Rough Draft

My Track

            The Space I chose was the track here at ASU. It’s a big gated area with a large section of bleachers on one side that stands high over the track. The track is a bright red with lots of white lines that form lanes and starting lines all over the track and circles around a large portion of bright green grass and a small part of white track that fills a portion of the circle for the jump events. It’s a large wide open space that when empty is a nice peaceful place that has a great view of the football stadium. While this provides a great visual picture of the track, there is a lot more there than you may have originally thought. 

The coaches and the athletes who have spend countless hours working hard and competing on the track have a sense of “place attachment” (Vanclay), because that particular track is where they have put in their work and where they also get to show how hard they have worked when the track season comes around, it’s the place where they makes memories not of just self accomplishments but team accomplishments. They will remember the friends they have made and the races they have run. So for the rest of their lives they will associate that track as their track where all of those memories forever preserved in the minds of each athlete and coach. But what is amazing about that simple red track is that it can have a separate identity for everyone, it has no limiting factors so anyone can make their own memories there. It can be the dream finally realized it can be the place where you finally lost that weight you wanted to lose. But it can be

sad too, it can be where you weren’t good enough to make team or where you got injured and had to quit competing. It’s like a blank board where you can fill in what you have done there which is what gives it a different identity to everyone.

At the track there is a sense of something familiar maybe my high school track because every outdoor track is shaped and made in pretty much the same way so every track is almost identical but every athlete would no right away if this was his or her track, because if you spend enough time on one particular track you will feel a certain level of comfort running on that track because everything is familiar to you because it’s the track you have spent so much time running on, it’s like driving that same car everyday then changing to a different car you would immediately feel the difference because it not what you are use to driving. That familiarity with something is what makes you feel comfortable and it can give you confidence because use you are use to your track, and that feeling is the opposite when you go to a different track, because while you are familiar with what a track is and looks like, but you’re not as comfortable because it’s not your track.  And people do a lot better when they are comfortable and use to where they are because then everything is familiar and when everything is familiar there is less you have to focus on and worry about. Once you are familiar with the track you have a sense of place awareness because you understand and no exactly where everything is and being comfortable with every inch of the track knowing what lane is the fastest, where there is an imperfections are. Sense they have complete place awareness then that means they also have place familiarity of the track.

There is a sense of place commitment because they run and train on the same track almost every day and compete on it for their home meets, this time put in builds a commitment to that track because that’s where they put in their work, that track embodies everything that they have work for to get to this level and maybe the thing that will propel them onto the next level. Even people

Who don’t run on the track team anymore and graduated a long time ago still have a sense of place commitment because they all had their time when they had to put in their work and compete on which over time develops into a place commitment with that track because it still hold all the memories that they created there. That track will forever hold all the memories anyone is willing to create there and they have a commitment to that track because every time they step back out onto that track all of the memories they have made their will come rushing back and they will get the sensation of returning home and that feeling is truly why they have place commitment because human being look for things and places to connect to. Satisfaction comes from happiness or excitement and if you’re a runner the track on race day will create enough excitement to make you sick, and the satisfaction can be from lots of things from winning a race to symbolize all the hard work finally paying off to someone fighting to lose weight and maybe save their life, that too can create that place satisfaction because when you look at that track you can visualize all of the hard work you have done and all off the accomplishments you have achieved there. I can relate to this because I ran track all 4 years of high school and I have place commitment to my high school track because it’s the place where I’ve made a name for myself, where I have met some of my best friends and where I have some of my greatest memories, even though the track here is not the same place I ran in high school it still reminds me of my track and will always bring a smile to my face.

A track is simply just a bunch or rubber laid out in a circle that totals 400 meters around. It’s then sprayed a bright red then white lines are added on making up the 8 to 9 different lanes on a track and starting lines for each individual race. It may look simple and boring but there is so much more to it than just a place where people run. It can be the dream you’ve had sense running in high school it can be the place where you met your best friend or the love of your life. It’s a big wide open space that you can fill with whatever memories you want to create, like running college track and creating an attachment to that place because it was where you made a difference, or where you worked and achieved some life time goal you have for yourself, that’s the beauty of it because it can be everything to you or nothing to you at all, that’s why I chose the track because back home my track has so many memories for me, and I want to create that attachment to the track here as well.