curious: why are tracks 400 meters?

oatmeal + water wrote:

it would seem to make more sense if tracks were 500 meters so that you can more easily calculate laps:

so for example:

5000 would just be 10 laps

10000 would just be 20 laps

I would love it if the Olympics were as follows...

Short and long sprints, 100m and 500m

Short and long mid-distance, 1000m and 5000m

Short and long long-distance, 10000m and 50000m

Sprints and middle distance on the track, long distance on the roads. The track would be 500m around. The road course would be a point to point with a certain standard amount of elevation change (something small) and as straight as possible, on a somewhat standard surface (ie. no cobblestones).

While I was insulting the degenerate romans, I forgot to mention that modern tracks are not 400 meters anyhow. They are, in fact, 398.3 meters. It is assumed that you run about 400 meters on an imaginary line 20cm outside the kerb, but the track itself isn't 400m.

Tigerfan wrote:

The original Olympic stadium had a straight track and the distance run was the 'stade', ~192m. Longer races multiples of the stade and were run as shuttles back and forth.

The first modern Olympic track in Athens is the one you described.

A 'stade' is 200 yards.

My guess is that it had to do with

- a track being the geometric shape of a stadium

- .25 mile/400m happening to fit around a football field

The first Olympics to have a 440 yd/400 meter track was at Francis Field in St Louis, where football games were also played.

The White City Stadium, used for the 1908 Olympics in London, hosted soccer games during the Games and became the blueprint for "modern" stadia the world over.

AU Père wrote:

Tigerfan wrote:

The original Olympic stadium had a straight track and the distance run was the 'stade', ~192m. Longer races multiples of the stade and were run as shuttles back and forth.

The first modern Olympic track in Athens is the one you described.

A 'stade' is 200 yards.

No 192m, ~210 yards

Bad Wigins wrote:

While I was insulting the degenerate romans, I forgot to mention that modern tracks are not 400 meters anyhow. They are, in fact, 398.3 meters. It is assumed that you run about 400 meters on an imaginary line 20cm outside the kerb, but the track itself isn't 400m.

It's 30cm outside the kerb; 20cm outside the line if there is not kerb. Not sure how you came up with 398.3 though.

IAAF facilities manual wrote:

Construction length of the track border

(inside edge of the track) 398.116m

398.1, same difference.

Tigerfan wrote:

The original Olympic stadium had a straight track and the distance run was the 'stade', ~192m. Longer races multiples of the stade and were run as shuttles back and forth.

The first modern Olympic track in Athens is the one you described.

Tigerfan beat me to the answer. Anyway, here's what I found.

Ed Sears wrote a book, “Running through the Ages” which covers the history of running pretty well. As far as the 400 meter question…..It depends on how far back you want to dig. The original Olympic stadium’s track was one stade (192 meters long). This was 600+ BC. There was no oval. For the two stade race they ran around a post at the end of the track. The track length was basically chosen to fit inside the stadium so the spectators could see well.

In the 1850’s in England “track” was revitalized eventually as local taverns sponsored runners and they typically sprinted around the block for money. Later, they used the conveniently marked mile posts on the pikes for racing. But the roads got too crowded, London banned this racing, and some of the pubs created clubs and made their own tracks. There was no standardization at all. Finally, the colleges, Oxford, namely, took up “sport” to take track from the professionals and make it a very elite activity. It was Roger Bannister himself who took on the task of improving the Iffley track that was fairly rough and had a slight hill on it.

Anyway, this is a gross over-simplification of a complicated history.

With a 500 meter track, there's 25% less opportunity to lap someone in a marathon.

One more time wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

They were 500 meters once, during the primitive days of track. It's because of 500 meter tracks that goofball events like 1500 and 3000 are even run.

But if you ran a marathon on a 500 meter track and got lapped,

would you still be able to come back and win?

Classic response.

oatmeal + water wrote:

interesting.

i still think 500 meters would be better.

the only races that would benefit from a 400 meter track:

400

800

1600

3200

races that would benefit from a 500 meter track:

1500

3000

3000 steeple

5000

10000

and you can still have a 400 meter race on a 500 meter track and it would still be 1 lap.

Wrong on so many levels. First, 400 meters on a 500 meter track is not 1 lap. It is 4/5 of a lap. Second, 3000 divides into 400 easily. No benefit there. Same with 10,000 meters.