Bring mile back???? NAY!!! Drop the mile. 1500 across ALL levels!!!!!

Bring back the mile!

A lot of these posts remind me of the tut-tutters who warned us that the Japanese were going to take over the world, that we should love soccer, and that America was backwards for not using the metric system.

The fact is that Americans think in miles, not 1500s. Also, many, many, people love the mile as a race distance. I remember when I started getting relatively close to 4:00 (which I never broke) that I hoped that I could do it in a mile race and not just break the 1500 equivalent (although I would have taken that as well!).

Get rid of the mile, AND the 1500, AND the 1600!!!

Replace them with the KILOMETER!!! 1000 meters!!!

Then it will be 100, 200, 400, 800, 1000, 3000, 5000, 10000.

Why both 800 and 1000 you say, because that's the most important distance range to be able to run fast.

Every race distance 1000 meters or above should be an integer multiple of kilometers, no exceptions. No marathons! Time to start chasing the 2:30 barrier over 50k.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Then it will be 100, 200, 400, 800, 1000, 3000, 5000, 10000.

ILLOGICAL

100 200 500 1000 2000 5000 10000 20000 50000 (was marathon)

1-2-5 then 1-2-5 then 1-2-5

Please guys these spastic distances are hurting my brain! How about a simple formula: distance_n = 100 * 2^n

This gives us 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800, ...

It would really help my brain to compute pacing if distances were in powers of 2, thank you.

You are assuming the 400 is sacred. Wrong. Make the track 500m.

100, 200 (half on curve, half straight), 500, 1000, 2000 (4 laps), 5000 (10 laps), 10000 (20 laps), 20k (new 1/2 'thon), 40k (new 'thon)

1500m wrote:

Mile! wrote:

That, and this is the USA, and the general public can relate one million times more to the mile than a 1500.

Thoughts?

The general public in the USA doesn't know the difference between 1500m, 1600m, and 1 mile.

They don't know what a 1500 or 1600 is but they all know what a mile is.

I agree, sort of.

The last time average sports fans in USA were excited about the mile Jim Ryun was in his prime, or at least seriously threatening to come back to it.

Binary nerds want 2**n, with n >=6 (64 meters).

Nice even # nerds want 100,200,500 times 10**n. Yards and miles are too English as it is, why do we want a distance to please the UK royal family in 1908? Long distance studs think 100 Km to be a proper even #.

Have any of you EVER been given a 1,500 split in a 5k? Of course not. They give MILE splits for a reason. That is what Americans (real American runners) use. Distances should be 100yds (football field) 220yds, 440 yds, 880yds, mile 3 mile 6 mile 10mile 15mile marathon

I read today that they can qualify for Worlds with a mile conversion. If the purpose is to try to get some more popularity to track, it would be a positive idea. The majority of the country understand more about a mile than a 15. Plus the 1500 is an ugly race, the splits are hard to follow sometimes

Rage On Ron Doe wrote:

Have any of you EVER been given a 1,500 split in a 5k? Of course not. They give MILE splits for a reason. That is what Americans (real American runners) use. Distances should be 100yds (football field) 220yds, 440 yds, 880yds, mile 3 mile 6 mile 10mile 15mile marathon

They give km split in the non-U.S. World. In the U.S. you get km split as well.

BTW, football (soccer) fields are 100m.

U.S. tackle football fields are -- gasp -- 53-1/3 yards wide...really.

Rage On Ron Doe wrote:

Have any of you EVER been given a 1,500 split in a 5k? Of course not. They give MILE splits for a reason. That is what Americans (real American runners) use. Distances should be 100yds (football field) 220yds, 440 yds, 880yds, mile 3 mile 6 mile 10mile 15mile marathon

They give km split in the non-U.S. World. In the U.S. you get km split as well.

BTW, football (soccer) fields are 100m.

U.S. tackle football fields are -- gasp -- 53-1/3 yards wide...really.

Do they give 1500 splits? Another poster rightly pointed out that 1500 splits can be (at least a little, while the race is going on) tough to decipher sometimes. I don't understand the people who are treating this like a math problem. No, the 400 should not be replaced with the 500.

K splits wrote:

Rage On Ron Doe wrote:

Have any of you EVER been given a 1,500 split in a 5k? Of course not. They give MILE splits for a reason. That is what Americans (real American runners) use. Distances should be 100yds (football field) 220yds, 440 yds, 880yds, mile 3 mile 6 mile 10mile 15mile marathon

They give km split in the non-U.S. World. In the U.S. you get km split as well.

BTW, football (soccer) fields are 100m.

U.S. tackle football fields are -- gasp -- 53-1/3 yards wide...really.

Save the 1500!!!!