Runners’ high: School opens rubberized track

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This article was published 21/09/2021 (946 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The burgundy race track Marlee Bragg’s phys-ed students run on is unique in north Winnipeg.

Teens pounded Garden City Collegiate’s 400-metre rubberized track, with Bragg’s whistle sounding in the background, as city councillors Devi Sharma (Old Kildonan) and Brian Mayes (St. Vital) viewed the new upgrades they had helped spur.

“We feel very privileged,” Bragg told the councillors Wednesday.

The Jefferson Avenue high school is one of three rubberized full-size tracks in the city. The University of Manitoba and Victor Mager School, in St. Vital, host the others.

“A lot of these things were built in the ’60s and were just left to fall away,” said Mayes, an avid runner.

He pushed for Victor Mager School’s track to be upgraded in 2019. Since then, he’s visited all 25 city tracks and witnessed various states of disrepair, he said. Most are asphalt or gravel.

Mayes’s goal is to have a rubberized track in every corner of the city.

“I thought, ‘This is on me. I’m a runner; I owe something to my sport,'” he said. “We needed one in the north… Now we look to west and east and try and do another one or two.”

He said he’s eyeing River East Collegiate as one option.

Seven Oaks School Division, which encompasses Garden City Collegiate, had already planned to devote $800,000 to track upgrades.

The athletic field needed to be shifted to allow for more arts centre parking space. And, the asphalt track had been around for decades, was rutted and unsuitable to host events, said principal Tony Kreml.

“It was really in sad shape,” said Brian O’Leary, Seven Oaks superintendent.

He’d planned to build another asphalt track until Mayes and Sharma, whose ward includes the high school, caught wind. They pushed for $200,000 of city funding to rubberize the site.

“Garden City Collegiate is a real hub in our community,” Sharma said, adding she regularly sees people of all ages use the track outside school hours.

Construction finished in the summer, but the school officially celebrated its opening Wednesday.

“If you’re by here at seven in the morning, there’s people on it,” O’Leary said. “If you’re by here at nine at night, there’s people on it.”

Sharma said she and Mayes collaborated with the school division to complete the track.

“During the pandemic, we have seen residents use public outdoor spaces and value them more than ever before,” she said. “(The track) is a great outlet to keep your mental health in balance.”

Brooklyn Trudeau, who runs cross-country, said she’d barely see gym classes use the track before it was upgraded.

“Today, pretty much every gym class was using it,” the Grade 12 student said.

Sophia Alexander, who is a cross-country leader, expressed excitement at people using the track in years to come.

“We’re really grateful for the track, and it’s so beautiful,” she said.

There hadn’t been a new outdoor rubberized track in Winnipeg since 1967 until the opening of Victor Mager School’s in 2019, Mayes said.

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca