The Over the Hill Track Club was organized in 1973, by a group of employees at the Naval Ordinance Test Station (as our base was called then). Their noontime exercise at the base gym had begun to gravitate to running on the surrounding roads. One of that group, Richard Hughes, encouraged by the success of some 2-3 mile cross country runs he and some friends had organized, decided to take the next step of having a meeting to organize a running club.
We're told that the name "Over the Hill" did not have anything to do with the founding runners being "old". In fact, they were mostly in their 30's at the time. (True, that may be considered old by some standards.) Instead, it was a nod to our surrounding hills, which had begun to be used for running and hiking routes. And the club has never really been especially track-oriented. That just seemed to be a popular name for a running club in those days.
In 2017, John Anderson, a charter OTHTC member, undertook the project of writing a history of the Over the Hill Track Club, at the urging of Don Snyder and the Indian Wells Valley Historical Society. Click on the cover image below to download that document.
OTHTC is a member of the Road Runners Club of America.
