When the Carolina Godiva Track Club was first formed in 1975, it was only three years after Frank Shorter won his first Olympic marathon and two years before Jim Fixx published “The Complete Book of Running,” further igniting the running craze of the late ’70s.

When most members say that Godiva’s summer track series began, running shoes were heavy and stiff, and running shorts excruciatingly tight and short; Marion Jones was 2 years old, and marathons were for a few elite crazies.

Today, marathons are completed by everyone from farmers to philosophers, dentists to ditch-diggers. Competitive fields at the more popular 26.2-mile events are in the tens of thousands. Families plan vacations around them.

And Godiva is still running strong.

Its annual summer track series has come full circle in its 30 years of existence, running a lap around the western end of the Triangle to various track-and-field locations before revisiting its starting point in Chapel Hill.

Running every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. on UNC’s Belk Track, rain or shine (but not through lightning), the meet offers a slate of running events which alternate every other week. Events are for all-comers, though a $1 donation is appreciated by the meet organizers.

When current Carolina Godiva president Tom Kirby joined the running in the early ’90s, its summer track series was centered at Duke University’s Wallace Wade Stadium. From there, it moved to Durham Academy.

Due to renovations taking place at Duke, Durham Academy and many Durham high schools, this summer’s Godiva competitors shifted back to Chapel Hill to run in events ranging from 100-meter dashes to 12-plus-lap 5K races.

The venerable summer series is as popular as ever, as demonstrated by well over 100 runners competing last week at Belk Track.

“This was a good night,” Tom Kirby said. “A lot of these people out here tonight are actually new to me. They may be people who just like to come to the UNC track. But the last couple years, we had pretty big crowds at the Durham Academy track too. There was a kids’ team that came out.”

Godiva can trace its roots all the way to England, by way of UNC, and to a group of graduate students who rankled at the restrictive structures of many organized sports.

“One was from England, and he knew of running club there called the Coventry Godiva Track Club, so he simply decided to call this the Carolina Godiva Track Club,” Kirby recalled.

It quickly grew, appealing to many runners who wanted to compete outside of varsity athletic programs. People like UNC’s record-setter miler Tony Waldrop gave it instant credibility in the mid-70s.

Today, Carolina Godiva (www.carolinagodiva.org) sponsors numerous races throughout the year including those in its winter series, the summer track series and fall cross-country events. With regularly scheduled weekly runs throughout the Triangle, the 400-member club often forms teams to run in local and far-off races. It hosts a spring social, an annual pizza bash in December and an Adopt-a-Highway initiative near Duke Forest.

Charles Alden, the summer series meet director, said both the club and its meets have seen a good deal of growth in recent years.

“Carolina Godiva about doubled its size with its ‘Marathon Training’ and ‘Beginning Wonders’ programs,” Alden said, “and over the last couple years, we’ve had quite a bit of growth (in the summer series). There’ve been a lot more kids and whole families. … Last year we were regularly getting 80 to 90 folks out here.”

Last Wednesday’s crowd was likely the biggest of the season thus far.

“Our first meet of the season (on May 28) was cold and rainy,” Alden said. “But now school’s out, and people are finding out where the meet is.”

One rationale for the meets’ growth in popularity is the widely held notion that distance runners should incorporate speed work into their training, in order to chop time off their distance running.

“When I was a member of this club back in 1979 and 1980, I was running maybe 46 or 47 minutes in the 10K,” Ken Orsen said. “But after I started running in this, my 10K times dropped down to 42 or 43 minutes.”

Now 60 years old, Orsen was about 31 when he first ran with Carolina Godiva.

“I did this back in those two years,” he said, “and then I got more into golf and other things and ran an occasional race. I was still running through all of the years, but not really for speed.

“Then in 2002, there was a woman at my spa recruiting for a 10K she was running, and I was shocked at how slow I’d gotten. I’d gone from 42 minutes up to around 57 minutes, so I got back into running in races.”

Distance standout Jim Clabuesch said that, in his first six years as a Godiva member, “I wouldn’t have gone near the track with a 10-foot pole.” He used to think that cross country was fun and track was a chore.

Now, Clabuesch and many others enter numerous events each Wednesday night, just for the workout.

“It’s not just about the track,” he said. “It’s also about the socializing.”

In Godiva, 40- or 50-somethings are found vying for top overall places in the vast menu of road races, from 5Ks to ultra-marathons. The term “plus-aged sprinter,” however, virtually constitutes a contradiction in terms, giving rise to the notion that “old sprinters never die — they fade away into the bottom of 5K results.”

But with options like Godiva’s summer series, some are taking advantage.

Another reason for the longevity of Carolina Godiva’s summer track series, then, is that there are few other options available for anyone who truly feels “the need for speed.”

Speedster and field event enthusiast Mike Valle, who competes in many of the sprint events, also uses the summer series to introduce his twin grandchildren — Josh and Tim Haughton, 6 years old — to track and field.

“We started here at UNC back in 1978,” Valle recalled of Godiva’s early days, “and I’ve actually lost track of how many places this (meet series) has been.”

Just like some sprinters, Cary Academy sophomore and competitive race-walker Hannah Kisley, said it’s hard to find competition in her specialty as well.

“They don’t have race-walking in middle school or high school meets, but I’ll be doing a Nike (event) and then I’ll be doing the State Games,” she said.

Kisley discovered race-walking through the USA Track and Field (USATF) Junior Olympics meets.

“My brother runs, and I saw it at one of his meets,” she said. “I was just like, ‘I want to do that.’”

Kisley was aiming to race-walk a 3K in around 17 minutes.

Because of the scarcity of all-comers track meets, the Carolina Godiva events draw a diverse crowd, some of whom travel a good distance for the meet.

Each meet is a mixture of ages and skill levels, with meet entrants running alongside joggers who use the track for recreation. Alden noted participants from Raleigh and Burlington.

“At first, folks thought this was only for fast people, but now more and more people are coming out, and there’s also the social aspect to this out here,” Alden said.

Upcoming meets will be every Wednesday through Aug. 6, with alternating Wednesdays designated as “long” or “short” race nights. Races are self-seeded; runners place themselves into heats according to their goal pace.

Tonight, July 2, July 16 and Aug. 6 will be “short” nights, when runners can enter various heats of the 1,500-meter run, the 100-meter dash, the 1,500-meter racewalk, the 400-meter dash and the 3,000-meter run.

June 25, July 9 and July 23 are the dates for remaining “long” nights, when runners can enter heats of a one-mile run, a 200-meter dash, the one-mile racewalk, the 800-meter run and the 5,000-meter (5K) run.

On July 30, Carolina Godiva stirs up the meet some with its Midsummer Madness meet. On that Wednesday night only, runners can compete in a 1,000-meter run, a 50-meter dash, a 300-meter run and the “Mount Everest Challenge,” a race of 5-plus miles that equals the 29,040-foot height of the world’s highest peak. It’s a potential heart-breaker.

Still, the meet itself has every runner beat right from the start.

After all, while the ambitious runners compete for a couple hours each languid Wednesday evening at UNC, the Carolina Godiva meet itself has been running for 30 years, and it’s not even breathing heavy.

Contact Randy B. Young at chnsports@nando.com or at 932-8743.