Indoor League Meet

Today is the Bay State league meet, in my opinion one of the strangest meets of the year.

Sandwiched between the McIntrye Elite Relays and the State Coaches meet, the league meet has no team competition (as in cross-country). Furthermore, since all the teams have been co-habiting Reggie Lewis center for six weeks already, there's little sense of excitement about seeing athletes you haven't seen already (as is the case in outdoor). It's generally less exciting than an average league meet.

In the distance races, the best runners don't always run their best events. The best two-milers often skip the two-mile, being wary of running hard on Thursday and then hard again on Sunday, or they look for variety and speed in shorter events.

Although the meet determines league all-stars, that doesn't seem to be sufficient motivation for many of the athletes to do their best.

This year, because the first meet was snowed out, the league meet occupies the date that would have been used for the inter-league meet. It's too bad that the schedule made it necessary to lose that meet, which is typically very exciting, and keep the league meet, which is less so.