Carolina Godiva Summer Series Satisfies Runners’ Need for Speed

COMMUNITY NEWS

By Randy B. Young
Correspondent

To borrow from General Douglas MacArthur, the broadly held belief is that old sprinters never die, they simply fade away…into the swarms at starting lines of local road races.

It only stands to reason: there are about a million 5 Ks across the country each year. There are also 10K’s, half-marathons, marathons, ultra-marathons, duathlons, and triathlons. You can run for money, for donuts, or for ice cream. Want to run for a cause? Pick one: there’s a race for that. But the opportunities to race on a track—to lunge off the starting line, hug the turn, and make up a stagger—are few and far between.

That scarcity is just one of the things that makes the Carolina Godiva Track Club’s Summer Track Series so special.

The weekly track meets begin at 7 p.m., rain or shine (barring lightning) on Wednesday nights at Chapel Hill’s Culbreth Middle School track, with races ranging from 100-meter dashes to 5K races. The events are open to the public and free; although contributions (usually $1.00) are accepted, there is no fee to participate.

This year’s series began on Wednesday, May 28th at Culbreth and continues each Wednesday through August 6, with a break on July 2^nd due to the July 4th holiday that week.

Patrick Gale (far left) gives instructions and encouragement to runners to begin the latest Carolina Godiva Summer Series track meet at Chapel Hill’s Culbreth Middle School track. The free Wednesday evening meets continue (except the week of July 4) through August 6. Photo by Randy B. Young.

Godiva: fifty years running

When the Carolina Godiva Track Club was first formed in 1975, it was only three years after Frank Shorter won his first Olympic marathon and two years before Jim Fixx published “The Complete Book of Running,” further igniting the running craze of the late 1970s.

The Carolina Godiva Track Club, registered as an independent North Carolina nonprofit organization in 1981, traces its roots to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill running club, according to the Carolina Godiva website (www.carolinagodiva.org). Founded in the 1975-6 school year by undergraduate UNC Morehead Scholar David Royle from England, the organization’s name was a tribute to a thriving cross-country club, the Coventry Godiva Harriers, established a century earlier (ca. 1879) in Royle’s homeland.

“This is the fiftieth year for Carolina Godiva, so we had a ‘Fifty for Fifty” event (on May 10),” said Carolina Godiva current president, Tom Hoerger. “Fifty people came out and ran a mile each. The founder of the track club—David Royal—came back for that.”

Godiva stages popular running events like the Umstead Trail Marathon, and offers weekly group runs and both a fall and winter running series.

Summer series keeps runners on track

The Carolina Godiva Summer Series began in 1978, just a few years after the club’s founding and has changed very little since its inception.

“We’ve kept it pretty much the same,” Hoerger said. “You know, ‘if it ain’t broke…’ We’ve had a tough time finding a track through, even through local schools. East Chapel Hill had a conflict with lacrosse, and Chapel Hill is hoping to resurface its track if they can get the money.”

In fact, Godiva’s summer series has provided a tour of outdoor track facilities in the Triangle area over the years. The meets initially began at UNC but later relocated to Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium. It moved to the Durham Academy track in the late 1990s and made its way back to UNC in 2008. But access has grown more limited to all athletics facilities, including that at UNC, which relocated its gated track facility off campus. More recently, the series had returned to Durham Academy until this year.

“We kind of ping-ponged around different tracks for a while,” said summer series director Patrick Gale. “We’ve been pretty good at Durham Academy, and we’ve used their track there for years now, but they’re resurfacing their track this summer.”

“We couldn’t really do any communication ahead of time, because we didn’t have a location,” Gale explained. “It’s been last minute…but we’ve still been getting around fifty-or-more runners for each of the summer meets.”

“This will be our third night here,” Gale said at the June 11 meet, “and it’s been going great.”

Brenna Maddox and her son William head for the homestretch in their heat of the one-mile run at the June 11 Carolina Godiva Summer Series track meet at Chapel Hill’s Culbreth Middle School track. Photo by Randy B. Young.

A varied menu

Gale said the format for the meets is tried and true.

“There’s nothing new,” he said. “It’s the same format: we alternate weekly between ‘long nights’ and ‘short nights.’ Tonight (June 11) it’s a ‘long’ night.” 

Runners simply come and enter events as they choose.  Numerous heats are available for most races, offering varied speeds, and runners can self-seed into heats appropriate for their running pace.

On designated “long nights” (June 25, July 16, July 30), events include the mile run (three heats), heats of the 200-meter dash, a mile race walk, an 800-meter run (three heats), and a 5K run (12.5 laps).

On designated “short nights” (June 18, July 9, July 23, August 6), events include the 1500-meter run (three heats), heats of the 100-meter dash, a 1500-meter race walk, heats of the 400-meter dash, and a 3K run (7.5 laps).

Summer series ageless

Because each Carolina Godiva summer series event is open to all runners/walkers of all ages, the races introduce or reintroduce running to athletes from 3 to 103 years old. The meets often serve as a local family reunion of experienced and budding runners.

“My co-worker, he’s an avid runner—an Olympian, actually: Darin Middleman,” said Cara Jones, who ran with her husband and three children at the June 11 meet. “We’re both teachers at Voyager Academy, and we both coach track, but now it’s our turn to run.”

“Our daughter Iayah is running the 200-meter dash tonight, but her twin sister Sonal is also running the 200,” Cara’s husband Vijay Jones said. “They just turned 10-years-old, and then we have another daughter that is almost three.”

“I’d heard about this from my running buddy Brenna Maddox, and she’d heard about it from who-knows-who,” said Heather Lindenman.

“Yes, Heather is my running partner, and she has her husband and kids out here,” Maddox confirmed. “Also, the guy that just won the mile run was my Davidson College teammate. He was just in town to visit his parents, and I told him, ‘Hey, you should come to the race series tonight.”

“Two weeks ago, I think (my daughter) Laurel ran like 7:57 in the mile,” Maddox said, proudly.

“I did well—I was at 6:27 in the mile,” said Audrey Perlow, who ran with her son Luke Verdirame, 8. “This was my first one in years, and this was Luke’s first ever.”

Fresh off his first mile run, Luke Verdirame said he had at least one good idea on how to improve his time: “Cool down the weather,” he said, matter-of-factly.

Runners of all ages and abilities hold tight to the turn in their heat of the 200-meter dash at the latest Carolina Godiva Summer Series track meet at Chapel Hill’s Culbreth Middle School track. Photo by Randy B. Young.

Happy trails (and lanes)

As Carolina Godiva prepares for the next half-century, trails are running scarce; however, this poses a challenge for the club, which has traditionally staged many of its fall and winter events in local woodlands, including Duke Forest.

“Sadly, our annual Misery Run is no more,” Hoerger said. “Our Hard Climb Hill run (during the winter) was cancelled because Duke Forest won’t let us in anymore,” Hoerger said. “The forest is devoted to research, and walking is fine, but events can’t be organized there.”

However, Godiva has always found a way to keep runners running, even as venues have changed. For perspective, the year that the summer series began, future world-class runner Kara Goucher was born. And who’s to say that the next world-class runner isn’t cutting their teeth at Culbreth this summer?

A Dartmouth College graduate, Randy B. Young first worked as an award-winning advertising copywriter in New Hampshire, then in communications at UNC for over 30 years. He maintained an award-winning newspaper feature covering Recreation and Exercise in the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Orange County. Retired and living in Chapel Hill, Randy continues to write for regional publications both locally and in New England, and his book, And the Stars Flew With Us, is available through Amazon and at independent bookstores. He coaches track at Chapel Hill High and has a photography business, Pierless (sic) Photography. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocal Reporter.press