Western Michigan University, Oakland Gym had a track that was on the second floor, looping around basketball courts on the lower level. It was less than 200 meters. A local runner named Dan Black ran a marathon on it.
Thread asks for smallest loop YOUVE run. Not Dan Black.
When I was on safari in Kruger Park in South Africa one day the only safe place to run was a 150 foot loop in front of the front door of the lodge where we were staying. The monkeys thought it was entertaining and I quit after repeatedly having my feet slapped by the monkeys.
When I was in law school 40+ years ago there was a YMCA across the street with a 24 laps to the mile track above a basketball court. There was a huge clock next to the track with a sweep second hand. I ran 6:00 mile pace so I was completing a lap every 15 seconds.
When doing a steady run what's the smallest loop you've run to make up your route? For example, say you were on a ship or confined to a small space indoors. For me it's probably laps of a small park when it snowed. I wanted to stay on the grass in case I fell as the ice had refrozen and the paths were dangerous, so did a 300m loop over and over. I know people have run around their gardens/yards and so on, and sometimes indoors, but I imagine a few of you have taken it to the extreme.
Our YMCA gym in Smyrna, TN had a 123m track upstairs and before the pandemic (and solidifying my hatred for most humans) i used to do between 42-54 laps in a post -work workout. Or 42-46 on weekends before elliptical and stairs. You know because my BMI makes me fat to most of you.
I did a 10 miler on the top floor of a small parking garage at the airport once during a long layover. I hid my bags under a car and just ran a small loop for 90 minutes.
When it's too icy to safely run on roads or sidewalks, I'll jog a block south of where I live, to an empty lot probably fifty meters square, and I will run laps around the out perimeter of that, and mix it up with diagonals. I don't even bother with mileage, I'll just run for XX minutes so I can claim something for the books.
This thread is making me feel lucky. Pavements are snowy/icy as hell here currently but last night I found a c. 0.6 mile loop where I can run on the actual road without too much traffic. It's pretty hilly with around 110ft of elevation change per lap.
Last night I did six laps, I might do a longer run on it this evening.
When I was in law school 40+ years ago there was a YMCA across the street with a 24 laps to the mile track above a basketball court. There was a huge clock next to the track with a sweep second hand. I ran 6:00 mile pace so I was completing a lap every 15 seconds.
Just once, I ran on a track like this, in the old downtown St. Louis YMCA. It had to have been at least 20 laps/mile. It's been over 20 years, but I do remember having to jump down into it, and feeling like I was running in a bowl. I think the entire track was banked without any real straightaways - just a circle so you were running a constant turn. At least that was what it felt like.
I've done entire runs in the outside lane of an indoor track, so my shortest loop would be a little over 200m I guess.
Yes. This is my answer as well. My college had an indoor track that was like 150m and I ran a 10km training run on it. Just trying to stay out of a rainstorm.
But I think the OP might have meant non-track loop. For that, probably a park while my kid had volleyball practice. I just ran around and around the soccer fields at that school. But that is pretty normal, right?
On a cruise last summer, I ran on the outside track which I think was about 200m. Call me soft, but I realized after the first few minutes that this wasn't going to work for me for the whole 10 days. So each day I did hybrid workouts where I'd first run a few miles on the treadmill followed by a a couple of miles on the outside track.
I don't want to sound ignorant but do big cruise ships have designated walk/run areas? They're big enough to get in some halfway decent runs but I imagine there would be a lot of people standing around in the way.
Yes. My cruise ship did. However - every person on-board that felt guilt about their partying the night before, and/or those that legitimately wanted to get their morning walk in (picture walking four abreast on a two lane "track"). Also - you're correct those just in-the-way on the track. It was quite an obstacle course. On a side-note - when returning home I got Achilles Tendonitis in both Achilles. I believe maybe this was due to an extremely soft track surface + many, many laps.
I was on my honeymoon last January in the Maldives. We had to take a Covid test the day before we were supposed to leave in order to return to the US. I woke up the morning of our flight home to a call from resort management saying I had tested positive for Covid. They put us into quarantine rooms at the resort for 7 days and required us to stay within the room/a small garden area outside. I had no symptoms of illness (my wife didn't either) and I didn't want to take a week off so I ended up running 6-8 miles per day (usually in two runs). I did this by running out 20 meters, swinging myself around a tree and running back on the same 20 meter stretch to another tree. Occasionally I would throw in Basketball style "liners" where would sprint and touch the tree, then sprint back and touch the other tree.
Indoors, there are a couple contenders for me. Running around my high school gym was probably around 15 laps per mile, and I certainly ran a single mile as a warmup pretty regularly whenever we had indoor practice due to ice or too much snow. Probably ran a couple miles at once sometime, but not sure if I ever did more than that.
I have done stairs in a tall building on several occasions, which is practically like a loop depending on the setup. One time was in Colombia just before heading to the airport for my flight home - probably only 15 minutes (taking the elevator down, so maybe 10 minutes actually running up the stairs). Got my heart rate really high and felt like it was a good workout... but strained my achilles shortly after getting back and I think the stairs were a factor.
I have regularly run outdoor "infinity loops" - diagonals on a grass field - often on a loop that is around 200 meters. Most of these runs were 20-45 minutes, but have gone over an hour several times. Typically really boring, but my legs recover quite well from those runs!
I had the honour of running for York HS in Elmhurst Illinois from 87-91 under Mr. Newton. Back then, they didn't have the super 200m indoor facility. There was a track in the basement under the basketball court. Very low ceiling, pillars everywhere, and lumpy pavement surface. It was even "banked" in the wrong direction on one turn due to the shabby floor construction. It was 13 1/2 laps to the mile and we actually had meets down there. 27 laps for the 2 mile was quite a spectacular feat. On one turn, you had to be careful to not crash into a pillar that was right at the edge of the painted line serving as a rail.
I also ran in a parking lot in Chicago, probably 12 laps to a mile. I had arrived late at night and was touring a college (UChicago), but the hotel's treadmill was broken and I didn't want to go into the surrounding areas for obvious reasons. Ended up running inside a gated-parking lot for about 30 minutes
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