The Orange Avenue 12K

Every once in a while I like to think of a race that could be, or could have been--a dream race.


For instance, back in the 1960s, Tallahassee's Capital Circle was still a sleepy two-lane bypass around the town. At the east end of Capital Circle, there was no Thomasville Road-Interstate 10 interchange, with its maze of flyovers, traffic signals, and parking lots, because there was no Interstate 10. Back then, Capital Circle's eastern terminus at Thomasville Road was a blinking light where one two-lane highway met another amidst the trees and the cow pastures. There was really nothing much on Capital Circle back then--the Federal Correctional Institution, a drive-in theater at Apalachee Parkway, and the airport. So if there had been just one local running fanatic in the 1960s who had noticed that Capital Circle was 26-1/2 miles long--or just long enough to mark out a marathon course with a little bit left over....


You'd go through Hell trying to set that race up now. But had a marathon grown up with the road, they might have celebrated the end of their first half century together.


More recently I was inspired by Orange Avenue, which has been extended over the years to go from the far east side of town to the far west side of town. Currently, it runs about as far west as it possible can terminating at Capital Circle SW on the shores of Cascade Lake, and then extends across the south side of town to cross Capital Circle SE into Southwood, where it reaches a temporary dead end. As Orange Avenue exists now, it's about eight miles long. As a distance runner, the first thing that comes to mind is running from one end of Orange to the other. The second thing that comes to mind is staging a race from one end of Orange to the other.


A race wouldn't be totally ridiculous. Orange Avenue on the east side of town will be a nightmare of commercial development someday soon, but right now it's a relatively quiet road with four traffic lanes, bicycle lanes, and sidewalks (and some major hills guaranteed to punish out-of-shape athletes). The Cody Climb 8K has already been run using parts of East Orange Avenue without any casualties. Traffic heats up by the time Orange crosses Monroe Street, and after Wahnish Way the road shrinks to two lanes, but everything calms down after crossing Springhill Road. By the time you get to the west end of Orange Avenue it's a sleepy country road. Portions of both the Reservation Run 5K and the Tallahassee Marathon have been run on that part of Orange at one time or another.


There really isn't anything at either end of Orange Avenue, or at least anything where you could stage a starting area or a finishing area for a significant number of runners. So you wouldn't actually race from one end to the other. Instead, you'd start near the east end at Conley Elementary School, where you could arrange for parking and registration. Before reaching the west end, you'd turn off onto Eisenhower Street and then onto Tyson Road, where the finish line would be at the Florida State University Rec SportsPlex. And guess what? The entire route comes in at almost exactly 12K, or at least close enough to only require minor adjustments of the starting line and finish line locations.




Of course, there would be the problem of getting permission to use the grounds at Conley Elementary to stage the start, and the bigger problem of getting permission from FSU Campus Recreation to use their limited-access intramural facility for the finish area. And you'd have to get the runners safely across Capital Circle NE (aka US 319), South Monroe Street, South Adams Street, Springhill Road, and a bunch of smaller intersections. And then there's the problem of any point-to-point course of getting the finishers back to the starting line.


But we don't have to deal with any of those problems as long as it's just a dream race. And we can always dream, can't we?


Links:

• Interactive map of the Orange Avenue Race 12K course at America's Running Routes
  http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=394775
  
  
• Another course for a "Dream Race," the Tom Brown Park 5K loop
  http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2010/04/tom-brown-5k.html
  
  
• An event that got beyond the "Dream Race" stage, the Cody Climb 8K
  http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2010/03/2010-cody-climb-8k-results.html
  
  
• Consult this schedule to find some real races to run in the Tallahassee region
  http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/search/label/calendar?max-results=1