With as hard as it is to find a good spot to run at SMSU nowadays, it is hard to believe I feel in love with running here.

While I sometimes ran in high school, I never believed I could do much more than a mile. I shattered that personal misconception early in my freshman year when I headed to the track to burn off some steam after a particularly bad day.

After lap upon lap, I stopped to realize I had somehow just completed a 5K (3.125 miles).

Inspired by my new record, I kept running all that semester and continuously improved my time. But when spring semester rolled around, my progress was stopped. The indoor track was constantly occupied or locked so I was forced to use the Fitness Center.

While it was the next best option, anyone who is a runner could agree with me that the feel of feet hitting the ground is something a machine just cannot match. Even with a treadmill, it is not the same.  Being able to run on a perfectly measured path, set a pace, and having feet hit hard pavement is a feeling that sets a track apart.

My frustration with being confined to the Fitness Center’s machines lasted all semester. I was not upset with anybody; our sports teams need to practice, so I certainly do not blame them for using the single track on campus.

The maintenance staff who locked the track were just doing their job and have always been nothing but polite to me, so I was not upset with them either.  It seemed that the one track on campus was always used by people who needed the area more than a recreational runner, so there was nothing I could do.

That is why when I heard SMSU was building its own outdoor track, I was beyond ecstatic.

I could finally run on a track without having to fight for a time it was open. With only a few sports teams that would be practicing on the track, it would be easy to avoid practice times. I finally had a great spot I could relieve some stress, stay in shape, and perfectly calculate my distance and times.

Or so I thought.

With one of the first bouts of nice spring weather last week, I put on some running shorts and a pair of good workout headphones and headed to the north side of campus.

I was getting pumped as the track came into view. It had been years since I ran on a 400-meter track. The first gate was closed, so I proceeded to the back one. Upon arrival, I was utterly flustered. The gate was also closed…with a padlock. A sign said that the track was used during track practices and competitions.

Are you kidding me?!

After all my frustration over the past year and half, the track is not open to the public? I cannot think of one logical reason it would not be. From what I have seen, the sports teams are constantly in a battle to keep people looking to use the RA facility out of the track area during their practices.

If the outdoor track was left open, even for just a fraction of the day, the people not on sports teams who were looking to run or play a game could just head there. That seems to work in everyone’s favor.

Last time I checked, building a facility and then locking it up to everyone who is not a member of a competitive running team was not doing much of a service to the community. As a student who is forced to pay part of my tuition toward sports and the facilities at this school, I am feeling, while bluntly stated, scammed.

I am not on a team at the school and do not go to most sporting events, so exactly what is that part of my tuition paying for?

I understand that it is a very nice and new facility. Vandalism could be considered. But it is a track.

I would understand if there was some sports equipment stored out there, but it is just a bunch of pavement.

The local middle school trusts their students with a track (which is, unfortunately, across town). Does anybody actually believe a bunch of middle schoolers, kids who probably cannot even say the word “boob” without hysterically laughing, are more trustworthy than college students?

If nothing else, the PE/RA facility and indoor track at SMSU are sometimes (although rarely) opened for public use without anyone to watch over them, and as far as I am aware there has not been any problems or vandalism to the facility. Why can the same system not be used for the outdoor track?

Even just a few open hours a day in the warmer months is a plan that would benefit the school and community substantially more than just keeping the track idly locked up.

Students helped pay for the new facility through tuition. The community helped pay for it in tax dollars. There is no reason we should not see some benefit from our money.

Right now, the only benefit all of us who are not athletes have running for us? A view of the track through a fence.