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Will hurt runners
Coach says training is key Loss of Aviation track
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The site plan for the new Aviation Park as proposed by the Beach Cities Health District and the City of Redondo Beach. The reconfigured track winds through trees, which embrace the ball fields. Rendering courtesy of BCHD |
by George Wiley
For non-runners to switch from a quarter-mile racing surface to a meandering jogging track is no big deal. But for those who race, the loss of a regulation quarter-mile surface is a severe blow, say trainers.
Even the weekend competitor needs to learn pace and rhythm and that can only be learned on a regulation track. Runners working with a coach also need a quarter-mile oval to clock distances, speed and improve techniques says Ed Avol, a former high school and college track star, who now helps athletes train informally for competitive and casual running events.
Under a proposal now being given the finishing touches, the City of Redondo Beach and the Beach Cities Health District (BCHD) intend to expand and add services, including a fitness center and swimming facilities, at Aviation Park, which was once Aviation High School.
In the process, the regulation track will be replaced with a 12-foot-wide serpentine jogging path that will wind around a new park-like landscape and ball fields. While the proposed changes at the park will be a definite upgrade, the loss of the track will force runners to find other places to train, said Avol, 48, a former track competitor at Grant High School in the San Fernando Valley and University of California at San Diego.
Tracks such as Aviation's are a rarity and fill a real need for the casual to serious racer, Avol added.
Sue Armstrong, director of Recreation and Community Services for the City of Redondo Beach, said she can't remember a request for a track meet at the Aviation site since the city took the old high school over 15 years ago.
"I don't buy that at all," said Armstrong when asked if the proposed new track will inconvenience serious runners. Pre-planning meetings with track groups from TRW, Mira Costa and elsewhere while the city was putting the plans for the new track together failed to draw any objections, she said.
Talks with Jeff Atkinson, a former Olympian and assistant cross country and track coach at Mira Costa High focussed more on the kind of surface to be put on the new path than on the loss of the regulation track itself, she added.
Armstrong points out that the new, path-like track will still have markings by which distance and times can be measured. She said the surface will be a new kind of light-colored asphalt that will be easier to run on. Moreover, she said, the new track will be lit every night, whereas the current track is only lit at night when the football field is in use. Lighting the present track every night with the football lights is too expensive, she adds.
Armstrong said narrowing the running track and changing its configuration will fit in with the park-like look planners want for the new, expanded Aviation facilities. The modified path will help create space for a needed access road to the east of the current track. It will also allow soccer fields to be moved slightly, and allow more parking to be put in place for Aviation facility users.
"What we've had is a positive response to everything," said Armstrong. "What we have heard is 'please don't take the track away completely.' I think we are giving people a much better park, including the track. Keeping a 40-foot wide high school track is unnecessary. It would take too much space and limits what we can do. The project involves so much more than the track. People aren't going to lose the track. The track is going to be more interesting. It will be beautiful."
Avol said numerous track clubs and track athletes do use the Aviation track. The only other regulation tracks in the beach cities of Manhattan, Hermosa or Redondo are at Mira Costa High in Manhattan and at Redondo Union High School. But both those tracks are heavily used by their respective high schools and are difficult to access for the public, he adds.
"I'm there at 6 a.m. and people are running. I'm there at 6:30 p.m. and people are running," Atkinson said. "It would be the elimination of a well-used resource if it were done away with. People feel more comfortable with a public facility rather than going to a high school."
Atkinson, who came in 10th in the 1,500 meters in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and who still holds the two-mile record for Mira Costa where he graduated in 1981, said at least as many people use the Aviation track as use the skate park, the tennis courts or the basketball courts at Aviation.
"We already have the best meandering path in the world," he said. "It's called the greenbelt. To me that's a duplication of services, which is not what you have with the Aviation track. "ER