The 4 lane 400m track at Nike Headquarters in Beaverton, OR also has trees in the infield and around the outside. There is one trail across the middle, which is the only place you can see the other side of the track. Has several statues around too, if I remember right. Pretty cool.
the haverford school, in haverford, pa, has a track which has a small hill on the homestretch. if that weren't stranger enough, there is a really old tree they didn't want to cut down due to sentimental attatchements which is located just inside turns 3/4. this causes the backstretch to actually have another turn in it, so there's 3 straightaways, and a really kinda sharp turn at 150 to go. this would all kinda make sense if it were an old facility, just accomodating track and field, but this is a brand new all weather surface, and the infield is Nexturf. unbelieveable, and rather awesome.
in h.s. we used to run at St. Joseph's university in Philly, where they'd put cones around a gym, and had just the turns painted in the corners. that was always a trip....
Ohio:
*Capital University's old track outdoor was a square;
*We were told (mid 80's) that previous to us Kenyon College's old outdoor track was nearly triangular, and around 300 meters.
*Still a few High Schools around with 300 or so meter tracks (Waterford, St. Marys in WV);
*ran against Bishop Waterson in Columbus many years ago, on the only 200 meter all-weather OUTDOOR track I've ever seen.
I'm sure there are some other odd ones around as well
While staying for a weekend in the Provence region village of Uzes in France (at least 1,000 years old), I ran a mile down this ancient cobblestoned road to a dirt track. It was (as far as I could tell) about 4 laps to a kilometer. There was a good number of junior high school-aged soccer/futbol players practicing with their parents intently watching. They were very, very talented. Got some strange looks, but they seemed to take my penchant for running in tight circles in stride. A huge thunderstorm came along and made things very squirrely for all of us.
Indoor(many strange ones in the Northeast):
U of Rochester (NY) Half of it in a dungeon/tunnel where away team runners going in, in the lead mysteriously dropped back in tunnel, either 207 or 217m
Union College (NY):
1/10 mile rectangle, 90 degree turns, somehow ran still standing 5000m PR, start and finish of 5000m were off the track (into long jump pit)
Alfred U (NY):
approx 110m boarded track, no lanes, about 10 ft wide
Outdoor:
St. Mary HS (Buffalo) 200m outdoor track (yes there is another)
My roommate told me of a "D" shaped hs track in Eastern PA with fencing on rail to protect football field that was often used for bank shots with competitors.
Ive run on the old ILL. Wes. track also. I went to high school nearby and ran lots of workouts there. It was messed up but it was a change. The new track is, like everything else on that campus, very nice, its also normal shaped.
I second the Princeton track being one of the best in the nation. It drips of money and ivy eliteness, not to mention a dedication to using the best material to tie it all together.
The oddest track I've ran on is York High School's (Illinois) indoor track. I can't exactly remember the dimensions, but it is about a 140m asphalt oval in the basement of the school. Insanly humid and hot, a perpetual green haze fills the tiny room. I can only imagine Coach Newton drilling his athletes during the indoor season on this torture device, hardening them up for state finals in June.
haha, our team trains on this ghetto dirt old track at an abandoned school that was around before world war one... so it's probably more than one hundred years old. the dirt is so hard packed that it's exactly like running on concrete. not good for spikes. as for the distance, i'm not sure if it is 400 meters.
we always have to tweak the measurements because of all the big puddles that have hardened into ditches and huge holes on the inside lane over time. grass has also spread over a lot of the inside lane. the grass on the infield has so many holes and ditches that are not visible that it is pretty hard to run on it without twisting your ankle. as soon as everyone sits on the grass, they start scratching because of all the chemicals that have been doused on the field over time. the bleachers by the track are so old, rusty, and nasty that most of them had to be fenced off. we always joke about getting tetanus or aids just by touching them because there is a plethora of old, dirty, and rusted crap that can be found underneath and on them. right next to the track is a weird little concrete box. new runners always open it up, curious to see what is inside. of course, we always crack up when they get freaked out by the huge ass cockroaches and spiders inside. i also can't forget to mention the obnoxious little kids that occasionally play soccer on the infield... they kick their balls into the lanes while we are running and shout mexican profanities at us as we run by.
finally, it's in a pretty lousy neighborhood. graffitti is always to be found nearby as well as broken glass. on one occassion, a hurdler fell onto the track. she was out for a while because of all the broken glass that lodged itself in her knee from that one fall. while jogging a recovery one day, i didn't see a clear section of abroken glass bottle and almost sprained my ankle stepping on it.
good times.
Coolest track: Climbed the wall at Iffley Road on Christmas Eve around midnight a few years ago while visiting Oxford for the very purpose of seeing THE track. Jogged a lap (with our hands covered in tar from the top of the wall to keep trespassers out) Managed to find the plaque to the first sub-4 in the bleachers. Of course the track isn't cinders anymore, but was worth the trouble just to see the place where it first happened.
The old Armory track
The Rock
Ottawa used to have a 125m board banked track, but there was never anywhere to put it. It bounced around the city between different warehouses for years until it was scrapped altogether about 8 or 9 years ago. One winter it was in a building that was unusually long and narrow. To make it fit, they decided to add to the straightaway by inserting a rubber mat. This meant you had to take a step down to the mat and then back up to the track for each lap. Not very safe if you ask me.
Anyone else have steps on their track?
The indoor track at Sherbrooke Quebec has the steepest banking I have ever seen. It must be over 5 feet high at the highest point, and it is only a 4 lane track. Girls distance events over 800m have to be held on a makeshift lane on the flat of the infield. I have run all the Boston indoor tracks, etc, but nothing has ever had half the banking of this track.
I ran a meet in Jarvso Sweden and it was 330 meter 4 lane dirt track with no stands...the people would stand up around the track or on the side of a hill that was on the back stretch...I went ot watch a meet in Hutchinson Kansas at the state fairgrounds...it was an indoor meet and tahe coach had gone through and put lines down in the cow barns and they had a meet...
The outdoor track at my junior high was 220 yards and dirt.
While in London a few years back we went to Oxford to also see the track. While we didn't realize there was a plaque (guess I'll have to go back), we did take pictures and walk around the track and athletic building attached. Pretty cool b/c of the history.
I once ran in a meet at the Iffley road track. It is quite a bit faster now than back in 1954. In fact Bannister doesn't even hold the track record anymore, as Simon Mugglestone ran a 3:58 there around 1990. People were kinda pissed at him, as it seemed sacrilige to strip Mr. Bannister of his one remaining record.
I was surprised to find only a small understated plaque on the wall of the track commemorating the first sub 4. Easy to miss it.
When I was racing there a goat wandered on to the track from an adjoining grassy area...
Yep. Illinois Wesleyan's "5-sided" asphalt track. I ran a 31:06 10,000m there once. Very strange.
BDG wrote:
The old Illinois Wesleyan University track. Apparently they have a new facility now, but there old track was ridiculous. Instead of being around a football field, it surrounded....a baseball field! I ran there a few times, including my senior year of track when we had conference there. It was a long time ago (1991), but I seem to remember there were more than your typical 4 straightaways (and extra turns of course). I always thought it was funny that the infield was actually both and infield and an outfield. Somebody must have thought it was a good idea to put the track around the baseball field way back when, and I hope that person isn't making important decisions anywhere.
scotty,
I ran at St. Joe's in highschool too. By that time they had lane lines, but it was a 176 track and still hard to tell where the outside lane really started. It could get teammate in a bit of trouble if you weren't paying attention.
When I was in grade school we ran a 220 banked wooden track outdoors. I think Villanova had donated to the highschool next door.
I ran on this track in high school that had a 6 foot difference from one end of the track to the other...one end was 6 feet higher up than the other. The 100 meter times were always really fast and the rest of the races were very very slow. It was also a dirt track which made things mroe interesting.
PA wrote:
My conference has a lot of bad indoor tracks. I am sure this is typical of a lot of small college indoor tracks, but I'll add this to the list. Lebanon Valley College had an indoor track with small straightaways on each turn, the rounded off square kinda deal. That was bad enough, especially with a non-spike friendly surface. It was also short, stupid thing was like 197 meters. I have been told that to make it 200 they would have had to add another whole section of roofing and beams and all and that would have been an extra $50k. Although they had different starting lines fortunately they just had the first person in each relay run long. And this place host the conference meet for 5-6 straight years. Also Albright's 176 yd barn has sand pit was only like 2/3s full and the start of the 1500 is draw in with a marker on the floor.
PA, who are you? I was gonna say the exact same thing about LVC, about the rounded rectangle it is, and how it would've cost them a bunch of extra money to put that extra beam in. I HATED running on that track in high school.
Scotth and X, next time you find yourself at the Detroit Country Day school track (where Chris Webber went to school), tell me it isn't uphill on the backstraight.