About race splits

Although we don’t have another meet for a month, I wanted to get this off my chest. It’s about race splits. Race splits are near and dear to me. I’m a numbers guy and race splits help to make sense of races – during them, but especially after they have been completed. I do post the splits on the blog but that process has gotten a bit murky lately. Most track meet timers now post electronic splits in real time through their live results links. Those splits are obviously far more accurate than my crude notebook-and-pen (and fading eyesight and slower reflexes) method. So, my internal dilemma is this: Do I even post splits on the site anymore? Should I just post a link to the race results? Also! Should I even bother with writing down the splits while coaching? While it certainly would be easier on both fronts to do this – stop typing up splits and stop taking them at races – I feel I will probably revert to what I have done for years. Which is? Write the splits down and (eventually) post them on the blog. The write-them-down-on-the-clipboard thing, I think, will always have utility. Athletes and coaches can easily refer to my rudimentary chicken scratch to instantly analyze races, as opposed to burying our collective heads in our collective phones – which we do anyway, most of the time. The posting to the blog thing? That might diminish through time, for several reasons: 1. Our athletes almost never read the splits (or the blog, for that matter), and really, it’s about them and it’s for them … so if they are not engaged in the splits process, what’s the point? 2. Alert, loyal alums who really want to see the splits will find their way to the timing Web sites anyway. 3. It takes a lot of time and energy on the bus ride home, when we are usually in a mentally drained and sleep-deprived state. So yeah, that’s where I’m at with that topic – an admittedly boring post about a boring topic to most … but not all!