why do US preps run longer than the rest of the world?

It doesn't really matter. If somebody can't adjust from a 3200 to 3000 or a 1600 to a 1500, they're not good enough to be bringing home any hardware anyway.

They run the 1600 and 3200 because it is a full number of laps. Our education system is so shity that it is difficult to understand fractions of laps for a 1500 or a 3000 and god forbid explaining the concept of starting behind the finish line for a mile or two mile.

Thank you!Soon it will be the "one lap", "two laps", "four laps" and "eight laps" with the 5,000m also qualifying the individual for AP math credit.Very soon the average American kid will be no better off educationally than kids who just came across the border from Mexico.

Me thinks.... wrote:

They run the 1600 and 3200 because it is a full number of laps. Our education system is so shity that it is difficult to understand fractions of laps for a 1500 or a 3000 and god forbid explaining the concept of starting behind the finish line for a mile or two mile.

Aside from the usual comments on this thread, here is the reason.

For most states, in the 70's there began a shift of tracks from 440yds to 400m. When the tracks were yard tracks in the early days, four laps did make a mile and this was what was run. With the shift we still ran 4 laps, but it was now 1600m instead of 1760 yds. The difference is about 9 meters in total length.

The European system, metric long before we were, used even numbers...1500 / 3000 / 5000. There is no English equivalent to these odd ball distances, though they are obviously close to 1 mile, 2 mile, and 3 mile.

The real question should be why not go to 1500/3000 when the shift to metric tracks happened. I can only guess that a lot of tracks were still dirt at this time, and chalking more than the necessary staggers every week would have added a lot of work. But who knows.

It depends how desperate some state federations are to hold on to the last vestiges of the English measurement system. Most are. Oregon runs 1500/3000, and I think a few other states (New York?) do as well.

new york still runs the 1600/3200 in high school

Iowa girls run the 1500 and 3000 but the boys run 1600 and 3200. I guess some people got sick of waiting around for the extra 300 meters a meet or something. Crazy Iowans!

Rhode Island runs the 1500/3000

Massachusetts runs the 1 mile and 2 mile . . . . and has no intention of changing. I have no problem with the metric system, I use it in the workplace, it clearly makes more sense (how many sq. ft in an acre again ?), but there is nothing wrong with running a true mile in HS track. Up until 1996, MAwas still running, 300y, 600y, and 1000y indoors before switching to 300m, 600m, and 1000m.

U.S. colleges and universities went to the metric races a while back because somebody said that we wouldn't be competitive if we didn't get used to running the actual race distances.

What happended after that?

U.S. distance running entered a funk that it is only now starting to come out of. Racing well in the mid distances requires hard, smart, patient training. The race could be one mile, 1500m, 1600m or 1648.3465m. The physiological and mechanical aspects of racing that distance are the same, regardless of the last 100 meters or so.

longtime curious wrote:

So why do we continue to exploit running the mile for ol-time-sake when we aren't bringing in the hardware in the middle distances?

My God! You just solved the problem! How could we have been so blind to such an obvious solution? Run 100m/200m less and dominate the world! Duh! Clearly, you are a sage.

Mr. nut wrote:

Iowa girls run the 1500 and 3000 but the boys run 1600 and 3200. I guess some people got sick of waiting around for the extra 300 meters a meet or something. Crazy Iowans!

I coached HS track in Iowa for 25 years; they're the only state that has separate governing bodies for boys and girls, and until recently it was rare to have a co-ed meet.

'kuz wee dumm

Come on, the question isn't why we run the 1600 and 3200, the question should be why does the rest of the world run the 1500m. The race was only developed after the French had 500m tracks. But since the English distance of 440yds became the standard measurements, it makes a lot more sense to go 1 lap, 2 laps, 4 laps and 8 laps. 500m tracks are out of date, 440yd track are out of date, why doesn't the rest of the world either go back to 500m tracks or use the standard 1 lap distances. Hell, Americans didnt make up the 400m distance, so don't blame us if we are the only ones who use the track correctly.

1648.3465m = 5449 ft. What the hell kind of distance is that?

remember a meter is 39.37 in. so 5280 * 12 = 63360/39.37 = 1609.35.