Up for the test? Public can run Pan Am course at Bear Mountain

The best runners in the hemisphere will race atop Bear Mountain in the 2020 Pan American crosscountry championships Feb. 29.

Duffers and weekend warriors can join the elites with registration now open for the community race, which will be part of the event festivities. Participants will run the five-kilometre loop course which will feature the standards of cross-country running, including inclines, downhills, grassy stretches, muddy stretches and the equivalent of golf sand traps.

The age divisions for the community races will be divided into five-year categories. There will be chip timing and a keepsake Pan Am toque thrown in, which might come in handy for a winter run atop the Bear.

Organizers say they want a festival feel to the championship weekend.

“This is the first time the Pan Am Cup cross-country championships have been hosted in Canada,” noted two-time Olympic marathoner Bruce Deacon, the event general manager.

“This is a chance for local runners to race over the same course as the elite international athletes and to experience the excitement of racing cross country.”

The community race begins at 9 a.m., ahead of the Pan Am races. Entry fee is $32 until Feb. 16 and $42 after that until Feb. 28. Registration can be done at panamxccup2020.com.

Organizers want to make a good overall impression, creating a festival swirl for the Pan Am championships, as a precursor to Victoria bidding for the 2023 IAAF world cross-country championships on the Bear. A delegation from the Victoria organizing committee went to study the 2019 world championships held in Aarhus, Denmark, which included a portion of the course run over ramps and across the grass roof of the Moesgaard Museum. The worlds are now conducted every two years. The 2017 world championships were staged on the Independence Grounds in Kampala, Uganda, and the 44th world championships will be held in 2021 at Bathurst, Australia.

Canada has never hosted the world cross-country championships. They have been staged only twice in North America — in 1984 at Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and in 1992 at Franklin Park in Boston.