I just found out the local high school outdoor track is 378 meters...WTF?

My guess is that the neighbors 20 year old daughter was out tanning while they were working on that south curve. Looks like a practice field/track to me, one long jump pit, no stands??!!

I get 0.23 miles.

By comparison the track at Van Cortlandt Park in The Bronx comes out at 0.25 miles.

why don't some of you measure Stanford, arcadia tracks and see what you get?

GUYS THIS IS NUTS!

Wonder what to score of the baseball game next to the track is?

OP: 1/10 on the comment about believing you were actually in shape. This one was way too obvious after taking a look at that track. Any runner who runs track a lot would realize something is not right with the south end of it and any runner who has a brain would notice the two curves are very different.

I've seen worse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_mVzJ5M6Vg

Admin wrote:

I've seen worse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_mVzJ5M6Vg

:)

Admin wrote:

I've seen worse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_mVzJ5M6Vg

That video made me burst into laughter. It's even funnier because the runners appear to be pretty serious runners.

////????//// wrote:

OP: 1/10 on the comment about believing you were actually in shape. This one was way too obvious after taking a look at that track. Any runner who runs track a lot would realize something is not right with the south end of it and any runner who has a brain would notice the two curves are very different.

I haven't done a track workout in over a year, but I have been running somewhat (try to heal while running). So I went to do this workout, not knowing very much about my current fitness level. I was trying to hit 83 seconds for each quarter. I knew immediately the track was FUBAR because I started on the south end, but the long straightaways fooled me into thinking it must still be a 400m deal. When I crossed the first quarter in 73 seconds, I just saw it ended in "3" and figured I had hit 83. It wasn't until I finished the 3 laps in 3:40 that I knew something was amiss, because 83 seconds per lap was supposed to come out to 4:10 for 1200m. I thought all this confusion was happening just because of my unfamiliarity with my current fitness level, and the weird track just added to the confusion.

The New Rochelle High School outdoor track is 375 meters

Anyway, it was an interesting find to note the disparity in times, and then it's obviously a weird, shortened track from the sat view (obvious from the shape of the south).

That is indeed insane, but on the bright side it's always interesting when your "mental" pace/measurement calculator works correctly.

That video is hilarious. The first 2 seconds it looks pretty much normal and then they immediately do a uturn. A 445 on that track is def no joke also.

There was an article in Track & Field News in the early 90s about some organization that remeasured 36 tracks in the US that were frequently used for pro and collegiate meets. 4 of the tracks were off by more than 1%. That may not sounds like much, but that means a 1,500m on one of those tracks was actually 1,485m to 1,115m. 15m would be 2-3 seconds. A 10,000 would be off by 100m! That's 15-25 seconds.

Even if a track is only 1m off that would be about 5-10 seconds for a 10,000m.

Hilarious... I was thinking the same thing about the gentleman's wife. I graduated from high school in Buffalo in 1971, and our cinder track was four laps plus a horseshoe to the mile, or roughly 320 M. We actually held dual meets there, and any visiting team had very little idea what the countless lines represented. There was a single finish line, but try to imagine the various chalk lines on a 320 meter cinder track for the mile relay. I now help coach a public high school cross country team in Washington, D.C., on a volunteer basis, and the school's all weather track is around 340 meters. Of course, I was not present when these tracks were designed and built. I can only conclude this reflects the low regard in which our sport is held: ie. who would care? We built a track, it fits around the football field, and what's the difference? Try to imagine a school district building an 85 yard long football field, and then telling the football team it's not a big deal: just go to the goal line, turn around, and run 15 yards in the other direction and we'll call it a touchdown, or run five yards past the end zone on to the track and we'll call it a touchdown.

Wow that video was incredible. It was hilarious to hear "16 laps to go!" et al yelled to runners in a mile race.

Quick Thoughts:

1) Never thought I'd see someone get lapped MULTIPLE times in a mile.

2) You likely need to be in the lead with 2-3 laps to go if you want to win. This just sounds ridiculous.

3) Alaskan mountains are amazing, and I thought Colorado's were nice to look at.

There will be a non-standard length indoor track built at the OTC (Olympic Training Center not Oregon Track Club) in the next few months. From what I heard it will be between 100 and 200 meters, but closer to 100. For those of you who've been there, it will be in the new SportsMed/Sport Science building on the top floor. I thought it be ridiculous to have a short track until I saw that video of the mini-track in Alaska.

Maybe the University of Washington can host an outdoor meet at this 378m track, if they can convince people it is 400m.

Admin wrote:

I've seen worse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_mVzJ5M6Vg

Let the games begin.

My HS track was 5 laps to the mile. it was cinder back in the day. It is a suburban area and they are boxed in as far as available property. They also had a 4 lane banked wooden track that broke down into sections. We'd set it up in the baseball outfield and run on it in the winter since you couldn't shovel the cinders. I think the wood track was 16 laps to the mile but the banking made for easier running than that Alaska track! http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.712253,-73.820219&spn=0.002741,0.005659&gl=us&t=e&z=18&ecpose=40.712253,-73.820219,447.52,4.912,0,0