What is a heat in a track and field meet?

Answer 1

A 'heat' is a preliminary race in a running event where the the top 2 or 3 finishers qualify for another race and the others are eliminated. For example, if there were 32 entrants in a 100 meter dash race, you could have 4 'heats' where the first two finishers in each heat would qualify to run in the final race where the winner would be considered the winner of the 100 meter dash for that competition.

Answer 2

It depends at what level and what kind of meet you are competing in. At most track & field meets (Youth, High School, College, and World levels) they list all the athletes entered in that event by their seed time (the time entered in either their coach, or themselves). They then break up the athletes into heats so that everyone in each heat is racing with similar times. The exception is in any kind of championship meet, where there will be preliminary rounds. In a preliminary, they generally seed heats in a way that would spread out the talent. For instance, if there were 4 heats, they might have the best and 8th seed in the 1st heat, the 2nd and 7th seed in the 2nd heat, 3rd and 7th seeds in the 3rd heat, and the 4th and 5th seeds in the 4th heat. This is done to ensure that the best talent doesn't get knocked out during a preliminary heat.