Back to the track

No, no, not to run. But to time the track meet. The head track coach actually called me Wednesday night about an hour after we got home and asked me if I was ready to "get back to it." (I was) While in Phoenix, there were two track meets. I trained two of the assistant coaches on the system that we use for timing, but apparently, there were a couple problems and a few races ended up without correct times. It happened to me the first meet I timed as well; there's really a lot to learn, and they didn't have a lot of time to practice.

Anyway, the head coach is a pretty intense guy and he wants thing to run smoothly (don't we all?) so I guess it must have been a little stressful when the meet didn't go completely as planned.

I spent most of Friday at the track and was really stressing as the meet start time was approaching. The finish line camera wouldn't talk to my computer! I kept getting an error message. A quick call to tech support and Jeff had me straightened out and on my way. Phew! The meet ran flawlessly, at least from my perspective. I timed the first part of the meet, and then I had one of the assistant coaches who was learning the system run the finish line for the last several race. He did great. It's probably a good idea to have more than just me able to run that system. Good for job security that I can't be replaced; not so good if I am ill or absent.

I actually really enjoy the job and hope that Woodberry continues to ask me to it. I do love a track meet and it's nice to see how things run on the infield. For so many years, I wondered how they got times so quickly. Now I know. Because I'm the one that cranks them out.