I actually think that the Stanfrod track is short

D.Katz wrote:

You don't need to measure the entire track to determine if it's accurate.

The key are the hurdle marks (women's 100mh & 400mh).

Athletes would be crashing into the hurdles (especially the 100m) if they were off.

The 10th 100m hurdle should be 10.5 meters from the finish.

Then go back to the beginning of the relay zone for the last leg of the 4 x 100. You should find the hurdle mark for the 8th 400m h.

I'm sure many of you would say that athletes adjust their steps in the 400 but there are other 400m hurdle marks that line up as well.

The 2nd hurdle of the 400m hurdles line up with the fly zone of the first leg of the 4 x 100.

There are many other marks that all you need to do is a short 5-10 meter measurement to confirm the accuracy.

Clever, but you seem to think that hurdlers are finely tuned measuring instruments that would be totally thrown off by a slight change. Not sure if I buy that. The hurdles could be just an inch closer each, and that could add up to 40 inches per lap (assuming they didn't make the 110 regular length and the other "300" shorter). 40 inches a lap in about 150 for 1500, or roughly 4.5 meters, enough to shave a swag second off per mile

This argument is fairly ridiculous, but let's say that OP is right. One day someone goes out to measure and discovers that the track is 399.5 meters measured at the right radius. The men's collegiate 10000 record was from Payton Jordan in 2010- what happens then? That would mean the record holder ran about 12.5 meters less than he should've. Is the record automatically bogus? Do we convert upward? Or, if there's video and we see him walk/jog 12.5 meters past the finish line, could we time him to that point? Discus.

Wheel Man wrote:

LRC Commenter wrote:

I promise Im not trolling, I am convinced that there track is short. Think about it, how do you ever know that a track is the right distance? Some one puts some rubber out their and draws some white lines and tells you its 400. If people always run contsinstently faster on a track, it has to be short. I'd love for someone to explain why Im wrong.

I just carefully wheeled the Stanford track four times last night. And here are my results:

1. 10 inches short of 400 meters

2. 8 inches short of 400 meters

3. 6 inches short of 400 meters

4. 7 inches short of 400 meters

After wheeling the Stanford track four times, I would say that their track is about 8 inches short of 400 meters. In a 10,000 meter race, that might be 2 seconds.

I have no reason to doubt your measurements. But we still don't know for sure if the Stanford track is short. I would guess that their track is 6-8 inches short per lap. That means 1 second or less in a 5000 meter race. And 2 seconds or less in a 10,000 meter race.

Has anyone considered that Stanfrod might have tainted water? Everyone shows up early before their races drinks the Stanfrod water, the water contains high amounts of EPO, everyone is doped, everyone runs faster.

There's two ways to test this:

- Someone goes to the next meet at Stanfrod and collects water samples for testing.

- We identify an athlete that we know to absolutely be on EPO and see if they run faster at Stanfrod. If they are already on EPO, then they shouldn't get much boost from the water.

A fairly notorious and prolific poster on these boards has assured me that a track was accurately measured because the University involved had a good physics department...

On a more serious note, my google can't locate any sort of certification number or certificate. Seems like that should be available somewhere? Maybe David K. can tell us where

The USA does not have it's own certification system for tracks besides by the track installer/contractor.

There is a certification system by the IAAF that includes class 1 and class 2 tracks. The major difference between the two is that class 1 requires testing of samples of the composition.

Here is the list of IAAF tracks worldwide:

file:///C:/finish%20clocks/IAAF%20CERTIFICATES%20-%20Certified%20Athletics%20Facilities.pdf

It should be noted that there are many tracks in the US that would meet the standards for IAAF Certification but they never (or have had no desire) submitted the required reports and fees.

IAAF Certification is only required for IAAF Competitions (Diamond League, World Championships, Olympic Games, etc.)

That's interesting. I found that list and Stanford isn't on it.

So how would you find if the manufacturer /installer certified it?

I found (paraphrasing) on USATF that they required qualifying marks to be made on certified tracks. I'll see if I can find that language again.

But if they do not have a list of a certification system, USATF is basically taken the facility at their word?

Mr. Obvious wrote:

I found (paraphrasing) on USATF that they required qualifying marks to be made on certified tracks. I'll see if I can find that language again.

I found the language:

The meet/event must be held on a legal facility per USATF and/or IAAF rules & regulations.

I'm not 100% sure what a "legal facility" is, but I'll be chasing that down if I can next.

That would mean that the facility is dimensionally accurate. This includes all of the distances are accurate and the levelness of the track, runways and throwing sectors. These would be the same requirements as if a world record were set at a facility. The IAAF would require a measurement report from the facility in order for the ratification of the record.

Any other Stanford grad students here? PhD student in mechanical engineering here.

Woah man, thats super impresive. Do you have a miner in being a nerd?

Short track wrote:

Say what, Bro? wrote:

Huh? Downhill the entire way? You just destroyed whatever credibility you may have had.

He may be right. If the earth is flat, it would theoretically be possible for the track to be downhill the entire way. This would be impossible if the earth was round. This is good food for thought, and would explain all the fast times at Stanford.

Coriolis Effect

This force causes moving objects on the surface of the Earth to be deflected to the right (with respect to the direction of travel) in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Coriolis Effect makes it harder to take the left turns around a track in the Northern Hemisphere because the runner is being "pushed" to the right, so all tracks in the Northern Hemisphere are built with with a slight down-hill grade around the entire length of the track to counter this force with the steepness of the grade used to help calibrate all tracks according to their latitude.

Very few people outside the track building community know this but it's standard practice. If this weren't done then all world records would have been run in the Southern Hemisphere, with tracks at the South Pole having the greatest advantage.

Ernest Shackleton was the first to measure this effect in 1915 when shortly after reaching the South Pole he raced his donkey around a make-shift quarter mile track and shocked everyone by running a 3:34.2 mile in snow shoes. He lost to the donkey which is why it did not get much press at the time.

On their return journey, they got stuck on an ice flow for over a year and were forced to eat the donkey.

The odd troll aside, a google search suggests that this effect is a real thing. Does this actaully mean that people would run faster south of the equator? How much does it count for for 400?

Krombopulus Michael wrote:

The odd troll aside, a google search suggests that this effect is a real thing. Does this actaully mean that people would run faster south of the equator? How much does it count for for 400?

I did the calculations and it turns out that to calibrate a track at Stanfrod's latitude to offset the Coriolis Effect you would need to trim 19.15 cm off the 400 meter distance, so just over 7.5 inches, which matches up well with actual measurements taken by another poster.

D.Katz wrote:

That would mean that the facility is dimensionally accurate. This includes all of the distances are accurate and the levelness of the track, runways and throwing sectors. These would be the same requirements as if a world record were set at a facility. The IAAF would require a measurement report from the facility in order for the ratification of the record.

So, USATF includes in its entry standards for qualifying marks that all marks must be set at such a facility.

So, I guess my next question is whether they keep a list of these?

Do they ask for a measurement report when people turn in a mark?

Do they check it at all?

An interesting piece of edvience for my argument:

Matt Centrowitz, the greatest American midle dinstance runner of our generation: runs 3:43 at Sacramento State

Nick Hutton, very good college runner: runs 3:42 at Payton Jordan.

The two races were similary run. I wonder what made the diference between them?

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