Fifty years ago, this week I started as girls’ cross country and track coach at Santa Barbara high school. I was just back from a year’s leave from the school district to get my master’s at Stanford. In those days you could not start formal workouts until after Labor Day. The prior few weeks to starting in September 1974 I scouted out various workout locations around town that were a reasonable run from the school.
Oak Park was familiar because that was next to the junior where I had previously coached. That was going to be out location for whistle Fartlek and 1K repeats. The other location was the soccer field at Dwight Murphy Park near east beach. That was where we did repeat 300’s on grass. Also, from there, there were runs past the Bird refuge and into Montecito.
The big one was Mission Field, the grass field and Rose Garden across from the iconic Santa Barbara Mission. It was just what I was looking for: grass surface, uphill and gradual downhill, and a level area in the Rose Garden to do 75-yard strides. The field was 500 meters around. From the south corner we could run 200 meters of a gradual uphill with last 25 meters steeper.
If you ran cross country at Santa Barbara High School 1974 through 1977 you were intimately familiar with Mission Field. It was two miles from the school. We used it extensively in cross country and during our six-week hill phase from mid-January through March.
It was a terrific training venue. The grass was well manicured. It was inspiring. From the top of the field, you could look out and see the Santa Barbara Channel and the islands. The iconic Santa Barbara Mission “Queen of the Missions” across the street. After a hard hill workout, you could see God! One of the best training venues of my coaching career!