Tracks in Victoria?

[pq]

Gonna be on the island most of the next two weeks, and wonder where we might find a track near the downtown area. Also, if you can say when it/they would be used for club practices, we'll try to avoid those times. Thanks

[wetcoast]

There are two main track in Victoria. The close one is the one at Oak Bay High School behind the Oak Bay Recreation Centre. Tues/Wed/Thurs nights I think are the heaviest usage times for clubs.

UVic is not that close to downtown. IF you are indeed 'downtown'.

[pq]

We found the Oak Bay track today and it has a funny layout. Is it 400m in the inner lane of the oval, or do you need to run in lane 1 of the sprint straight and cut off that part of the oval to make it 400m?

[wetcoast]

Lane 4 for the 100m stretch there. To sanction the any races there, BC Athletics requires us to cone a long lane 3/4 line on that stretch - 400m. That would be a funky left to move into lane one otherwise....

[wetcoast]

UVIc Track is only 5 minutes up the road, but is often locked up or occupied OR the parking is toast.

[ronb]

Hey pq,
The Oak Bay track was built as one of the training tracks for the 1994 Commonwealth Games.
As you can see the site is hemmed in by the building on one side, and the Creek on the other side. Bowker Creek, interestingly enough, and yes there is a story there. So what we could build was a 5-lane track (lanes 4 to 8) and an additional 3 lanes (1/2/3) on the sprint straight. It's worked out very well, and given us 16 years of good life so far. As wetcoast said, Oak Bay is usually a better option for a workout than Uvic.

[annonymouscoward]

It is often more sheltered from the wind than uvic's track as well. IMO it is a much nicer place to workout because there is 'scenery' of sorts.