HSers do you enjoy running indoor track?

Iowa has several large HS meets that include 50 teams and they are run at D1 and D3 universities.

this is the 100th name I used this month wrote:

I did.

I ran on a flat wood floor Only the best relay teams in my city got to run on a banked track. No regular HS meets used banked tracks.

A lot of folks tell me indoor track is only taken seriously in Mid-Atlantic and New England states.

Is this true?

It's fairly serious here. No one is peaking for Indoors but NBNI and the PTFCA Indoor State Championship (I don't think PA officially recognizes indoor track, so the PTFCA runs it rather than the PIAA) are fairly big deals.

I love indoor. Never peak for it, but it's fun competition during my base building phase. I loved the fun/relaxed atmosphere of indoor meets/races though. Just fun to let loose.

our indoor season is on a wooden 160m track in the middle of nowhere

Do you know why they picked 160 yards for those indoor tracks?

160m makes sense but why 160y?

I know of many teams in the NY area that peak for indoor track. I've had coaches tell me that they can never rely on the weather in April or early May so they need to run fast in March. This philosophy not only holds true for tyheir sprinters but for their mid distance runners.

Tell us more wrote:

160m makes sense but why 160y?

I don't know if this is why...but what was explained to me when I ran on 160 yard tracks in the 1970s, both high school and college, e was that it worked out well with the standard (outdoor) distances of the time, 440 and 880 yards. The 440 was two laps plus three quarters of another, meaning you could start and finish on a full straightaway. The 880 was 5 full plus one half, which doesn't work out as well. Of course we used to run the 600 and 1000, NOT the 440 and 880--that did work out well, 600 was just an extra lap on the 440 and the 1000 was 6 laps plus a straightaway.

I really liked running the 600--it was really exciting, and long enough to wipe out the real sprinters.

coach wrote:

I know of many teams in the NY area that peak for indoor track. I've had coaches tell me that they can never rely on the weather in April or early May so they need to run fast in March. This philosophy not only holds true for tyheir sprinters but for their mid distance runners.

I figured there would be schools/states that do try to peak for indoor. My coach doesn't like the I for trying to peak for indoor then trying to do it again in outdoor. That an I'm in PA, so not too many huge meets to try to peak for (aside from States, NBIN and Millrose). I think a lot of the top runners in PA try not to peak in indoor.

Tell us more wrote:

160m makes sense but why 160y?

This may be hard to believe, but we didn't have the metrics back when these tracks were constructed. There is 1,760 yards in a mile. If you divided that by 8, the 220 yard track would be too big for the building that may also house the basketball court. If you divided that by 10, you would have an odd distance of 176 yards. If you divided 1,760 by 16, the 110 yard per lap track would make the runners dizzy provided they didn't fly off the track into the wall before that happened. The most logical distance was 160 yards.