Tonight I was the starter at the Portland Twilight meet at Lewis & Clark College. This meet is a mix of college, unattached and "B" level pro runners. Nike, Brooks, Adidas were represented. In past meets there have be world class runners, Lauren Fleshman, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Kate Grace among others.
This was quite a step up from my previous starting gigs over the last five years. Those gigs have been high school meets, with district meets being the highest level. I enjoy these meets. In the early high school season, it's a teaching opportunity to inform the runners on the rules for their respective races.
Tonight's meet, these athletes knew the rules. The meet was professionally organized and with an experienced clerk it went off like clockwork. My role was to make sure the races started on time and a fair start was held. There were no false starts, but I did have to give the "stand up" command due to some fidgeting and off balances stances.
I was impressed by how well things ran. At high school meets you start a race when timers, finish line personnel and runners are ready. Tonight it ran on a schedule, and it was a well created schedule. I didn't have to hurry up to get a race started. On the contrary, I had to slow things down a bit so we didn't start a race before it was scheduled. This was important because of the caliber of runners and their timing their warmup to the publish start time of their race. Going too fast, they wouldn't be adequately warmed up. Going too slow, they would be cooling down too much.
In many ways this was a much easier meet to start than high school meets. I had one job, start the race on time and fairly. At high school meets, I'm often waiting for timers and runners to get ready. I'm helping move starting blocks or setting up hurdles. Getting runners into their correct lances. High school meets require much more involvement in the production of the meet. Tonight's meet had all of that taken care of.
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