Racing and Community - part 1

When I started road racing in the 1970's, it was a seasonal sport, held between track in the spring and cross-country in the fall (winter was for indoor track or cross-country skiing). There were few races, so you ran all you heard about; generally you found out about a race a week or two in advance, usually by word-of-mouth at the races you did. By the end of the decade, it was possible to race nearly every weekend, if you were willing to travel and racing oneself into shape became commonplace, as entry fees (day of race only) were $1-3.

Races varied between 2 and 10 miles, with little attempt in some cases to accurately measure courses, though larger races tended to 5 miles (later 8K) and 10K and were accurate to better than 0.1 miles, once the first running boom hit in 1976.

This cavalier attitude toward race distance seems odd today, when races are certified as to distance, then registered as to record quality (not being too different from start to finish), then sanctioned (the race director stating that the proper course was run and that there were no advantages such as a strong tailwind). There's still a vestige of this in trail running, where courses are so tough that accurate measurement becomings meaningless.

Races had 30-100 entrants and, because of the low cost, few frills. Water stops were rare. There was no award for second place, no age classes and no separate awards for women; women were less than 10% of runners in 1975, but everyone knew who they were and despite teasing about "getting chicked," they were arguably more equals then than now.

The system worked because you'd see many of the same people at every race. You don't have a feel for what pace you should run a hilly 7.3 mile race, but you know who you were behind and who you were in front of in the last race, so you knew where you belonged. When you finished near someone repeatedly, friendly rivalries would develop and you'd push each other to faster times.

This all fell apart with the second running boom of 1983. In a race of 5000, the twenty you knew disappeared in the crowd, you crossed the finish line 5 abreast - so place was immaterial and racing evaporated - and you rushed to your car afterward, to beat the traffic caused by the thousands behind you, rather than hang around and chat with those you raced with.

The larger running populace came at the cost of community. I'm hoping to discuss in the following posts what was lost and how I think it can be regained.