Has there ever been actual evidence found of a short track?

Blowing rock master. I am sure that every hs does not have a track to those specs. I am sure must do but here in SC we do not. The track at my hs is banked and is not flat. One turn is longer than the other and the home stretch drops for the first 10 meters and the it goes up. Some schools districts don't care what is built As long as they say they have a track

My high school track had four turns and four straights. I'm pretty sure it was 400m, though.

I won't give the name of the school, but there's a private high school in Georgia that frequently hosts the regional meet. They replaced the track just after the turn of the century. I was there when it was measured by the assistant coach soon after it was finished. Oops! It's long by about 2 meters.

I also used to workout on the tracks at UNC, Duke, and NC State in the late '80s. Times from the Duke and UNC tracks were comparable, but the NC State track was always slow by 1-2 seconds per 400. My guess is that at least 1 of those tracks wasn't the right length.

My HS coach thought our track was short based on our workout times. He brought out the measuring wheel and wheeled it to be 400m. He never doubted us again.

How many times do we need to go through this... 10 TIMES ARE OUT OF WHACK WITH 5K TIMES! SUB 27:00 IS LIKE A 13:00-13:05. THE ONLY REASON YOU THINK IT SHOULD BE FASTER THEN THAT EQUIVALENT IS BECAUSE THERE ARE NOT MANY OPPORTUNITIES. IF THE TOP 10K GUYS RAN A 10K EVERY 10 DAYS FOR 8 WEEKS, YOU WOULD SEE ABOUT AS MANY GUYS RUNNING 26:40S AS YOU SEE GUYS RUNNING 12:50S.

Given that, it makes the 27:20s, 30s, 40s times at Stanford not really seem all that fast (equivalent to about 13:20-30)

Do they check the line for the 1500m start and verify they started at the right line during every race?

dukerdog wrote:

Off the Grid wrote:

Considering anybody can now buy a laser measuring device accurate to 0.1 mm, I'd say no. Take one to your track, and you can measure a track in 10 minutes. 2 minutes with 4 people.

How exactly do you measure the turns in 2 minutes?

run really fast!

might take 5. and 2 measuring devices.

1 person at each corner of the track.

Measure straights

Measure across field and diagonals

then measure the 13 segments on the turns.

just to be complete accurate, measure the distance of the top of the arc of the turn

all these numbers will tell u the distance around the track to within .1m I'd reckon

It might take 30, esp if you were drinking beers. But it is an undertaking that anybody w/ HS geometry under his/her belt could handle.

Things like this are a lot easier in theory than in practice. It would take much longer than 30 minutes to get through your set of measurements.

But if you assume the turns are circular it is a pretty quick measurement.

It has been 28yrs since I measured a track, so I can honestly say I don't know anymore.

But the point is that ANYBODY can do it now. It used to require a steel tape, and a lot of patience. Now, all the measurements can be electronically recorded, and calculations are much easier.

You can gather the #s much more quickly now. Of that I am certain

Off the Grid wrote:

It has been 28yrs since I measured a track, so I can honestly say I don't know anymore.

But the point is that ANYBODY can do it now. It used to require a steel tape, and a lot of patience. Now, all the measurements can be electronically recorded, and calculations are much easier.

You can gather the #s much more quickly now. Of that I am certain

Many tracks, however, are not regular geometrical shapes.

That is, the turns aren't designed from a fixed center. Consequently, a steel tape may still be called for, as it can follow the the path of the turn, which may start as a curve, but then go virtually straight, only to make two rather sharp lefts before the head of the straight away.

Cal Northridge ain't a dirt track. One thing that stands out if you visit the links of some of the tracks he has listed on his website is that the length of the straights can vary from 87m up to 102m in length. That means that the turns have to be tighter or looser to keep the thing roughly 400m. That will have an effect on lap times.

latently homosexual teenager wrote:

'nother data point wrote:

Bad news Boys. Take a look at this guys travels around the state of California checking tracks at local High Schools and colleges. Follow some of his links. You will most likely be surprised at how haphazardly tracks are measured, marked and maintained.

http://www.trackinfo.org/marks.html

He outed Cal-Northridge and f#cking dirt track.

I don't know about short tracks but my local track seems to grow by 20 meters every year since I turned 40.

Interesting - so was this track 400m along the inside edge of lane 1, rather than the 30cm-out line? The difference is about 2m.

Question for those who have measured a track by the IAAF method. The rules specify measuring the radius of a turn at 24 points along the arc. How do you identify the center point from which all the measurements are taken?

"2.2.1.4 Dimensional Accuracy of the 400m Stanford Track

The dimensional accuracy required for all classes of competition at Stanford is deemed fulfilled if the following set values are attained in the “28 point control measurement” (Figure 2.2.1.4a) on the outside edge of the inner track border:

-84.390m ± 20.005m for each of the two straights (2 readings)

-36.500m ± 10.005m for 12 points per semicircle (including kerb) on the arc of the circle approximately 10.42m apart (24 readings)

-Alignment of the kerb in the area of the two straights: no deviations greater than 5.01m (2 readings). Ideally, the length of the kerb in the straight and the length of the outer lane measured along the outside edge of the lane should be equal.

The 28 point control measurement should be carried out and the readings recorded. The average of the deviations must not exceed + 8.040m nor be less than 4.000m (Table 2.2.1.4)."

figure8 wrote:

Interesting - so was this track 400m along the inside edge of lane 1, rather than the 30cm-out line? The difference is about 2m.

Don't know. But if she measured it along the inside edge and it was 2m long, and measuring properly 30cm out adds 2m, wouldn't that make it 4m too long?

Humdiggity wrote:How many times do we need to go through this... 10 TIMES ARE OUT OF WHACK WITH 5K TIMES! SUB 27:00 IS LIKE A 13:00-13:05. THE ONLY REASON YOU THINK IT SHOULD BE FASTER THEN THAT EQUIVALENT IS BECAUSE THERE ARE NOT MANY OPPORTUNITIES. IF THE TOP 10K GUYS RAN A 10K EVERY 10 DAYS FOR 8 WEEKS, YOU WOULD SEE ABOUT AS MANY GUYS RUNNING 26:40S AS YOU SEE GUYS RUNNING 12:50S.

Given that, it makes the 27:20s, 30s, 40s times at Stanford not really seem all that fast (equivalent to about 13:20-30)

it's worse than that

13'00 doesn't equal 27'00 off usual :

double + 1'00

the likely conversion is somewhere nearer ( for 1500 -> M ) for equivalent "power outputs"

speed Y = speed X * ( X / Y )^ 0.06917

the 10k wr is actually much stronger than the 5k one despite relative infrequency of event

pure rubbish! the 10k WR is not much stronger. Bekele is an aerobic beast and runners at that level can double the distance and remain much closer to their top end speed than the rest od us mortals.

err...

an "aerobic beast" woud be more beastly at 10k than 5k by definition

obviously you crunched NO numbers...