No one organized a "Carmageddon" run.Last Saturday, July 16-17, a stretch of Interstate 405 was closed in Greater Los Angeles. The event was dubbed "Carmageddon" by media figures convinced that Angelenos, in spite of months of advance notice, just wouldn't be able to cope with the brief and temporary loss of a ten-mile stretch of freeway. Of course, everyone got along just fine. The freeway re-opened ahead of schedule on Sunday and is once again awash in traffic.
But there was no "Carmageddon 10K" or some other road race on the empty interstate, a lost opportunity. Not that I-405 is a beautiful place to run, but there's an allure to running in places where it's usually not permitted or is impossible. New highways or highway bridges often are used for a race course before being opened to traffic. In 1958 as part of the dedication ceremony for the Mackinac Bridge, which carries Interstate 75 between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, 68 people walked five miles across the bridge. The walk was repeated the next year, and the next, and the 58th annual Mackinac Bridge Walk will be on Labor Day. 85,000 walkers joined President George H. W. Bush on the 1992 stroll across the bridge.
But that's a walk. Back in Florida, the 1993 opening of the Mid-Bay Bridge across Choctawhatchee Bay was marked with a 4-1/2 mile race from Destin to Niceville. The race became an annual affair, but the bridge remained open for traffic during the event. The runners weren't charged toll, though.
Off the highways, once a year Wakulla Springs State Park throws open its Sanctuary, usually closed to the public, for the Wakulla Springs 5K. Held each May since 2007, the most recent winners of the race were Vince Molosky (16:59) for the men and Seeley Gutierrez (19:29) for the women. The rest of the year, the Sanctuary is the domain of birds and creatures with four or more legs.When Lake Jackson went dry in 2000 the lake bottom didn't look much like a bass paradise but someone thought that it looked like a cross-country course. The Bare Bottom 5K was staged on the lake bottom near Porter Sink; Gary Droze (16:40) and Anna Pichrtova (18:43) won what could have been a once-in-a-generation race. As it turned out, though, the lake was slow to fill up, and another race was held on the dry floor of Lake Jackson on October 27, 2007, the Victorious Egret 5K. Dan Crane (18:32) and Seeley Lovett (21:02) took the titles at that one.
Enough water has returned to Lake Jackson that the fish have reclaimed the territory where runners once intruded. There will probably be another cross-country race in Lake Jackson someday but it's not something that you can schedule. A highway can always be closed, even I-405. But even the Army Corps of Engineers would hesitate at draining a lake for a cross-country run.
Links:
- Original publication of this piece at Tallahassee.com
http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20110724/SPORTS/107240341/No-one-organized-Carmageddon-run - "Molosky and Gutierrez break records at Wakulla Springs" (2011)
http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2011/05/wakulla-2011.html - "Sand and 'Skeeters at the Sanctuary of Wakulla Springs" (2010)
http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2010/05/wakulla-2010.html - Upcoming area races in both unusual and prosaic venues on the Trouble Afoot! calendar
http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/search/label/calendar?max-results=1
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