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ENTER HERE The USATF Pacific Northwest board has determined that the circumstances of the pandemic call for some modifications to the usual program of the USATF Pacific Northwest Open & Masters Cross Country Championships. Current state COVID-19 safety guidance does not permit large mass-starts, so this year’s race will be run in small wave starts. Because head-to-head racing will not be possible among enough of the field, and because of uncertainty about the ability of some athletes to attend on short notice, there will be no individual championship titles or prize money this year.
For all team competitions: The top five runners on a team will score, and the top seven runners on each team will displace.
A current USATF membership is required to run in the championship races. If you’re unsure of your membership status, you can check it here.
The championship races will be followed by a 4 km Community Race that is open to all ages and does not require USATF membership.
Registration and participation in the Masters (40+) and Open (18+) races:
The Community 4k Race is open to all, regardless of age or membership, and registration will be available online through Thursday, or onsite by exact change or credit card only.
Entry fees are $20 for adults 18+ and $10 for youth 17 & under.
Regarding the tightening of restrictions on certain activities recently announced by the Governor: We have been informed by the Governor’s office that the new measures do not affect the state guidance on running races that was published on October 6. We are following that guidance in the organization of this race.
Part of our duty as event organizers is to plan carefully for safety. We take this responsibility seriously, and we appreciate the trust you place in us by coming to our events. The COVID-19 pandemic meant a pause for our events that ended only at the end of July, but it has also meant a lot of extra work over the intervening months adapting our events to mitigate the new risks of the pandemic.
Because confusing and often conflicting or politicized information has created doubt and uncertainty about safety and relative risk, we want to briefly address the basic safety of running cross country and other outdoor races: The consensus opinion of the infectious disease experts is that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is far less likely to transmit from person to person outdoors, primarily due to the movement of air dispersing virus-bearing droplets to a low concentration that is unlikely to result in infection. Outdoor transmission is still possible, but studies of the origin of cases seem to suggest that it is roughly 100 times less likely that any given case will have resulted from outdoor transmission.
It is also the case that brief contact with a contagious person is far less likely to result in viral transmission than sustained close proximity. Taken together with the relative safety of being outdoors, this means that if you briefly come close to an infected person on the course, there is only a vanishingly small chance of you catching the virus from them and getting infected. Of course we still want to take precautions to mitigate small risks, but with reasonable modifications, we believe that running events can be one of the safest and most health-promoting things you can do during the pandemic.
Our staff has been looking toward expert guidance—including from health and labor departments at the State of Washington (via the guidance from the Governor’s office) and numerous email bulletins and web resources from the Centers for Disease Control—as we implement extensive safety protocols to eliminate unnecessary risks. The list of steps we are taking is long and growing in detail, so we won’t include it here, but the general areas we are emphasizing are physical distancing, PPE/masks/hygiene, sanitizing, screening, staffing for safety, communications & training.
You have an important role to play in facilitating a safe event, and we ask that you follow #RecreateResponsibly guidelines and adhere to the guidelines below to help us keep you and our broader community safe:
We will ask you to affirmatively agree to abide by this code of conduct before you participate in the event. We also ask that we be allowed to contact you after the event if we discover that someone at the event was sick and have reason to believe you may have been exposed. If you become sick soon after attending the event, we would appreciate you letting us know, so that we can track potential risk to our staff and other participants.
9:00 – 6 km Masters Women (current USATF members 40+ only) 9:45 – 6 km Masters Men (current USATF members 40+ only) 10:30 – 6 km Open Women (current USATF members 18+ only) 11:15 – 10 km Open Men (current USATF members 18+ only) 12:15 – 4 km Community Race (All-ages, no USATF membership requirement)
All courses use the same 2-km loop, which has been used for many past races at Lower Woodland Park. Note that the “Lower” is to distinguish this area of the park from the Zoo on the other side of Aurora/Hwy 99. The course is actually entirely in the upper part of Lower Woodland Park, not down around the sports fields.
Here is a link to a schematic map of the course.
The route is 80% on grass or dirt paths, 18% on gravel paths, and 2% on pavement (road crossings). The profile is primarily rolling hills, and spikes are recommended, since the course may be muddy.
The parking lot and the picnic loop road near the start and finish area are closed. Please find street parking to the south of the park, or pay $4 (via paybyphone.com or app) to park in the Woodland Park Zoo’s south parking lot, a few hundred meters to the west on the other side of highway 99. Here is a link for directions to the venue. The start and finish are just north of the gravel lot.