Tough Track Meet

Friday I got to work as the assistant starter for a conference meet down south. It was fun, and easy money...at least, so I thought. Tons of things went wrong. First of all, it was stinkin' cold--nothing says "middle of May" like seeing your breath...oh wait. Secondly, one of the teams is on central time, so the starting time got pushed back an hour, making for a long night: field events started at 6pm, but trials didn't start until 7:30, and the regular events were supposed to start at 8:30. Of course, the automatic timing system wasn't working, so everything was handheld and human operated. Which, among others things, means things go a lot slower--the running events didn't start until after 9pm. Then, we missed a violation (neither I nor the head starter saw the supposed violation happen, although I think I heard them talking about it afterwards) that may have actually determined who won the meet. All in all, I left at just a little before midnight, which means I didn't get home until well after 1am. It's Sunday now, and I'm still trying to get my sleep schedule "reset."