Whats the deal with flat and banked track conversions?

I mean, year after year, schools in NE get fat off of times at BU and then get smoked by the WIAC schools. There are huge, huge advantages to the banked track and you are lying to yourself if you don't believe that.

Not only that, where's the nearest banked track to WashU? To Pomona? To Emory?

I don't disagree with the fact that banked tracks are faster, and BU is certainly a super fast track. I could make an argument that a 9 second "pad" in a 5000 is a bit much at BU if the race is strung out, as lane 1 is not really banked and thus no real advantage, but I get that there needs to be conversions between flat and banked.

My frustration is more how D1 and D2 take flat track times and bump them up to banked marks, while D3 takes banked marks and lowers them to flat. Why not take the flat track marks that Emory, Pomona, and Wash U run and convert them up to banked times like D1 does? Then everything on TFRRS is equal across all divisions.

elites prove regularly that banked tracks are faster than outdoor, at least for 3000m. This is not their summer peak but the list whose PB's are better indoors is pretty long.

800 + GOAT Augustine Choge has ran 4 sub 7:30's indoors and maybe 1 outdoors

Bad Wigins wrote:

elites prove regularly that banked tracks are faster than outdoor, at least for 3000m. This is not their summer peak but the list whose PB's are better indoors is pretty long.

800 + GOAT Augustine Choge has ran 4 sub 7:30's indoors and maybe 1 outdoors

Climate control is a big factor although we get some good conditions when running at night and the wind goes to zero. How many times last year did we hear about the heat outside.

I agree with everything everyone is saying, but it still doesn't address why there is no standardization. Its just weird that we make D1 and D2 times appear faster, while actively making D3 times appear slower for anyone looking on TFRRS.

I don't think it matters which way you do it, but shouldn't it be the same for everyone?

The answer to this is that D3 needs to have nationals where there is a 200m banked track. It seems that is pretty much the standard now and makes the most sense from a records and competitive standpoint.

That's because Ryan ran 7:55 on a banked track and Flemming ran 7:55 on a flat track. The two performances are not equivalent. If Ryan was in the same race as Flemming and ran 7:55 he would not have a negative conversion to his time. I don't see the issue here, this isn't targeted at D3, D3 just runs their national meet on a flat track.

Thats the problem. If Ryan ran the same race as Flemming, he would NOT have had the same time. He would have been listed at the 7:55 and Flemming would have been given the lowered 7:49 on TFRRS. Hence why I feel like it negatively impacts the D3 runners. And I'm not saying that Ryan could have even run the 7:55 on a flat track. I'm just saying if he did, the D1 runner would look better than the D3 runner to anyone who was looking. That seems unfair.

BS wrote:

The answer to this is that D3 needs to have nationals where there is a 200m banked track. It seems that is pretty much the standard now and makes the most sense from a records and competitive standpoint.

That makes logical sense, but I don't think most D3 schools have as much access to banked tracks, and I don't know of any D3 school that has a banked track on campus. Hence why the probably stay on flat to make it more consistent. Maybe they feel its unfair to the runners who would be seeing a banked track at nationals for the first time.

the 3k is seldom run outdoors so that statement doesn't really apply. Why did Komen run the 3k WR faster outdoors than he did indoors??

Except Flemming wouldn't look better to anyone who knows what they are talking about, because he would have a symbol next to his name that tells you the time he actually ran, which would be the same as Ryan's listed time. Nobody that actually knows how to read the performance lists would think Ryan ran slower than Flemming.

Mac Daddy wrote:

Except Flemming wouldn't look better to anyone who knows what they are talking about, because he would have a symbol next to his name that tells you the time he actually ran, which would be the same as Ryan's listed time. Nobody that actually knows how to read the performance lists would think Ryan ran slower than Flemming.

I wish that were true, but I think that is assuming a lot from people. I've seen countless posts on Lets Run where people use converted times, and even articles on The Stride Report list them. When given the chance between saying you are a 7:55 or a 7:49, it sounds a lot better to say 7:49, so I think that a lot of folks gravitate to what ever the lowest mark is. I also think that TFRRS is used for a variety of reasons, and people are always comparing. For those who don't use it regularly, they might not understand the marks next to the times and take them at face value. Which is why I brought it up. Why not just make all divisions equal. Why force D3 to pad times on banked tracks. Why not just have them lower times on flat tracks like D1 and D2 do? Wouldn't that result in the same placement for national qualifiers even if the D3 nationals was run on a flat track? I guess I just don't understand why they need to make the times correspond to the type at nationals instead of making everything standard on TFRRS.

Ryan’s 7:55 was not on a banked track as many are claiming but on the oversized Dempsey track at UW. The conversion for banked and oversized tracks is the same which is weird imo

It's affirmative action for runners

Yes, I stand corrected. It was on an oversized, unbanked, track. Which just adds another layer to this. At that UW meet, Ryan ran a 7:55 and Jonathan Shields (a D1 runner from Boise State) came in just in front at a 7:54. Yet on the performance list on TFRRS Ryan's time is at the 8:01, while Shields remains at the 7:54. This was at the exact same race, but it makes it out like Ryan was 7 seconds slower.

Even though the D1 nationals aren't run on an oversized track, they are on a banked track. So apparently the increase in the time of the track size was negated by the loss from it not being banked, and thus his time stayed the same. At least that is what I am thinking. But it doesn't change to fact that the way TFRRS is set up, it makes D3 appear slower in almost all cases when its not needed.

This is the beauty of championship races. In a few weeks, one of those guys will win the DIII national championship, and at that point, we won't have to talk about which guy "ran the fastest DIII time in the country, but the conversion factor meant that someone else bumped him down the list" or "ran the fastest time in the country, when you factor in banked vs unbanked tracks." Instead, there will be "national champion" and "second place."

Also, just let your kid run, compete, and enjoy the experience. If you find a source of validation other than your DIII kid's indoor times on TFFRS, you will be happier (and he will too).

Thanks, but honestly, none of the kids I mentioned are even my kid, nor do I care where any of the names above end up at nationals. I simply used them because they worked for my description of the time disparity. My happiness isn't really a factor here. Maybe I need to change my username, as everyone seems to think I'm advocating for my kid. I doubt my child even knows that I am posting on here, and they probably don't care about any of this.

And I'm not really comparing conversion times for D3 on banked vs. unbanked. I'm really more advocating for a universal system of conversion between D1, D2, and D3 so that when someone looks at the performance list, they get an accurate representation of the times across the divisions. Right now, D1 times are faster than they really are, and D3 are slower than they really are. It creates a much bigger disparity between the divisions than actually exist.

If I was a high school student and I wanted to see where my times fit and I look on TFRRS, I'm getting an incorrect view unless I really understand how they arrive at these times. This is completely different than Milesplit for instance that doesn't convert anything. They might think that no one in D3 runs under 4 minutes for the mile, or under 14 minutes for the 5k, and if they looked at the performance list, they would be right. When in reality, there are D3 runners below those thresholds.

I guess I just don't like that the system as its set up now makes D1 appear even faster than it is while it makes D3 look even slower and that really doesn't make sense to me.

Quit crying. We all know you are in love with D3 runners, especially the Williams kid.

Your complaint should be that Williams is not racing on 200m flat tracks. They chose to fly him out to Washington. Apparently they have a bigger budget than most D1 teams.

Some of the indoor tracks are wooden and have a bouncy feel that helps some runners.