Track and Field Blogs - Mark From Flotrack

11 PM Austin, Tx:

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. I headed to Chicago after NCAAs in Terre Haute and had a great holiday eating and laying around my house. Thanksgiving was always the best holiday in college because your cross season just ended so you were on a break and you didn't have to run and you could eat whatever you wanted because indoor seemed a world away.

Recently we started to allow user video uploading and we have featured a couple of them on our homepage and we will continue to do so because we think it is great for the sport. The more the community can promote and innovate the better our sport will be. I know I have said this before but the internet is going to revive our sport and we as a community will be leading the way. We don't need to wait on the big media organizations to cover our sport because we can do it ourselves.

If "Its good for the Sport" is not enough for you to ask for a camera this Christmas/Hanukkah/Holidays then we are trying to give you more of a reason.

1. Best uploaded video in 08 gets a trip for two to the Olympics with Trackandfieldtours.com. I mean that has to be the best prize in the history of the world. The Olympics is the coming out party for China. The City is going to be buzzing and the Games are going to be awesome. American distance has some great shots at medals with Ryan Hall, Deena Kastor, Gouch, Teg, Webb, and double gold Lagat and his partner in crime the Black Cactus. (I just got really excited writing this) and the sprints and field never disappoint. (if your not American it still will be cool)

Trackandfieldtours.com how did we hook up with them? The founders are one of a couple footlocker finalists that married (Ritzs, Slatterys, Halls? others?). Adam and Jessica Dailey ran at the University of Arkansas and saw a need for athlete's families to watch their loved ones compete at the Olympics. The trials are about a month out from the Olympics but the families don't know if their son/daughter/bro/sis are going to make the team so they cannot buy tickets until after the trials but by then the tickets are usually sold out or are at crazy prices so Adam and Jessica decided to start Trackandfieldtours.com. Anyways back to how the contest got started, I was standing by the pole vault runway at USATF nationals and Adam was standing next to me and we started talking and I told him what I did and he told me what he and his wife did and I was really intrigued because I had been planing on starting video uploading so I asked him if it was cool to give a couple trips away to the best uploaded video and he was.... Alright! I can't believe that worked! Anyway he and his wife our huge supporters of the sport and our site so checkout what you could win (Trackandfieldtours.com) and get your cameras rolling!

2. When I travel around the country talking to college coaches I ask them about recruiting. 9 times out of 10 after they talk to a kid and our interested they want to see he or she run. So either the coach tries to travel to one of the recruit's races or the coach asks the recruit to send them footage of them racing. Now a lot of the coaches tell me they get links of the recruit's races from flotrack and they love it because they don't have to search around for the DVDs. Well now that you can upload your race footage to your flotrackr profile and tag the race result to the video it's easy for the coach to see you run. If the Beijing contest does not excite you maybe a college scholarship will. Upload your race footage to your flotrackr profile so college coaches can see it.

3. Promote your team on flotrack. In XC season we had a couple teams take a camera around with them the whole season and it had a great response. We hope more people will do the same this track season because its fun to watch their season unfold. UCSB just uploaded one and we thought it was pretty cool so we put it on our homepage because again we have to promote ourselves and stop waiting for someone else to do it.

Well anyway enough of me rambling I am just excited about Flotrack in 08. Let me know the other Footlocker marriages and your thoughts on video uploading and Trackandfieldtours.com. Oh yeah lets get some cameras this holiday season and have some fun in 08. Track is Back!
later,

Mark

Pics are some cameras you could buy this holiday season, but prob shouldn't.