by Larry Eder
This weekend is a dream weekend for cross-country and track geeks. Saturday morning begins with NIKE Cross Nationals, then, USATF Cross Country Nationals on Runnerspace.com.
While over on Flotrack.com, the season opener at Boston University, the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener, begins at 8:30 AM. While it will be an all-day affair, with jumps and throws beginning at 9 AM and sprints around 9:45, Flotrack has helped BU streamline the schedule so that the elite events will go from 2:55 to 4:25 for 800m to 5k invites, and then, for the night of 5,000 meter racing, the women go from 4:30 to 7 and men from 7:15 to 9:20.
Ryan Fenton, the GM of Track & Field at Flosports wrote RunBlogRun: “We worked with BU this year to reformat the schedule at their three big events. We will have all of the fastest sections packaged together in a 90 minute to 2 hour window for the BU season opener, the Terrier invite, and the Valentine invite.” Wow, you mean we can probably do some holiday shopping or food shopping instead of spending the entire day in front of the computer screan? How novel!
Seriously, one of the biggest issues in this sport is that the sport tends to believe that track fans have all of this leisure time! Au contraire, mon frere!
I always have time for Ryan Fenton. Besides being jealous of his three day to five day beard (at 67, I still can not do that, so I just do the beard.), Ryan get it. At Flosports, Ryan and his team have battled the shit storm that hit when FloTrack bid for the Diamond League. That was a great business decision, and slowy but surely, Flosports is getting track fans to get it: Diamond League is on US streaming, and Flosports is building some serious content and support of the programming. The Athletes Lounge, I love, with Trey Hardee, English Gardner and Matt Centrowitz, among others.
I think Ryan Fenton has something here. The BU meets are fun, but VERY LONG! Streamlining the elite racing makes alot of sense. So, we will end with some deep thoughts from the new commisar of track and field, Ryan Fenton:
“The goal is to have a window where fans can watch all the best stuff, and not have to wait at different hours throughout the day to see the top sections. We will still cover the entirety of all of these events, but wanted to have a better experience for the folks that just want to see the best athletes run.”
Ryan Fenton, with all seriousness, is working to fine tune how FloTrack & FloSports interact with the sport audience and show the sport. Time for some of us give them a shot, in my humble opinion.
Boston University
Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Saturday: Doors open at 8:30am
FINAL SCHEDULE
Field Events:
11:00am Women’s High Jump followed by Men’s High Jump
Women’s Shot Put followed by Men’s Shot Put
Women’s Pole Vault followed by Men’s Pole Vault
Women’s Long Jump followed by Men’s Long Jump
Women’s Weight Throw (Following men’s shot put) followed by Men’s WT
Women’s Triple Jump (Following men’s long jump)
Opening Heights:
Women’s Pole Vault: 2.75m
Men’s Pole Vault: 3.95m
Women’s High Jump: 1.38m
Men’s High Jump: 1.73m
Running events: will run fast to slow.
Preferred oval sprint lanes 5-6-4-3-2-1
Preferred straight sprint lanes 5-4-6-3-7-2-8-1-9
Time schedule will roll up to 10 minutes ahead during this portion of the meet
9:45am Women’s 60H FINAL
9:50am Men’s 60H FINAL
9:55am Men’s 60m Trials
10:00am Women’s 400m
10:05am Men’s 400m
10:15am Women’s 600m
10:25am Men’s 600m
10:35am Women’s 300m
10:45am Men’s 300m
10:57am Women’s 60m Final
11:00am Men’s 60m Final
11:05am Women’s 800m
11:12am Men’s 800m
11:18am Women’s 200m
11:25am Men’s 200m
11:35am Women’s 4x400m
11:40am Men’s 4x400m
12:00pm Women’s Mile
12:20pm Men’s Mile12:55pm Women’s 3k
1:40pm Men’s 3k
Elite Window will not move ahead
2:55pm – Start of FloTrack Night in America (elite window)
3:00pm Women’s 800m Invite
3:06pm Men’s 800m Invite
3:12pm Women’s Mile Invite
3:20pm Men’s Mile Invite
3:28pm Women’s 3k Invite
3:41pm Men’s 3k Invite
3:55pm Women’s 5k Invite
4:06pm Men’s 5k Invite
4:25pm Men’s 600m Invite
Time schedule will roll during the evening portion
4:30pm
Women’s 5k (9 HEATS)
7:15pm
Men’s 5k (9 HEATS)
9:35pm – Meet Concludes
Estimated 5k Heat Times:
W Ht 1: 4:30pm
W Ht 2: 4:47pm
W Ht 3: 5:05pm
W Ht 4: 5:23pm
W Ht 5: 5:41pm
W Ht 6: 5:59pm
W Ht 7: 6:18pm
W Ht 8: 6:37pm
W Ht 9: 6:56pm
M Ht 1: 7:15pm
M Ht 2: 7:29pm
M Ht 3: 7:44pm
M Ht 4: 8:00pm
M Ht 5: 8:15pm
M Ht 6: 8:31pm
M Ht 7: 8:47pm
M Ht 8: 9:03pm
M Ht 9: 9:20pm
Here’s a couple of stories on Ryan Fenton, the Dude of Track & Field at FloTrack:
