USATF Meet Information June 16

Parents-

Our last meet of the season is the USA Track and Field (USATF) Junior Olympic meet on June 16 in Fitchburg. As I indicated on the calendar on the website, this meet is optional.

The USATF meet brings together runners from MA, RI, NH, and VT. Junior Olympic athletes compete in age groups, like we have done in our meets. The age groups (7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14) are equivalent to our Groups 1, 2, 3, and 4, as the child's age is determined as of December 31, 2018. All of the events we have done in the program will be offered at this meet, except USATF runs the 1500m instead of the 1600m.

Here is the link for information about the USATF meet:

http://newengland.usatf.org/Events/2018/2018-USATF-New-England-Junior-Olympic-Track---Fiel.aspx

In past years, kids from the program have run in the USATF meet, and some have qualified for the regional USATF meet, which includes the six New England states and New York. I will be frank in saying that the competition is keen at this meet, but it is a great opportunity to run a personal best against talented competition and to be part of a professional meet with running clubs from four of the six New England states.

Doug Morrin has done a nice service by comparing our kids' best times and distances with the performances which allowed athletes to qualify for the regional meet last year. Attached is Doug's "Potential Qualifiers" sheet.

Participating in this meet requires advance sign-up and becoming a member of USATF, if your child is not already a USATF member. June 12 is the deadline for signing up for the meet and you have to become a USATF member first. So it is a little more complicated than our LHS meets. There are 3 steps:

1. Make your child a member of USATF. It is $20 for the year, and it also allows your child to participate in USATF cross-country meets in the fall. (We offer a cross-country program this fall--more information to come). Here is the link for USATF membership:

https://www.usatf.org/membership/application/index.asp

2. Once your child is a USATF member (you will get instant email confirmation once you register online), verify your child's age by sending a copy of your child's birth certificate to: membership@newengland.usatf.org

3. Register your child for the June 16 meet on Athletic.net. Your child will be deemed "unattached" because LPRD is not signed up as an official USATF club. Here is the link to Athletic.net:

https://www.athletic.net/

Alex