For the rest of the team, our scheduled meet at Mankato for Saturday, April 11th was moved to Sunday and then promptly moved to Monday. As we looked ahead at the weather forecast for our home meet on April 18th, the weather started to look more like February: temps in the 20’s and 30’s with a chance of snow and wind. While on the bus to Mankato, we started making plans to host our meet on the nicest day of the week: Thursday. Everyone scrambled to find officials. Only one of our normal officials was available with the new schedule including timers and starters. We could get by with event officials, but needed a timer desperately. As we considered cancelling the meet or dealing with horrible weather, we heard rumors of a guy in Valley City, ND who had timing equipment. Luckily, he was able to do it, but didn’t have much experience. Worth the risk for nearly 80 degree weather vs. potential snow. Finding a starter proved to be equally difficult as we exhausted all of our usual options. Thankfully, a local high school starter was oddly free as he is at nearly every high school meet we attend. As for all the other officials, Joe officiated javelin, Robin did the shot put, I took care of the rest of the men’s throws, and a number of our athletes helped.
Did the meet run completely smooth? Of course not. There was significant trouble-shooting throughout the meet, but we had some great weather and the athletes appreciated the effort to make the meet happen. The 10ks finished up at about 10:30pm under the lights. Shot put was a little sketchier as I finished up finals at 9:30pm. We used golf cart headlights to see the toeboard. The throwers had a blast throwing at night and had some big performances with Grady Minnerath finally breaking 16.00 meters (52-6). If anyone wants to donate to add some lights down there, we would try to throw under the lights more often.
This week, we are at the University of Minnesota on Wednesday and are debating weather for the Drake Relays. Hoping for good weather to help us out.
Jeremy
Alumni update: As I’m writing this, Joe and I are driving back from Brett Hague’s (2023) wedding. We are glad the meet was moved to give us a little extra time to return. A lot of conference points were in the room with Anthony Thurk (2025), Max Lelwica (2025), and Jaeden Frost (2024). Jaeden missed the photo to go put money in the parking meter.
