Note of explanation: This article is coming as the result of a discussion with one of my favorite coaches around the state to swap ideas with. He asked if I'd ever written an article about how the mechanics of getting to state worked. I have with cross country, but I haven't with track. So, here goes--only this article includes a little more than exactly what he was asking about because, well, there's more to it than exactly what he was asking about.
Plan A
If you seriously want to qualify for State, a lot of things become important considerations:
- Get your rest. Recover from both meets and workouts
- Eat smart. That doesn't mean you can't ever enjoy special foods as part of a celebration, but it does mean you're generally following guidelines of healthy eating, including getting good food in your system as soon as possible after a workout.
- Hydrate. Regularly.
- Faithfully do the supplemental exercises your physical therapist tells you to do.
- Be there for practice. Every practice. On time.
- Set aside distractions. Don't try to do everything. Nobody ever became great at anything with 10 irons in the fire. This most definitely includes giving social media a rest now and then.
- Be an encourager of your teammates. What goes around comes around (and this is a two-edged sword).
- Don't be easily discouraged when results aren't progressing as rapidly as you'd like.
- Communicate with your coach.
- Stay on top of your homework so you're not spending late nights getting it done as the most important part of the season approaches.
- It's too late now for this season, but stay active in the off-season. And, it helped in an enormous way to stay active throughout your childhood as well.
- Don't overrace.
Yes, it's a lot of things to pay attention to, but getting to State isn't easy. Doing well once you get there is more difficult still.
Plan B
- Be enormously gifted and hope skipping several of the above items doesn't catch up with you.
The Details
In Colorado, qualification for state track and field is wonderfully simple and straight-forward. In each of the classifications of 2A through 5A, you must finish the season ranked in the top 18 in your classification in an event (or be lucky, more on that in a moment). In 1A, you must finish the season ranked in the top nine in a laned event (100, 200, 400, 4x100, 4x200, 4x400, SMR8), top 10 in a field event, or top 12 in a distance event (including the 4x800) to advance to State.
If one or more of your events include the 100, 200, 100/110 hurdles, long jump, or triple jump, not only must you have a top-18 mark, but that mark must have occurred under legal wind conditions. A legal wind is a wind reading of 2.0 meters per second or less in the direction of the attempt.
All marks that qualify an athlete for State must have occurred at a designated rankings meet. Generally, you'll recognize these meets when you see a wind gauge in use. But, your coach should be able to tell you whether or not a given meet is a rankings meet.
Now, let's talk about getting lucky.
Sometimes, you can advance to State without a top-18 mark. Here's how that works:
Sometimes a competitor (or, more properly, his or her coach) with a top-18 mark (or top-x in 1A) scratches that event for State. It could be the competitor has more than four events* he/she is state-qualified in or that he/she wants to focus on fewer events at State. Either way. It could even be the athlete is injured and unable to compete at State.
When a competitor above you scratches an event for which he/she is state-qualified, that opens up a spot. If you're next in line that spot becomes yours IF your coach declared you for that event when declarations were made on the weekend before State.
In some cases, scratches have allowed athletes five and six deep in the wait list to advance to State. This can be either because of multiple scratches in an event or because coaches of athletes ahead of you failed to declare competitors who were ahead of other competitors but still not in the top 18.
As a rule of thumb, there are almost never scratches in any of the following events: shot put, discus, high jump, and pole vault. The number of scratches is typically highest in sprint events and in the smaller classifications (where it is more likely that highly-talented individuals could qualify in more than four events).
* - Per NFHS rules, no athlete may compete in more than four events, regardless of type, at the state meet.