2026 Track Information Sheet
Practice Location, Times & Groups
Our practices will generally be at the Longmeadow High School track. When we cannot be there due to conflicting high school events, we will be at Blueberry Hill School.
For elementary school students, we break up the kids into Grades 1-3 and Grades 4-5. They will practice 5-6 pm on either Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday. These two one-hour practices will be broken up into 1/2 hour segments, with 30 minutes for running and 30 minutes for field events. The two groups are designated as “A” and “B,” but they will have the same practices and are not distinguished by ability level.
For middle schoolers, Grades 6-8 will practice together, but we will have four groups. The first two groups will follow the traditional program we have used in the past, with one group practicing at 6-7 pm Monday/Wednesday and the other group practicing Tuesday/Thursday. If you choose one of these options, it will be known as Middle School Traditional A or B. The two groups are designated as “A” and “B,” but they will have the same practices and are not distinguished by ability level. For the MS Traditional A and B practices, there will be two one-hour practices broken up into 1/2 hour segments, with 30 minutes for running and 30 minutes for field events.
The other two middle school options will be known as Middle School Distance and Middle School Sprint, which will involve practices on Monday and Wednesday at 6-7 pm. These groups will be running for the full hour (with breaks after warm-up and stretching). The distance group will focus on the 1600 and 800, and the sprint group will focus on distances 400m and shorter. These two groups (Middle School Sprint and Middle School Distance) will then have a third hour of practice on Tuesday at 6-7 pm, during which they will focus on field events.
Athletic.net Account & Saturday Meets
In 2022, we began using the Athletic.net meet management software, rather than the Excel spreadsheets we used in the past. The spreadsheets were used for heat sheets at the Saturday meets (at the LHS track) and to record the results, and they required many, many hours to prepare. The good news is that Athletic.net not only allows for online sign-up, it will also allow for results to be tabulated and published directly on the web. It will also keep track of all your athlete's performances, not just this year, but in subsequent years, and it will include results from other meets that use athletic.net, like the USA Track and Field meets. This will be an excellent way for you to track your child's improvement and will be a record of your child's PRs (personal records).
The one negative is that athletic.net is not the most intuitive system to the first-time user. There is, however, a clear explanation of how to set up an account on athletic.net. The link to that explanation is below. When you sign up, please input the team code for Longmeadow Parks and Rec outdoor track season, which is also below. You are going to have to use Athletic.net to sign up for the Saturday morning meets, and you will have to do it by the deadline. We will open up the sign-up on Sunday, and you will have until Thursday to sign up for your child's events. It will take about 2 minutes--you just have to remember to do it. If you don't sign up your child for the meet on athletic.net, your child will be able to show up and do the meet, but we won’t be able to include them in the results.
Creating Athletic.net Account
Athletic.net Article link:
https://support.athletic.net/article/2ngw43npwr-creating-your-account-on-athletic-net
Athletic.net Youtube video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOglJOuoDWo
Longmeadow Parks and Rec Team Code
6D9WJUQUV
More Athletic.net Help
1. Adding child athlete to your parent account
Athletic.net article link:
https://support.athletic.net/article/5j1315gu0o-adding-a-managed-athlete-to-your-account
Coach Alex’s Youtube video on adding athlete:
2. Coach Alex video on signing up for a Longmeadow meet: https://youtu.be/UKvjknI7Liw
3. Coach Alex video on team code/registering with team or unattached: https://youtu.be/AA1cvauyE5g
Communication and Information about the program
We will primarily be using the Team Snap messaging system for program-wide emails. The website, longmeadowtrack.org, is the central source for information about the program. Please refer to the website for the 2026 track calendar.
More information about Practices
Each child must bring their own water bottle (one quart). Athletes should wear comfortable clothing and sneakers with shoelaces that tie (recommended) to every practice and race. The Board of Health also recommends mosquito and tick repellent.
More Information About Track Meets and Outside Competitions
On Saturdays, we will have intra-program track meets and also meets against other programs. For our internal track meets, each participant will be assigned to one of three teams, Red, Blue, and Green. At these meets, each child will earn one point for his/her team by being present and doing at least one event. A child earning 1st place in an event will earn 5 points for his/her team, 2nd place will earn 3 points, 3rd place will earn 2 points, and 4th place will earn 1 point. The team earning the most points will win the track meet.
The running events will be between 100m and 1600m. The field events will be long jump, high jump, shot put, and turbo javelin.
Your Child's Uniform & Bib Number
Each athlete will be issued a colored T-shirt corresponding to his/her assigned team. These will be worn during our Saturday morning intra-program meets.
To keep the track meets running smoothly, it is important for the child to wear the assigned T-shirt corresponding to the color of his/her team, as well as the bib number that the child will have throughout the season. If the T-shirt becomes lost, please have the child wear another T-shirt of the same color. If the bib number becomes lost, you can write the child’s number prominently on the front of a piece of paper and use safety pins to secure the number to the front of the T-shirt. The bib number always goes on the front.
Outside competitions
We also expect to have meets against other programs. For the middle schoolers, there is an opportunity to qualify for the middle school state meet. USA Track and Field will also have a junior olympic meet in June for all age groups. At these competitions, our athletes will wear the Longmeadow Youth Track singlet (tank top).