Seriously, approx how much $$$ would it cost to build a regulation sized outdoor track in a backyard?

tape measure - 8 dollars

a protractor - 2 dollars

paint - 50 dollars

60 +/- 5 dollars and you can have a shiny new backyard track.

Excluding the property costs, I would say about $200k for the material and $150k for the work. Depending also on the flatness of the property, which has to be pancake flat in order to put a concrete desk as a foundation (crushed stones and sand underneath it).

Anyone know an athletic director who can give a real answer? Anyone know companies who quote prices and make them?

My schools track cost 75k

Shoebacca wrote:

Anyone know an athletic director who can give a real answer? Anyone know companies who quote prices and make them?

Forrestchild is correct, it starts at about $300k and goes up from there, depending on SC, double jump runways, double 100m, drainage system. This does not include the 2 acres of land. And, if you open it to the public, you will have to resurfce it about every 5 years., which cost about 50k.

I think this is a pretty cool idea. From your post, you don't specify what is important (surface, lj pits, etc.), so it seems like your only real requisite is size. I think you could pull it off for a reasonable price if you were willing to go with dirt or cinders. All you really need is to level it and survey it, any one know contractors that do this stuff? I think it would be great to have a 440y dirt track in the back yard, if you got lots of land, I would say a 2k loop would be sweet too.

Resurfacing our high school track back a few year ago took about $100,000. I believe it was mondo. A two or three lane track, which is common in Texas, probably would run 175,000 - 200,000.

I've been a coach at three different schools and have put new tracks in at all three....if there is a foundation that's good and you only have to resurface, you're looking at around $100-200,000 depending on the quality of the surface (latex, rubber, polyuerethane, Mondo, etc). If a foundation needs to be layed and the land is not particularly flat, you're looking at $300-600,000 for the entire process. Unless of course you want to put a Mondo track in (fastest surface-used in the Olympics and various tracks around the world). Probably $800,000 would cover it today....we put a Mondo surface in at SIU in 1999 and it cost $680,000 (they had to do moderate foundation work).

Our college just put in a new track. The accepted bid was 500k but the company had never done it and it ended up costing them well over that

jamesfranco wrote:

I think this is a pretty cool idea. From your post, you don't specify what is important (surface, lj pits, etc.), so it seems like your only real requisite is size. I think you could pull it off for a reasonable price if you were willing to go with dirt or cinders. All you really need is to level it and survey it, any one know contractors that do this stuff? I think it would be great to have a 440y dirt track in the back yard, if you got lots of land, I would say a 2k loop would be sweet too.

One of my country friends has a 600 meter loop in his "back yard." Another one has a miniature BMX loop that is ~200 yards.

This was actually a pretty good question so I called around for some qoutes to companys that put tracks down. I claimed to be an athletic director from a small highschool looking for a budget 6 lane rubberized track. I was qouted that it would cost about 350,000 to put one in from scratch with lines and strips all painted. If I already had a pavement surface down it would only cost 100,000 to just put down the rubber surface and paint etc. This is just a basic one so obviosly nicer tracks like MONDO tracks are signifigantly more expensive probably on the order of a 1,000,000 dollars or more.

Now if you are just looking for a dirt track to do work outs on you could put in a pretty sweet one with bobcat (which virtually anyone can drive with a couple hours of practice), you can rent for a few hundered dollars. I would sit down with a pencil and paper and draw out the dimensions you would need to make the track and then transfer them to the ground with wooden stakes and string. If you measure out the radius of the turns you can use a string to make a smooth curve. Then come in with the bobcat and level out the surface and pack it. Once you have the out line than measure out with a measuring wheel (you can find them online for less than 40 dollars.) Then outline that path with something (survey flags, wood stakes and string, paint, or whatever works). This whole thing could be acomplished for maybe under 500 dollars. Hope this helps.

Oh man. It's always been a dream of mine to have my own track. Sounds like that just ain't gonna happen given the prices being thrown around here.

But a grass or dirt track? Hey, maybe. The IAAF manuals for track building can be found here:

http://www.iaaf.org/competitions/technical/regulations/index.html

How much space do you need? Think of a track as a rectangle with two half circles on each end. The length of the straightaways (rectangle lengths) is 84.39 meters. Then the radius of the curve (the half circle) is 36.50 meters. That makes the circumference of the inside of lane 1 398.1 meters. Assuming you run .3 meters away from the inside lane marking, that's your 400 meters.

For marking the inside of lane 1, you need a footprint of 157.39 meters (516 ft) x 73 meters (239.5 ft). Add in a few feet to make lanes 1 & 2 (so you can workout with friends), and you need about 525 ft x 250 ft. Just under 3 acres.

From there it's as "simple" as leveling it and maintaining it (maybe giving some though to drainage...) If you maintained it really nice? Wow, think about doing your workouts on flat grass that is maintained as nice as a putting green. Life would be grand.