Let's have the meet outside!

Have you checked the forecast for Friday in New York City? You know that I have: Partly cloudy, windy, high of 63.

Hmmmm. Sounds like the weather for … the MAAC Track Championships. OUTDOORS.

That’s right. There is a very real possibility that the outside temperature on the day of the MAAC INDOOR Championships will be warmer than the outside temperature for the MAAC OUTDOOR Championships. In May. At Rider.

Phil and I started going to Rider for conference championship meets way back in the spring of 1993, the year Rider built its fine and excellent track facility in beautiful Lawrenceville, N.J. (Note: I’m being serious; it really is a nice venue and we love going there.) The NEC meet that year was at a facility so new that the infield grass had not yet been sodded. It was dirt. And, for anyone who has ever been to a track meet at Rider, you know it’s usually windy. Dust Bowl!

MAAC meets at Rider are usually windy and usually extremely warm or unusually cold and wet. Very rarely do you get a temperate day there in early May. That’s not fault of Rider’s; that’s just the way the weather is in the Northeast during the springtime.

So while the weather will be irrelevant on Friday as we are inside the climate-controlled and musically challenged Armory, remember this day and this post in May – when I will most likely by whining about the weather conditions at the MAAC Outdoor Championships.