Thursday, May 21, 2009

A dedicated cross-country running facility for Tallahassee

If you've run a number of cross-country races, then you've probably run course in a variety of areas, possibly including parks, golf courses, horse tracks, forests, military bases, farm land, and school campuses. Essentially, you ended up running wherever the race director was able to find enough open area to lay out a course of appropriate length, perhaps also with adequate parking and a sufficient number of restrooms.

One place you probably haven't run, though, is a course solely for cross-country running.

And that's a problem. Whenever you run in an area whose primary use is something other than running, there is going to be tension with the primary users. I've raced on a lot of golf courses, for example, and I can't remember a single golfer who was happy to see us. I can understand that; I'd be somewhat resentful myself if there was a putting contest at the track on a day I wanted to run intervals. There are similar problems with multi-use facilities like parks. Running may indeed be one of the uses the land is set aside for, but non-runners may also be trying to use the same area for horseback riding, dog walking, kite flying, turkey hunting, or some other activity that's allowed on public land.

In many other sports this isn't a problem. Fields are set aside in parks for softball, baseball, soccer, and football. Likewise you can find tennis courts and basketball courts in many parks. There aren't many cross-country running parks, however. One of the few is Kansas University's Rim Rock Farm. Rim Rock was the property of Kansas track coach Bob Timmons, who spent a quarter century developing the land as a venue for cross-country races. It has been the home course of the Kansas Jayhawks' cross-country teams since 1974. In 2005, Timmons and his wife, Pat, donated Rim Rock Farm to the Kansas University Endowment Association, intending for the land to host cross-country races in perpetuity. Rim Rock Farm is reputedly a beautiful place to run cross country, the hills and woodlands being adorned with covered bridges and cast-iron silhouettes of great Kansas distance runners of the past. Because the site is devoted solely to running, signs and course marking can be permanent.

Leon County may be the home of the next cross-country running park. The Leon County Division of Parks and Recreation is partnering with Florida State University and the Gulf Winds Track Club to develop part of Apalachee Regional Park as a dedicated cross-country running course. Apalachee Regional Park is east of Tallahassee on US 27 at 7550 Apalachee Parkway, the location of what was formerly the Leon County landfill. It's an attractive chunk of land, located on the south rim of Lake Lafayette. There are long-term plans to have Apalachee Regional Park connect with Tom Brown Park and the Alford Greenway via the multi-use Lafayette Heritage Trail.

Even given the land, though, there won't be any course without money and sweat. As an early installment on the sweat, Gulf Winds Track Club president Judy Alexander is organizing a work day at the course on Saturday, 23 May 2009 starting at 9:00 am ET. Contact her if you can donate a few hours of your time (850-383-1361, 850-321-6886 (mobile), jalexander98@comcast.net ).

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Posted by Herb Wills at 2:40 PM
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownMay 22, 2009 at 11:14 AM

    I just moved to Tallahassee from Austin, TX and I am ECSTATIC to hear that there are plans to develop a cross-country running facility.

    Austin has a fabulous 10-mile hike-and-bike trail that loops around the river and I miss being able to run on a trail with every quarter of a mile marked for you.

    Will this facility mark the miles or quarter miles? Is there anything in Tallahassee where miles are marked? I'm searching for a good spot for tempo runs. Love the blog!

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  2. Herb WillsMay 22, 2009 at 11:36 AM

    Just off the top of my head, the 4.9-mile Lake Overstreet Loop has mile markers. The paved Tallahassee-St Marks Rail Trail has mile marks and kilometer marks all the way from Capital Circle to the St Marks River and back. And the large, nine-mile hiking loop at the Fort Braden Trails has mile marks as well (but it's probably a bit rugged for a tempo run).

    Strangely enough, I can't think of anywhere in town where the half miles were marked (unless by some cross-country coach with a can of spray paint). I know that over near Madison on the Four Freedoms Trail mileage posts were recently put up at each half mile, and the Chief Ladiga Trail in Alabama has each half mile marked for over thirty miles.

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