How far is 1 lap in lane 8 on an outdoor 400m track

If I've got this right, you need to measure the lane width on your track and then multiply that figure by (2x Pi) or (2x 3.14)

If your lanes are four feet wide, for example, the added distance per lane (from the start line, obviously, not the stagger) would be 4x6.28: about 25 feet, give or take and inch.

So...running in lane 8 from the starting ling would be about 200 feet longer than running in lane 1 from the starting line.

Again, I think I've got this right, but some of the egg-heads on the board might have noticed something wrong.

Martin

Good thinking, if only tracks were round...

Here's my attempt:

The track consists of two shapes, straightaways and turns. I'm assuming the turns are arcs of a circle. The straightaways are 100m for every lane, so that's 200m. The turns are 100m on lane 1. I think the two-turn stagger in lane 2 is 10m ahead of the starting line on a standard track, so lane 2 is five meters longer on each turn than is lane 1. C = 2(pi)r, so circumference changes linearly with r, that is, by a constant for each constant increase in r. Now I've shown that if r changes by the width of one lane, C increases by 5m (since we're talking about one turn here.) If you take this out to lane 8, that's seven lane widths, so C increases by 35m for the turn. Since you have two turns, that's 70m more than lane one, for 270m on the turns.

Therefore, the length of lane eight is 470m.

take a wheel and measure in lane 8 from the start line to the stagger line. you can run a wheel on a "turn" and not lose much at all (as opposed to a sstraight measuring tape). i mean, every track official should know this distance, andi'm sure it's in every officials' handbook and at USATF somewhere.

and if 470 is the case,then you can go BACK 70 meters from the start line and get your 400m split, thus doing quarters in lane 8 - no problem. now, any longer distance, you've got a lot of work ahead of you!

this isn't all that hard to figure out. how long is the stagger that 400m runners get when they are in lane 8? i've never run a 400m before but the 470m seems to be about right.

"tale of the tape" has it right, and the easiest. Simply measure the distance back from the stagger point to the finish line, and add that measurement to 400 meters, and "voila" (that's french for there you have it).

according to this online calculator:

http://members.aol.com/RWNARF/atrack.htm

1 lap in lane 8 on a standard HS or college track is 447m

Exactly right. About 446.5 meters in lane 8.

so everyone is sure its 446 and not 470 now ... ?

As long as the track goes around a full 360 degrees (where is the degree key on the keyboard) the fact that it's not a circle is not important -- the same calculations apply.

An average oval track is a circle that's cut in half along the middle (the end bits around a track are circular) with added stretches of equal length on either side.

Thus, the shape of the track is irrelevant -- it just has to go a full 360 degrees.

You're not counting the distance on the straights anway - they're the same whether you're in lane 1 or lane 8: the only thing that matters is the bends - and they are circular!

Martin

Pie in the eye wrote:

Good thinking, if only tracks were round...

As long as the the turns are circular then the formula is correct: 2Pi* lane width*(lane number-1)

The stagger between lanes is about 6 meters, not 10 meters. What you might be thinking of is the make up distance for the measured mile. 4 laps on a metric track is about 10 meters short of a mile.

hmmmmm wrote:

The stagger between lanes is about 6 meters, not 10 meters. What you might be thinking of is the make up distance for the measured mile. 4 laps on a metric track is about 10 meters short of a mile.

All right, I thought the two-turn stagger (400m start lines, not 4x400m) was ten meters, but I might have been wrong about that. If you're right, then it gets three meters longer per turn each lane you go out from lane one, so the turns on lane eight are 21m longer than those on lane one, making one lap of lane eight 442m, which is pretty close to what some people here have been saying.

Phil. wrote:

Pie in the eye wrote:

Good thinking, if only tracks were round...

As long as the the turns are circular then the formula is correct: 2Pi* lane width*(lane number-1)

Actually, the turns don't even have to be circular for the formula to apply. As long as you turn left 360 degrees more than you turn right, the formula will apply. If your local road race was run in lanes you could use the same formula to figure out the stagger as long as the course was a single loop.

Anyone read "The Life of Pi?" I hear it's good

The shape of the track does in fact matter - you are assuming that the length of the turn and the straight away in lane one are the same but this is not true on a lot of tracks. If the track has long turns and short straights then the outer lanes will be longer than the outer lanes in a track that has equal straight/turns. You pretty much have to check out the stagger for your particular track...

Anybody see the movie Pi? It is pretty good.

malmo, where are you!

you know EVERYTHING! (i'm in middle school w/pimples and think alan weebb invented the mile run)

It doesn't matter how long the straights and turns are. It doesn't matter if your track is oval-shaped, or triangular-shaped, or an octogon, as long as the turns are rounded. The reason is that the circumference formula

circumference = 2*PI*r

is true for any arclength.

arclength = (angle in radians)*r

The difference in the radius between lane 1 and lane 2 is the width of the lane regardless of how sharp the turn. So the difference in the arclength between lane 1 and 2 is

arclength difference =(angle in radians)*(width of the lane)

The difference in the length you travel between lanes 1 and 2 depends only on the angle that you're turning through and the width of the lane. It doesn't matter if you turn with a constant radius (a circle), or turn with a constantly changing radius. If you end up turning 360 degrees, or 2*PI radians, the difference between lane 1 and 2 is

2*PI*(width of lane)