California State University, Long Beach

Looking toward the northwest, you can see the Pyramid dominates the northern skyline. This is a very athlete friendly location, I'm sure that is largely due to the influence of the track coach, Andy Sythe. We run several meets here each year not including the regular schedule of All-Comer meets. I've always noted this track is particularly soft. Maybe these are the reasons so many people train here.

There has been some discussion about horizontally adjustable steeplechase pits. This is one of them, built during the period of time when women's steeplechase specified a shorter pit. They stopped specifying the shorter pit when it was determined it was too difficult for all the tracks of the world to install such a barrier. So often, races would happen with 12 foot pits just because the proper facilities were not available (and it was difficult to track what the exact circumstances of each race realy were). What they did to shorten the pit was to unbolt the barrier from the plate it is currently connected to and move it to the plate 2 feet to the left to get a 10 foot length (they also shortened the barrier to 30" with the bolt on the side). Some other places might have the barrier mounted into holes (so there will be another set of holes in front of the normal mark. Adjustable 10 foot pits are rare to find and currently should not be used--but some people have not gotten the message. Occasional races still happen with 10 foot pits. If there is ever a question, this is what to look for.

At the south end of the sprint straight is this short, 2 lane wide, All Weather ramp to nowhere. I don't have any idea why this exists. Mt. SAC has a similar ramp away from the track.

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