A missed finish should not cost you a rep

Every coach who has timed sprints with phones knows the moment. The athlete runs a good rep, crosses the line, walks back, and there is no time. Now you have a choice. Run it again and add fatigue to the session, or skip it and lose the data.

A rep with no time is not only annoying. On a testing day it costs you the freshest efforts, and with a squad of fifteen it eats the session. Most of these misses can be prevented, and the ones that still happen should at least tell you what went wrong.

Here is a simple routine for fewer lost runs with SpeedTrackr Timing Gates in the Android app, plus what it now does when the finish is borderline.

Check the line before anyone sprints. Put the finish phone on something steady at the finish line, not handheld. Make sure there is enough light on the line and nothing busy in the background, like people walking past. Then tap TEST THE LINE and walk across once. The finish phone tells you out loud whether it saw you. That one walk takes a few seconds and saves the first real rep.

Put the finish phone at the distance you set. If you change from 10 m to 20 m, move the finish phone. The app reminds you when you change the distance. If the finish phone sees a time that is too fast to be real, it tells you instead of staying silent. Nearly always, that means the finish phone is not at the set distance.

Use JUST TESTING for setup runs. When you are checking the setup after starting, tap JUST TESTING on the no-detection card so that run does not count as a missed race. Keep your real reps clean.

When the finish camera only half sees the athlete, confirm it. This is the newest change on Google Play. Before, a finish the camera only partly saw could end up as a miss. Now you get the athlete's photo and the time, and you confirm it. If the photo shows your athlete crossing the line, you keep the rep. No rerun, no extra fatigue.

When there is still no time, read the reason. A run with no time now says why and how to fix it, with a picture of the setup. Fix that one thing before the next athlete goes. Do not just press go again and hope.

Cancel from the start phone when a rep goes wrong. A false start or a slip happens. Cancelling the run from the start phone no longer shows a "camera saw nobody" card, so the screen stays clear for the next rep.

A short testing day routine, then:

1. Steady finish phone, good light, quiet background.
2. TEST THE LINE, walk across once.
3. Finish phone at the distance you set. Move it if you change the distance.
4. Setup runs marked JUST TESTING.
5. Half-seen finish: check the photo, confirm the time.
6. No time: read the reason, fix it, then run.

A few product facts so nothing gets oversold. Timing Gates gives a practice-grade start-to-finish time. The second gate can be an Android phone, an iPhone or a laptop. There are no split times and it is not fully automatic timing (FAT) for meets. Coach Mode works on the web app and on Android, so each time can be saved to the right athlete in the Squad tab.

The Android app is on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speedtrackr.reactionpro

For an iPhone or a laptop, use the web app: https://www.speedtrackr.com/auth/login

There is no native iPhone app. iPhone users use the web app.

The goal on testing day is simple: every good rep gets a time, and every missed one tells you what to fix. Spend two minutes on the line before the first sprint, and the athletes spend their best efforts on reps that count.