By that I mean number of meets, especially for high school aged. 6-7 meets per season, maybe 8-9 depending on different things, and this is all if you make it to the final level (states, nationals, provincials, etc.).
Thoughts?
What high school did you go to? I see far too many meets for high schoolers. My school tried to cut down the number of meets we had by combining some dual meets and we still had, if you include the state meet, 17 meets! This is from March 24 to May 26 (final day of the state meet). Way too many to be optimal, IMO. I don’t know of many schools, in my region at least, that have any trouble getting 2 meets a week (which is probably too much for more than a very short period).
Its in ontario, canada. All the same in ontario with schools, and ya 15+ meets is excessive, in a entire season, so after high school I continue competing, however not more than 5-6 meets max post high school. I also do compete indoor. Overall not enough in this area, and probably for all of Canada.
We look at a football season, one should have same number of meets in a entire season as they have games, this is indoor and outdoor, or else no point in training for all that time. If its to peak for a huge competition for world class athletes, thats is entire different because you’re aiming for a title of the best in the world, for high schoolers, best in the state or province, not nearly as important.
What do you classify as a meet? Multiple rounds?
How many meets do you really need? If you run indoor meets, then a full high school season, why do you need more than 5-6 meets? When are you going to train? Where do you expect to improve between these meets when you never really have time to prepare or do anything, but recover and get ready for another meet?
We look at a football season, one should have same number of meets in a entire season as they have games, this is indoor and outdoor, or else no point in training for all that time. If its to peak for a huge competition for world class athletes, thats is entire different because you’re aiming for a title of the best in the world, for high schoolers, best in the state or province, not nearly as important.
High school football in my area (one of the largest in the US) has 15 or 16 games if you make it to the state final, which is many more than most people play (only 9 regular season games and probably 75-80% of teams play 10 or less games). I don’t see why you would need this many competitions indoor AND outdoor AND in the summer. Most invitationals are multi-round too, so you are getting multiple opportunities to run each event (100/200/whatever) and dual meets, it is unusual for people to not run at least 3 (100/200/4x100/4x400 is extremely common).
You really don’t need that many meets at all. Most people run far too many meets at the high school level and its really not surprising that people often drop like flies near the end of their season if they put effort into the early meets.
In the US, for high schools, dual meets (which make up the majority of the meets) do not have rounds. Often though, people run many races (or compete in multiple events) in a fairly condensed time period. There are many combinations, but people love to have athletes go 100/200/4x100/4x400, 100/200/400/4x400, 400/200/4x400, and many other combinations depending on events and specific needs for the team to win and maximize points (imagine the hellish 4x800/1600/800/3200 or doing the 110mh/100m/LJx3attempts in a period of about 30-40minutes).
Yea i was a 4x800, 1600, 800, 3200 guy my freshman yr high school.
From then on I was a 4x800, 800, 400, 4x400 guy which I considered even worse.
Once I was even asked to go 4x800 anchor right into the 100. Literally the next event.
Either one basically took the whole week to recover from taking into consideration the amount of time between races in the dual meets.
People wonder why the lazy guys in high school are able to survive the season–oh gee I wonder? Our school had a guy who could have and should have won one of the three mid distance events (800/1600/3200), but they loved to run him in no less than 3 events each meet, generally 4. His best times were always indoors when there were no dual meets…
Actually, my favorite story was the two sprinting studs in the conference (21.3fat as a soph and the other 10.6fat as a junior getting injured in a dual meet (that they had no chance of winning). They ran both guys in the 400 and then the 4x100! To give you an idea, there was only one heat in between these races (schedule went heat of girls 400, guys 400, girls 4x100, guys 4x100 with 1 heat for each–so no more than 10-12minutes or so between the guys 400 and 4x100). One guy pulled his hammy in the 4x100, but made the exchange and the one that received the exchange also pulled his hamstring! Those coaches were brilliant let me tell you!