Central Oregon Track Club offers July meets

The Central Oregon Track Club is inviting track athletes of all ages from the region to a series of track meets during the month of July.

The meets, which began Tuesday, July 2 and run each Tuesday for four weeks, are open to participants four years old and older.

Each meet will include a "Feature Race" designed to showcase a particular event and will attract some of the best high school athletes from Central Oregon as well as master athletes (30 and older) from the area and from around the state.

Meets will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Summit High School track in Bend. The schedule of events will include the 50 meters, 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, 800 meters, 1,500 meters or 3000 meters, 4x100 meters, long jump, triple jump, high jump, pole vault and shot put, along with the featured race of the week.

Meets are expected to last about two hours. Registration for the meets is $4 per meet or $15 for the season. The seasonal registration includes membership in the COTC and a club T-shirt.

Tate Metcalf, director of the Sisters Athletic Club and track coach at Mountain View High School, thinks the summer track program fills a void.

"The summer track program introduces kids to the world of track and field," he said. "Track is for everybody since there are events that include throwing, jumping, sprinting, and running distances.

"The bottom line is we want people to have fun with the sport, which is why we work to make it family-oriented," he said.

Each event earns kids a ribbon of a different color, so for many the competition is seeing how many different colors they can collect, according to Metcalf.

In addition, one of the events is the "Family 4x100 meter relay."

Metcalf explained that this summer's program is somewhat abbreviated because of the inability to secure a facility at any of the three high schools in Bend due to maintenance conflicts.

"Normally we do meets during June and July and have scheduled practices, but we're making the best of it for this year," he said.

The featured races include the mile on July 9, 5,000 meters on July 16, and the "Tim Fox Community Mile" on July 23.

Fox, a longtime La Pine teacher and track coach, is recuperating from a spinal injury suffered last year while vacationing in Hawaii.

Information is available at www.centraloregontrackclub.org or Lisa Nye at 382-4358 or Tate Metcalf at 549-6878.