It's easy to say what I'd do next time, but hard at the time when you are not even aware it's out of focus on the little LCD.

So in retrospect, I'd manual focus on two points, aft and fore, and use the focus/zoom preset to transition between them, focus speed preset to adjust the speed of the transition.

May not have been possible...

Great tips and info folks... Thanks!

I just shot a track thing recently... it was pretty tough to maintain a manual focus and zoom as the runners went by... It worked well in many situations to focus on the finish line and have them run into focus, and then compensate from there...

Auto focus would have not worked so well with all the people moving in and out of my frame at the race finish...

Oh, also, I kept my thumb on the push auto focus button... That did help in a bind.

Anyway, again, great tips! Good thread. :)