Am I allowed to run on school tracks?

It is easy to go to gyms and avoid COVID.

They will eventually bother you no getting around it. Prior to a heart condition this is partly the reason why I quit running. So I was active duty military and still competing and I would say 80% of my workouts started to be interrupted. I can recall in 2014 I was working out at a high school track in San Diego and had checked with the school administration office too see if I could get a workout in. I was doing a 10,000m Tempo run and 18 laps in was stopped by some PE teacher but ran around him and yelled I have permission from the school. He kept bothering me getting in my way which started a huge argument. This continued at least 3 times a month. I was unable to ever get a comfortable workout in a just said I'm done with this garbage.

In my experience, smaller towns and rural communities don't care about people using school tracks outside of school hours. As you get into more densly populated areas, they are often locked up more and more. However, in those kind of areas you may community track in parks or find a club that gets to use the school track for workouts.

Where is the trust in your own immune system?

You shouldn’t run on tracks during school hours unless you are told otherwise. You will be violating school property and the kids could be using the track for gym class which is common.

Yeah just go before 8am or after 5pm (since sports play outside from 3-4 usually) to be safe

If it is a public school track and you live and work in that public school districts than you are paying for it via taxes. You can always call the school AD just to get confirmation and info on best times to run to avoid track or cross country teams using it. My German Sheppard and me enjoy doing speed work at 5am every Tuesday at our local track!

Here's a useful resource for finding tracks: runtrack.run

Some of them have info about access as well, if not, you can look up the same track on google maps. Schools don't usually have full-size 400 m tracks in the places where I have lived, so not sure about the common rules for schools. I used to live next to a hs with a ~250 m track in Russia and the school had guards who would sometimes chase me off, sometimes ignore. The best time was when a guard asked me not to climb over the fence right under the surveillance camera because I shake it and he has to climb up to correct. But away from, whatever.

I imagine 2025 America might guard their schools better than 2018 Russia. So I'd rather ask the staff onsite. But if they don't lock the gates and if you don't ignore 'no trespassing' signs you'd probably be fine.

Not sure about gym and covid comment, what is that supposed to mean? How is a gym going to help you with speedwork, and who even remembers covid in 2025? Germany was one of the last countries to cancel mask mandate. I remember coming back home from Grandma's marathon in 2022 and the world was mostly past the pandemic by that time, but when I changed planes in Amsterdam, they announced "hey you're flying to Germany now and those weird Germans still say you must wear face masks". But covid is long since forgotten even here.

For the deliberately obtuse: COVID, flu, colds, RSV, etc still exist in the population. Not sure why this place feels the need to turd on OP for wanting to avoid said bugs by not rubbing all over a bunch of haphazardly disinfected surfaces and getting whatever strains the local gymbros have, but letsrun is still definitely gonna letsrun. Wash your hands. . .maybe minds, too. . .but definitely hands.

Honest response, nearly all schools will not allow it while school kids are present. This is a safety concern and not allowing people on campus who do not belong on campus. If you show up to run and you are not an employee be expected to get a visit from the police asking why you are on school grounds. Staff and students are taught to report strangers on school grounds. You might be able to use a facility, if it is not locked up, when school is closed/weekends.

School tracks are generally fair game as long as the school isn’t actively using them. There are some counter examples, but mostly in poor neighborhoods where they’re worried about desperate people stealing the hurdles to sell.

Um...maybe don't rub all over haphazardly disinfected surfaces? It isn't hard to clean equipment, clean hands, and avoid licking the machine handles. Good grief.

Again, it is extremely easy to use a gym and not get COVID-19 or any other infection.

(I have had COVID exactly once, and it sure wasn't from the gym that I've been to hundreds of times since 2020.)

WOW.

Maybe this is the case in the US. Sounds terrible.

Where I am in Canada (Vancouver, metro population ~2.5 million), all of the public school tracks are open for public use after hours (morning and evening), so as long as you don't try to run during a gym class or an after-school sports practice you will have no hassle. Literally there is signage stating this is the intended access pattern, and it is common for community members to use tracks for this purpose.

Even if you ran during the school day, if the track isn't in use I wouldn't expect an issue. If a gym class comes out, naturally you should reasonably be prepared to stay well out of the way, but if you aren't a twit about it you can probably keep running (as long as it's the field and not the track that are in use, of course).

I would certainly not expect a "visit from the police" -- why the heck would anyone call the police about someone running on a track, after all?

As an American, it's wild how scared so many Americans are. Every time this comes up here, people act like you're gonna get arrested if you step foot on a school.

Where I live:

1. People walk their dogs and go for casual strolls through the school's large, grass athletic fields at all hours. Old people, young people, anyone.

2. There will be a soccer game going on one field, and I'll run around the other, or the track, if open and no one has ever said anything to me.

3. I use the track when after school practice is going on as long as I don't think I'll get in the way. Once a coach asked me to leave and I did. Another coach asked me to teach the lacrosse team some speed drills, so I was invited back a few weeks later to do that.

If you are a morning person, like me, you can generally get on almost any local HS track before 6:15 AM. I used to get there about 5:50 AM and get a workout in , and get out of there before the teachers arrived by 6:30 AM.

What would happen if you were on the track when some teachers arrived at 6:30am?

Glad you have had good experiences with this! Reassuring.

Check with your probation officer.

You are avoiding gyms because of COVID? Are you serious right now? I think this is a troll.