sppedwork on a 160m track

It's really not that good. The turns are very difficult. Don't expect to hit your goal times. Add at least a second to you 200 time.

If it's a 4 lane track the outside lane is almost exactly 9 laps to a mile which would take that much more stress off your legs.

i've done it several times and each one went really well. it was a flat 160m track and we were doing intervals of 600m or less. i don't remember all the times, but i do remember at least one 600 was in 1:24, so we weren't crawling.

however, i had a lot of experience in the past running on even smaller tracks, so i imagine that played a role. i've definitely seen people waving their arms and drifting outside on the turns. you just have to lean and keep your arms moving normally. as long as you are leaning enough you should still be able to do relatively fast stuff. might just take a little getting used to.

Use the outside lane and start your repeats at the top of a straight to reduce the torque and pounding.

What kind of surface is the track? Is it an all-weather rubberized type track, or is it just a flat smooth surface? Definitely wear something that will give you some decent traction, going around the tight corners can get pretty hairy once you get going faster than 5:00 pace or so.

the track only has three lanes i think and they don't appear to be sized the same as other indoor/outdoor tracks i've seen. also i'm planning to do long repeats and reps (480m,640m,..) on the track, i won't be working on my speed really.

so anyone done this kind of strength work on a small track?

Aside from making you very sppedy, it will also make you very dizzy... Take some egg nog shots before your sppedwork.

I used to run a series of indoor track races on a track that was 11 laps per the mile. That is about 145 meters per lap. Doing speed work on that track was interesting to say the least. Racing on it was something else entirely especially late in a race when lapping people. It was basically a mushy but slick rubber surface. The turns were very steeply banked.

The race race series was lots of fun. It was 13 weeks long with alternating distances. It started with 2 miles then progress by a mile a week until 6 (but a 10K was run instead of a 6 miler). I once complained after racing a 10K on the track that such a distance was far too long for such a short track. An old timer in the series responded by saying that a marathon used to be held on the track. He said that it cost $15 to enter but each runner had to provide their own lap counter. Appearantly the winner ran about 2:40.

Back in the day I would run on this track twice a week during the winter (which lasted from about october to may in the city I lived in). Monday for speedwork and friday for the race.

To the last poster, is this Hart House in Toronto?

The biggest concern is people getting in your way. Lemme tell you a story.

Back in high school, we were on a 133m (12 laps/mile) track for our indoor season.

We had at least 30 or so distance runners on the track team--girls practiced with us, and JV guys did too. There were no cuts.

It could be awkward.

Naturally, though, a pecking order was established wherein the faster runners would line up in front. Most of the slower runners knew that there was no point in being ahead of someone at the beginning just to get passed anyway, and that they'd have a lot of room to run after the first 50 meters or so as we pulled away. Usually there were no problems after the first few steps.

I don't know if a lot of teams do this, but we used to switch laps every few intervals to work each side equally.

Sometimes we knew these switches were coming ahead of time.

Sometimes we didn't.

We'd be lined up, psyched to go, ready for a hard quarter, when--"OTHER WAY! GO!"

He was a good guy though, I swear...

The mad dash to get through or around the back of the pack up to the front where you could run in lane 1 or 2 unobstructed would turn a 67 effort into a 69, at least. Good times.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can make it work. Especially if you don't have pole vaulters carrying their equipment across the track, blocking it completely, at the exact moment you're trying to get through.

Yes it is.

Yes, the track that I was refering to was the Hart House in Toronto. Are you familar with the track? I loved racing there and it was a good group of people who ran the race series there.

athletics fan and runner wrote:

Yes, the track that I was refering to was the Hart House in Toronto. Are you familar with the track? I loved racing there and it was a good group of people who ran the race series there.

I was just there today (though not on the track) looking at pictures of the race series that they used to have there. I've only run on that track just once. I don't know if there are many women in this city today who could run 5 miles in 30 minutes on that track as someone was pictured doing.

If you are going to do that then why don't you just have your athletes do structured fartlek type of surges on the roads or better yet on a hill?

speedwork on a 160 track is o.k. if it is banked. Such tracks can be rather fast, ask Eamon Coghlan. Don't bother if the 160 track is not banked. Instead man up and do some fartlek on the road in the cold.

i've done hills once and want to do more of them but the footing can be terrible due to snow and ice. i don't care about my safety but i don't think its good to slide during a rep. i don't know if there are hills > 300m near me.

the track was for interval work. i haven't done any yet this season so i want the track relatively small so i can get splits and keep a pace. that is why i'm avoiding farklet because i won't know how i'm doing (no measured course i know of either).

[quote]the magic rat wrote:

i've done it several times and each one went really well. it was a flat 160m track and we were doing intervals of 600m or less. i don't remember all the times, but i do remember at least one 600 was in 1:24, so we weren't crawling.[quote]

For some reason I have a hard time believing that unless you are an elite runner

chronus wrote:

[quote]the magic rat wrote:

i've done it several times and each one went really well. it was a flat 160m track and we were doing intervals of 600m or less. i don't remember all the times, but i do remember at least one 600 was in 1:24, so we weren't crawling.[quote]

For some reason I have a hard time believing that unless you are an elite runner

ill take a stab at 1x600