1. All participants in the SDTC Tuesday evening workouts at Balboa Stadium must wear a blue SDTC shoe tag. SDTC members will receive their shoe tags in the mail (from mid-November onward) when they renew their membership. If you are a SDTC member and have not received your blue shoe tag yet, please see Stephen Burch (SDTC Volunteer Coordinator and SDTC President) or Bill Aaron (SDTC Vice President) at Balboa Stadium next time you attend a Tuesday evening workout. The shoe tags just came in and Jim McN did not have them when some of the SDTC members began renewing their memberships for 2007. The club apologizes for the inconvenience.
2. SDTC members are not to enter Balboa Stadium until the San Diego High School soccer or football practices are finished. The high school athletes should be done by 4:45 pm. SDTC members, you will need to wait for the high school athletes to leave the stadium before entering the stadium for the Tuesday evening workout.
3. After the SDTC workout and cool-down are completed, SDTC members are asked to please leave the stadium facility. Another group has the use of the stadium immediately after us. After the workout, SDTC members are welcome to gather and talk in the parking lots outside the stadium.
4. Please observe the "Golden Rule" of all running tracks: Look right and left before crossing lane 1 (lane 1 is the lane closest to the infield).
5. Parking: SDTC members may park on the San Diego High School campus on the west side of Balboa Stadium. There is room for about 80 cars in two parking lots. Please do not park on the east side of Balboa Stadium. The east parking lot is reserved for City College students and your car may be ticketed. Additional parking is available across Highway 5 in the Balboa Park Administration Building parking lot. Access to the lot is at Park Blvd @ President's Way. Park in the south part of the lot and walk across the pedestrian crossing to the Stadium. Enter the stadium through the west gate.
Balboa Stadium Parking map (2006)
Respectfully Submitted, Paul Greer SDTC Coach
Background and Further Explanation
The SDTC Board of Directors (the Board) has considered for some time now providing ID shoe tags to track club members. The discussion began after a long-time track club member who wasn’t carrying identification was struck by a car and knocked unconscious. Around the same time, the Board began discussing a way to identify athletes enrolled in the club’s Rockin’ ‘n’ Runnin’ Marathon Training Program (RnRMTP) to prevent non-paying runners from participating.
The SDTC's Rockin' 'n' Runnin' marathon training program has become very successful and
an increasing number of runners not enrolled in the program have been participating in its events. For obvious reasons – such as non-paying runners getting for free what others paid for, using resources provided for enrolled members, and putting the club's liability policies and city permits at risk -- the Board decided to require 2007 RnRMTP runners to wear something that identifies them as an enrolled member during Tuesday night workouts and Saturday long runs.
Then in October 2006 the principal of San Diego High School (SDHS) contacted the SDTC Board about its use of Balboa Stadium. (Note: Balboa Stadium is a part of the SDHS campus and its use is governed by the San Diego Unified School District through a shared-use agreement with the City of San Diego. San Diego High School is charged with maintaining Balboa Stadium and has oversight of the stadium's calendar; the San Diego Unified School District, however, issues the permits.) Earlier in the year a member of the high school’s administration had visited the track on several occasions and expressed concern by what he saw: hundreds of people on the track running in different directions. The SDHS principal, concerned about issues of liability, then asked the SDTC Board whether it could verify that everyone on the track Tuesday evenings was a member of the San Diego Track Club. The Board could not. (It should be noted this situation also raised liability issues for the track club since its policies apply only to SDTC members who signed a liability waiver.) The Board realized that the club's continued use of Balboa Stadium would require that SDTC members be identified in some way.
The SDTC Board now had multiple reasons to look for an unobtrusive means of identifying SDTC and RnR members, and to do so quickly. One of the SDTC board members who also coaches for InMotionFit suggested a shoe tag with reflective material on one side and space for writing in emergency contact information on the other side. The SDTC Board approved the choice of tags. There will be one color of shoe tag for a SDTC member who is also in the RnR training program (a "RnR" shoe tag) and another color for a SDTC member who is not (a "SDTC" shoe tag).
How the Shoe Tag distribution will work (this is a work in progress!)
The SDTC will endeavor to make this process as easy as possible for its members. Once Bill
A. has received the SDTC shoe tags, he’ll bring them to the Tuesday night workouts to distribute as quickly as possible to SDTC members listed on an updated membership roster. Current members of the SDTC who will be participating in the marathon training program (and so will be renewing their SDTC membership when they sign up for that program in December) should pick up a
blue “SDTC” tag. When an athlete enrolls in the Rockin' 'n' Runnin' marathon training program, they will receive an additional
(differently colored) "RnR" shoe tag.
To participate in the Balboa Stadium Tuesday night workouts, an athlete must wear either tag, either the
"SDTC" tag or the "RnR" tag. To participate in the Metro and North County RnR Saturday morning runs, an athlete must wear their
"RnR" tag. Anyone who is not wearing a shoe tag may be asked to leave. The SDTC Board members and coaches wish to be fair and equitable about this. A policy for guests hasn’t been finalized yet, so guests will not be permitted until that policy is announced.
Balboa Stadium use is unique in that the club uses a public school facility, which typically requires campus visitors first to check in at the main office. The new shoe ID tags serve as SDTC members’ “visitors pass.” The San Diego High School administration also is requiring that SDTC athletes (1) not to be on the Balboa Stadium track outside of the times for which the club has a permit and (2) not congregate at the top of the concrete stairs. The High School does not want adults (SDTC club members) in the vicinity of the high school students practicing on the field until the kids have left the Balboa Stadium area. The High School practices are expected to stop at 4:45 pm, and the high school athletes are supposed to be out of the stadium area by 5:00 - 5:15 pm. The track club’s Balboa Stadium permit gives the SDTC the use of the Stadium starting at 5:30 pm. Everyone
at a SDTC Balboa Stadium workout is expected to leave the field promptly once the workout ends that evening.
SDTC members, the requirement that we not be in the Stadium facility until 5:30 is non-negotiable. If you arrive between 5:00 and 5:30 pm, you could run over to the park and back as a warm-up. We appreciate your continued cooperation with these rules and all the other changes taking place in the coming months. Through your support, we can all continue to be good neighbors and great runners.
Please contact Bill Aaron no.9rocknroller@yahoo.com
with further questions.
Thank you for your understanding and support.
Bill Aaron
