There are special starting points for each of the distances.

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Hofacre knows firsthand the trips to Juneau as a teen. She ran four years for Petersburg at the location of the current dirt “oval,” which is half the size it needs to be to make sense. She ran well enough to continue another four years of cross-country and track at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, (2018-21) as she earned a teaching degree. It came “full-circle” this weekend as she had the Vikings out on the TMMS track with former Vikings coach Tom Thompson, who was one of the first to organize a practice trip here years ago. Prior Vikings track guru Brad Taylor would arrange stopovers in Juneau when the team was on the road in one direction or the other.

“So getting to come back and do that, and it was Tommy’s idea to come up here in the first place because he did that when he was coaching, too,” Hofacre, said. “So having that encouragement of that’s something we can do, we can bring them up…even if it’s not for an official meet. Because we only get two meets before regionals and we’re expecting them to go out and compete. And we want them to compete and feel prepared and successful when they do that.”

This weekend, many of the Petersburg track team members country wise email marketing list were attending the Region V Music Festival so the rest of the team came along, not only to train but to support their musical teammates. This is how champions are made.

The current PHS dirt oval has been lengthened to 230 yards. The patches of muskeg in between and sometimes over still remains as the school essentially is built over muskeg in a rainforest.


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The jumping “pit,” if you can call shoveled dirt that has a plywood cover one, is used. A concrete jump ramp is new, but it doesn’t have any track on it yet so athletes can’t run on it. They have a rudimentary throw cage and ring, but no shot pit or discus toe board.

There is room for two hurdles now, as opposed to one a few years back, but it is not safe for the hurdlers to practice three-stepping, which is what the goal is to get fast at the 100 hurdles. So most hurdling is done in the gymnasium.