Today’s New Thing was total happenstance.

Last week I did my intervals at the big track here in Framingham - since I took the first day of school off I was able to do my intervals run during the day, but since it was a school day I couldn’t use the middle school track I had been using every week for my runs.

The big track is about 2 miles away - perfect for my warm-up and cool-down distances.

(Why is it the big track, as opposed to the small track, even though essentially they’re the same distance around, you ask? The ‘big track’ has the full six lanes - there are no lanes painted on the ‘small track’ - I don’t think it would fit the six full lanes.)

This field is where the high school football team plays its home games.

It’s also where graduation takes place. I’ve included a picture of the field at graduation below so you can get a sense of what it looks like unpainted.

While I was running I noticed a Parks & Rec worker and this little machine doing tiny movements on the field. I was there for about an hour, and the machine started on one side of the field and eventually made its way to the other side of the field.

I didn’t see when it happened. I just know it was moving around in tiny increments, and the worker would leave it for a bit, then return to it sporadically.

At first I thought the little machine was spreading grass seed…but it was in such a small part of the field I figured that probably wasn’t what it was doing - not that I’m an expert but it seems like it would do more back and forth on the entire field rather than the small sections it was focused on. (I’m fascinated by yard work and the tools to do such work. I really like yard work/lawn work…though you wouldn’t really know it if you looked at my grass this year.)

By the end of my run I noticed the hash marks - there were more on the field than were missing.

As I began my cool-down I asked the guy about it - I said, “Is that painting the hash marks?”

He said, “Yeah it does everything.”

I couldn’t get the idea out of my head so I said, “Oh yeah? Like spreading grass seed?”

“Well, it could,” he said, “But you know, all the lines and numbers.”

“Oh wow, all of the lines.” I thought about the machine making its way across the entire field instead of just the small has marks.

Then the other part sunk in.

“Wow! It does the numbers too!” He nodded. “So how long does that take - all day?”

He kind of shrugged. I don’t know if he knew.

I had never really thought about how the hash marks were painted on a football field - I guess I assumed there was a guiding grid, not unlike the way they paint the batter’s box and foul lines on a baseball field. (Or maybe that’s how it used to be done.)

I’m glad I happened upon this when it was taking place - and some day maybe I can luck out and see what it looks like when the machine is painting the numbers on the field.