Since high school, I have raced a lot of different all-comer cross country meets held every summer. The first one that I ever ran in was at Pierce College on Tuesday nights back in the 70's.. We would run the 2-mile course, then stick around and run track events later in the evening. It was a blast, the track meet held every event from relays, walks, pole vault, to sprints, middle, and long distance. I also ran the High Desert Track Club cross country meets, which back in the day were held in Quartz Hill. Naturally, I have run many races and thoroughly enjoy the COC summer series.
The start and finish line being set up before the start of the Bakersfield Track Club race #1
One of the meets that I have never participated in is the Bakersfield Track Club Summer Cross Country Series. This year after my prostate cancer surgery, I decided to try to compete in both the Bakersfield races, as well as the COC races. The races in Bakersfield are different in that they use a handicap start system similar to the Dipsea Race in Northern California. The goal of the handicap start in Bakersfield is to have everyone finish as close to 7:30 PM as possible. I was at the course early, checked in and got the bibs for Robin, Trevor, Andrea, and myself. The race is chip timed, and we keep the same chip embedded bib for all of the races. The bib has our name and starts time on it. Next to the start line is a big clock with the time of day going so we knew when to approach the start line. I did a short warm up with Shane, a few strides, and felt ready to go.
The handicap table for the Bakersfield Track Club Summer Series
My start time was 7:08, so I got a 3-minute head start on the high school kids. The P.A. announcer was on top of everything calling us to the start line for our race. This is the first year competitors have been allowed to wear watches, as this is a no electronics race. That means if you are caught listening to music on the course during the race you will be disqualified. I love that aspect of the race. The reason for no music is safety. I ran up on some slower competitors pretty fast so I was glad they could hear me coming.
After the race started, I came upon slower people pretty quickly. There are lots of families that do the race as a walk and jog for fun. I carried water as I did not know how the warmer air temperature would affect me. It was 97 when the race started, and the race organizers were well prepared, as they had four water stations along the 5k course. The course itself wasn't that difficult. We ran on pavement and dirt, there was one small hill, and a good amount of single track dirt. The heat makes up for the lack of hills. I managed negative splits in the race, 7:21, 7:17, and 7:15 for the 3 miles. The handicap start kept everything spread out, so there was never any crowds of runners that went out too fast for me to try to pass on narrow sections. I really enjoyed the race, and am looking forward to the next one.
My Garmin screen shot after the race. Note the temperature on the bottom right
I finished the race in 22:39, Trevor 30:00, Andrea 38:42, and Robin did not race since she's in South Carolina playing with our grandson Henry. By the way, Henry was in his first 5k yesterday at the age of 11 days. Since scoring for the races is different than most, I cannot post the finished results since they have yet to be posted. The way I understand things, the race organizers take our run times, add it to our start time, and that will be our finish time. They will take the best 3 times for each runner, add them together, and that will determine winners at the conclusion of the series. The races will be held on every other Tuesdays, with the finals being a fun run, barbecue, and handing out of awards. Trevor, Andrea, and I finished the night at Tony's Pizza with some delicious pizza and beer.
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