RACE DECISIONS

The more that I got involved, the more that I realized that there are so much more to learn. When the MS-OLR Organizer decided that the final race will be on March 3, 2012. We have to start working back on the race schedules. Matnog race should not be later than Feb. 25 and Legaspi race should not be later than Feb. 18. Since we are not certain of the weather condition and that no race point is allowed to be cancelled, we have to give one week allowance as contingency to the First Race. Thus, Feb. 12 was tentatively set as the first race in Legaspi.

On Saturday morning, the birds were basketted with a final entries of 449 birds. On the same afternoon, the Organizer when to my house to discuss about the different scenario, since both of us felt that it is very unlikely that we could release the birds on Sunday. We have reviewed the different weather forecasting stations and made a lot of calculations. We predicted that the weather in Legaspi could improve in the later part of the morning, but the entire Camarines and Quezon provinces, which is the path of our feather athletes will remained under heavy rain and strong winds.

On Feb. 12 (SUNDAY), our fear turned to be a reality. Legaspi is raining hard in the morning. Thus, a decision was immediately made to hold over the birds. Metro Manila weather is overcast and started to rain in the afternoon.

On Feb. 13 (MONDAY), it is fair weather in Legaspi, but the weather in Metro Manila, together with the adjascent provinces remained not so good. As we foresee that the weather in Bicol region will turn bad again on Tuesday and continue to be bad for the next few days, a decision has to be made. We know that there is a risk in releasing the birds, but holding further will not do us any better. Go! The birds were finally liberated at exactly 7:00am. We are very excited when the first dropper was clocked at 11:13am. As of 1:56pm, 224 birds were clocked which represents 50%.

I have been an officer for 25 years in one of our country's most prestigeous Racing Pigeons Club, but helping manage the MS-OLR gives me some new challenges. Not only that we have to monitor the weather continuously, we also have to make a lot of calculations on the flying path.

Congratulations to all the participants who have clocked their birds today. I hope that we will continue to have good races in Matnog, Sorsogon and Allen, Samar.

Good luck to all! Cheers!!!