Flo Disaster!

[Fadzaev2]

On 12/2/2022 at 7:46 PM, ClawRidesAgain said:

Can’t stream from a college campus.  Pure amateurishness.

My wife’s comments, not mine:

How much do we pay for this?

What do they spend their money on?

I think they get it wrong more than they get it right.

What we spend wouldn't cover much more than one night in a hotel, let alone travel, tickets to get in, concessions, eating out.  A long time ago, when I was a young coach, I used to travel to events, shoot super 8 movie film (had to develop it), needed a movie projector, etc., then went to camcorder, etc.  Now for the cost of annual fees you get to watch many events.....imagine the cost of just going to the world cup for 2 days.  Flo isn't always perfect, but sometimes they are at the mercy of where they are at......just sayin'.....to each his own.....it's worth it to me!!!!  And I have a huge video library from many years of doing what I just described above.  Plus, been to 43 NCAA Championships, 37 in a row, closing in on 30 Big Ten Championships, 17 World Cups, many major college matches, the first USA/USSR dual in 1971, and many more.  I appreciate Flo/Track.......Fadz

[LJB]

@Fadzaev2 you are wasting your breath...

 

“Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it”

-Mark Twain

[Mike Parrish]

2 hours ago, Fadzaev2 said:

What we spend wouldn't cover much more than one night in a hotel, let alone travel, tickets to get in, concessions, eating out.  A long time ago, when I was a young coach, I used to travel to events, shoot super 8 movie film (had to develop it), needed a movie projector, etc., then went to camcorder, etc.  Now for the cost of annual fees you get to watch many events.....imagine the cost of just going to the world cup for 2 days.  Flo isn't always perfect, but sometimes they are at the mercy of where they are at......just sayin'.....to each his own.....it's worth it to me!!!!  And I have a huge video library from many years of doing what I just described above.  Plus, been to 43 NCAA Championships, 37 in a row, closing in on 30 Big Ten Championships, 17 World Cups, many major college matches, the first USA/USSR dual in 1971, and many more.  I appreciate Flo/Track.......Fadz

Things Flo could do to make their product a bunch better:

• Fix the streaming stability (it's 2022 for Christ's sake)
• Test the webpages on multiple browser/operating system combinations and make it work everywhere
• Stop serving ads to paying customers
• Make the FloArena brackets work like TrackWrestling's (they own both properties)
• Get rid of Christian Pyles or at least never let him announce another wrestling match

[ionel]

5 minutes ago, Mike Parrish said:

Things Flo could do to make their product a bunch better:

• Fix the streaming stability (it's 2022 for Christ's sake)
• Test the webpages on multiple browser/operating system combinations and make it work everywhere
• Stop serving ads to paying customers
• Make the FloArena brackets work like TrackWrestling's (they own both properties)
• Get rid of Christian Pyles or at least never let him announce another wrestling match

how about:

Make the TrackWreslting  brackets work like FloArena (they own both properties so pick one!)

Why do we have to go thru 10 levels of button clicks to get to a bracket only then to now be able to read the bottom of the bracket due to the add strip.  Why are they running two diffirent systems. 

[Fadzaev2]

9 hours ago, LJB said:

@Fadzaev2 you are wasting your breath...

 

“Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it”

-Mark Twain

Maybe....but I'm generating conversation/ideas, so that's OK.....plus, I do speak the truth, so I'm good with it!!!  Just think, now, to watch the collegiate duals, you'd have to go to Rokfin and spend more bucks.....I'll think about it.

[GreatWhiteNorth]

12 hours ago, bnwtwg said:

Can confirm that Boston sucks. It's brutally technical and every first-timer blows up from the downhill start unless they are treating it as a long-run victory lap. I'm just aiming to finish under 2:50. FWIW every race I have run with Kipchoge, he has set a world record... maybe he goes for the course record in Hopkinton?!

I'm guessing you live someplace warm. Training for Boston in the cold, snowy, dark midwest is awful. To train for a 2:50 here is rare. Either way, best of luck to you. Maybe post your bib, it'd be fun to follow.

My training group had us doing enough hills to prepare for the "no, downhill is not easy at all" realization. But still not enough for Newton (is there ever?) I bonked and penguin'ed my way from Heartbreak to finish in 3:40'ish. Was brutal. 

[bnwtwg]

9 hours ago, GreatWhiteNorth said:

I'm guessing you live someplace warm. Training for Boston in the cold, snowy, dark midwest is awful. To train for a 2:50 here is rare. Either way, best of luck to you. Maybe post your bib, it'd be fun to follow.

My training group had us doing enough hills to prepare for the "no, downhill is not easy at all" realization. But still not enough for Newton (is there ever?) I bonked and penguin'ed my way from Heartbreak to finish in 3:40'ish. Was brutal. 

Chicago is warm... about 5 weeks each summer. And yeah Heartbreak is brutal and has that name for a reason! I do lots of up and downs on parking garages because that's about as close as it gets around here for "hills." How good or bad was it mentally for you when you saw the Citgo sign and the distance to go sunk in?

[Formally140]

14 hours ago, Fadzaev2 said:

Maybe....but I'm generating conversation/ideas, so that's OK.....plus, I do speak the truth, so I'm good with it!!!  Just think, now, to watch the collegiate duals, you'd have to go to Rokfin and spend more bucks.....I'll think about it.

A coach I was talking to made a good point about the Rokfin model. A lot of parents/families will pay to watch Johnny wrestle at an event but asking them to pay a yearly fee is probably a non starter.

 

[Fadzaev2]

3 hours ago, Formally140 said:

A coach I was talking to made a good point about the Rokfin model. A lot of parents/families will pay to watch Johnny wrestle at an event but asking them to pay a yearly fee is probably a non starter.

 

There's still a monthly or yearly fee with Rokfin,,,,,,  $14.99/mo or $149.99 for a year, the a fee to watch an event on top of that.  Collegiate Duals is $15 more dollars.  So the yearly fee is the same as Flo, but you don't pay for each event.

[GreatWhiteNorth]

11 hours ago, bnwtwg said:

Chicago is warm... about 5 weeks each summer. And yeah Heartbreak is brutal and has that name for a reason! I do lots of up and downs on parking garages because that's about as close as it gets around here for "hills." How good or bad was it mentally for you when you saw the Citgo sign and the distance to go sunk in?

I qualified with a 3:08 at the kind of, sort of hilly TCM. Had aspirations of sub-3, but our group didn't choose an indoor option - all training was outside in the dark, in ice and snow. Parking garages! Why didn't we think of parking garages! We ran 'Guthrie Hills', at the Guthrie Theater (before it moved to its current location), and a few other lesser known quad burners. 

My experience at Newton Hills wasn't good, but not terrible until Heartbreak. It was 'littered' with bodies along the side of the road. That sounds awful - and it really was. Was a weird mix of "At least I'm doing way better than they are" and "Is that going to be me soon?"

Citgo. I ran with a GPS on my left wrist, and a pace chart taped on my right. I had heard about the relief of seeing the Citgo sign but for me, I already knew three things by the time I saw it. Where I was, how not-fast-enough I was going, and how much it hurt at the moment. Still felt like a slog - no Citgo boost for me. But, kind of like wrestling, I viewed it as short time in the 3rd and sucked it up.

It did start to feel better, and as the crowds got bigger and bigger into Boston adrenalin kicked in. Finished strong-ish. Crowds are great. And so are the foil sheets they wrapped us in when we finished - weirdly, that's the thing I remember most at the finish.

Since you're a Chicago guy, you may know who Hal Higdon is. I was lucky to be able to meet him a couple nights before the marathon. He was a legend in the running world at the time. We had a group pic taken with a few of us with connected backgrounds. Great guy, and one of the highlights of the event. As someone once said, "You meet the best people at marathons."

Good luck on your training, I've got nothing but respect for wrestlers who become marathoners. (As if one kind of punishment isn't enough!)

[flyingcement]

On 12/15/2022 at 9:10 AM, LJB said:

@Fadzaev2 you are wasting your breath...

 

“Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it”

-Mark Twain

"everyone talks about this BBS..." (I still don't know what that stands for btw)

-LJB

Edited December 17, 2022 by flyingcement

[MPhillips]

10 hours ago, flyingcement said:

"everyone talks about this BBS..." (I still don't know what that stands for btw)

 

Bulletin Board System...

[ionel]

On 12/16/2022 at 8:04 AM, bnwtwg said:

Chicago is warm... about 5 weeks each summer. And yeah Heartbreak is brutal and has that name for a reason! I do lots of up and downs on parking garages because that's about as close as it gets around here for "hills." How good or bad was it mentally for you when you saw the Citgo sign and the distance to go sunk in?

 

16 hours ago, GreatWhiteNorth said:

 

Since you're a Chicago guy, you may know who Hal Higdon is. I was lucky to be able to meet him a couple nights before the marathon. He was a legend in the running world at the time. We had a group pic taken with a few of us with connected backgrounds. Great guy, and one of the highlights of the event. As someone once said, "You meet the best people at marathons."

 

Higdon also covered the River to River event.  One of the year's our group raced it Higdon had done a write up, I took it and edited in a couple obscure references.  One referenced our #5 runner finishing downhill on section 21, emailed the writeup to the group, the #5 (one of our better runners) couldn't believe Hal had seen him flailing and frothing into the finish.  Those of us on the team that were doing marathons found that many aspects of RtR were harder.  The marathon was a nice 18/20 (24 if lucky) mile run followed by the second half that was hard.  RtR was hard from the get go and the downhills tough especially after a previous uphill section then wait around in the van, get stiff and go again.  We trained on ramps and stairs but that didn't really prep one for the downhill sections.  

[nhs67]

I have a remedy for everything:

Let @Jon_Kozak come on and rip them a new one once a week.

Hell.  Actually?  Let him do a 'Kozak the Killer' segment each Tuesday to replace the missing FRL.  Let him go wild, with no repercussions.

[Mike Parrish]

1 hour ago, nhs67 said:

I have a remedy for everything:

Let @Jon_Kozak come on and rip them a new one once a week.

Hell.  Actually?  Let him do a 'Kozak the Killer' segment each Tuesday to replace the missing FRL.  Let him go wild, with no repercussions.

I suspect certain fragile egos couldn't stand that.

[MPhillips]

1 hour ago, nhs67 said:

I have a remedy for everything:

Let @Jon_Kozak come on and rip them a new one once a week.

Hell.  Actually?  Let him do a 'Kozak the Killer' segment each Tuesday to replace the missing FRL.  Let him go wild, with no repercussions.

I like it. 

[Formally140]

I almost made a thread. But it fits in right here. Track has been awful this season. Today we had issues with athletes not being moved through the brackets properly. Bout boards not working. 
 

A tournament runner is having trouble sending tournament links. And said it’s been difficult and finicky since Flo bought it… 

I hope a competitor software decides to start up.. any ideas @Husker_Du?

because I think it’s only going to get worse

[nhs67]

4 minutes ago, Formally140 said:

I almost made a thread. But it fits in right here. Track has been awful this season. Today we had issues with athletes not being moved through the brackets properly. Bout boards not working. 
 

A tournament runner is having trouble sending tournament links. And said it’s been difficult and finicky since Flo bought it… 

I hope a competitor software decides to start up.. any ideas @Husker_Du?

because I think it’s only going to get worse

I honestly think they are trying to not update Track in an attempt to get everyone yo go to FloArena's shit formatting.

Want to grow the sport?  Redo FloArena.  That fckn thing is detrimental to the sport.

[Formally140]

2 minutes ago, nhs67 said:

I honestly think they are trying to not update Track in an attempt to get everyone yo go to FloArena's shit formatting.

Want to grow the sport?  Redo FloArena.  That fckn thing is detrimental to the sport.

That’s shitty of them and in line with past stuff they’ve done.
Problem is. Nothing turns off parents more than tournaments that run too long for stupid reasons. Or several schools at the tournament I was at today, had kids only getting one match them not getting moved in bracket and scrambling to find them extra matches. 
 

But I try to be solution oriented. so I hope a competitor comes around because you can’t do half the stuff with arena you can with Track and the UI is awful

[ionel]

7 minutes ago, nhs67 said:

I honestly think they are trying to not update Track in an attempt to get everyone yo go to FloArena's shit formatting.

Want to grow the sport?  Redo FloArena.  That fckn thing is detrimental to the sport.

Track is worse but both are bad.

[Formally140]

1 minute ago, ionel said:

Track is worse but both are bad.

I want a software that runs tournament’s smoothly. Track used to be that if you had someone who knew how to use it. Now even the people who are wizards with it are getting frustrated 

[nhs67]

5 minutes ago, ionel said:

Track is worse but both are bad.

Track isn't worse.

You are stirring the honeypot with that one, mister.

[ionel]

1 minute ago, nhs67 said:

Track isn't worse.

You are stirring the honeypot with that one, mister.

Its bad honey so ... 

[MPhillips]

15 minutes ago, ionel said:

Its bad honey so ... 

Honey doesn't go bad, but I regress.  Not a Track fan. Never a Track fan. I find it a necessary evil that has grown on me.

[ionel]

12 minutes ago, MPhillips said:

Honey doesn't go bad, but I regress.  Not a Track fan. Never a Track fan. I find it a necessary evil that has grown on me.

Didn't say it "went bad."  I have relatives in the honey business.  

But back to Track, count the number of times you have to click to get where you want to go and then the number of times you have to do it all over again.  Both platforms are bad prob cause run by the same team, appears they are using ~20 year old code, refuse to listen to the user/customer and seem to have no interest in ever changing.  

PS: seems to be a lot of regressing & digressing on these hear forums lately.  

Edited December 17, 2022 by ionel