Which world records after 1964 were set on cinders?

I'm pretty sure that Jim Ryun's two world records in the mile were set on cinders: 3:51.3 and 3:51.1.

Bob Schul will tell you that his times were pretty much as good as the WR's from today. I remember reading how he presented his theory and gradually went from a second or so per lap difference and gradually worked out how to make the performances equal.

This was actually more because he doesn't want to let go of the Igloi method as still the best training to do.

I laugh when I read about some of these alleged conversions from older tracks; I've seen estimates as high as four seconds per lap. Think about that; you'd still have to be TURNING OVER four seconds faster per lap, whatever the surface. I don't think so.

Yes, I've heard this from a few sources. I also read somewhere else that Don Bowden's 3:58.7 in 1957 would have been 3 seconds faster per lap if run on synthetic; meaning it was worth 3:46.7! No disrespect to the great man, but he wasn't quite in the same league as the likes of Coe, Cram & Aouita.

I know Ron Clarke thinks cinders cost him a second per lap over 10,000m, which I think sounds reasonable considering the longer you run on a harder surface the more it takes out of your "bounce", especially if the cinders was rough, but I think a second per lap on a good or newly laid cinder track for a mile is a bit optimistic.

When I spoke to Peter Matthews (Editor of Athletics International) about it he thought about 0.5 per lap for a miler and that "I believe that in some conditions tracks of that era could be as fast as a modern all-weather one - even a grass track if perfectly prepared."

I read in another book that there hasn't been any conclusive studies to determine what such a conversion would be. Meaning, I guess, that it comes down to personal opinion.

Was Ryun's 1:44.9 880yds run on cinders?

I really want to find a site where it lists which WR's were set on cinders (or grass, such as Snell's 1:44.3) and which on all weather tracks.

realfan144 wrote:

I'm pretty sure that Jim Ryun's two world records in the mile were set on cinders: 3:51.3 and 3:51.1.

Clay

Dave Bedfords incredible 27:30 was on cinders.

middle distance wrote:

Yes, I've heard this from a few sources. I also read somewhere else that Don Bowden's 3:58.7 in 1957 would have been 3 seconds faster per lap if run on synthetic; meaning it was worth 3:46.7! No disrespect to the great man, but he wasn't quite in the same league as the likes of Coe, Cram & Aouita.

The reasons for saying his time would be 3 sec faster per lap are not only because of his performance on cinders, but because it was a hot, humid, and windy day, and he led that race from the GUN!

Imagine him running in a paced, cool environment on mondo XP...definitely a sub 3:50 performance in my opinion.

CINDER TRACKS were not that bad. If you try and compare an unprepared cinder track to the all-weathers there is definitely a difference. But cinder tracks were MAINTAINED. They were plowed and grated and rolled and watered. Stepping out onto one of those tracks was simply awesome! They were hard packed and fast! They were not the loose gravely slippery things you have been told. Especially in the big meets, those tracks were taken care of. Some of the meets even had a roller reflaten the track between events to keep the surface hard. Cinder tracks were replaced by all-wether tracks because coaches didn't want to spend the time to take care of them, not because they are faster. One second per lap seems a little much for me in a conversion. Half a second maybe, if you can prove there is slipage, which I only found on tracks that were unmaintained.

Nogad wrote:

Dave Bedfords incredible 27:30 was on cinders.

Nope. It was run on the all-weather track at Crystal Palace.

But his 27:47 at Portsmouth was.

Solo run on a very hot and windy day which was the equal of Clarke's performance in kinder weather.

I was around that day - it was the hottest day of the year, extremely bloody hot for England, but it wasn’t windy.

I did run go for a training run in the late afternoon of Ron Clarke’s appearance in London during his 65 European tour and decided not to go and see the great man, because it was blowing an absolute gale and I reasoned he couldn’t possibly run a decent time.

It turned out he still ran a sub 28 10K with the opposition struggling to break 30.

We’ll surely never see the likes again of a runner, in a 44-day tour of Europe, competing 18 times and breaking 12 world records!

jean bouin wrote:

Nogad wrote:

Dave Bedfords incredible 27:30 was on cinders.

Nope. It was run on the all-weather track at Crystal Palace.

But his 27:47 at Portsmouth was.

Solo run on a very hot and windy day which was the equal of Clarke's performance in kinder weather.

I stand corrected! Always thought his WR was the UK equivalent of Shorters Munich win - got many people into the sport, including me!

good maintained "cinder" tracks might have not had that much of a difference, but shitty "dirt" tracks will make a huge difference.

my high school had a shitty red pumice type of dirt. they would grade it, water it, and then get an asphalt roller to pack it down. we wore 1/2" spicks and dug big holes in the dirt.

PRs that year

200-21.97

400-48.25

on our shitty track for our home meet..

200-24.5

400-53.8

i wonder how many dirt tracks are still around in colorado? i know my high school will never make the jump

Dusty Bones wrote:

I laugh when I read about some of these alleged conversions from older tracks; I've seen estimates as high as four seconds per lap.

that'd be awesome...my 5k from college would go from ~15 to 14:25.

"i wonder how many dirt tracks are still around in colorado? i know my high school will never make the jump"

Did my 10 x 400m on Denver South's dirt track today. There's a mondo track at the all-city stadium next door, but they don't let the public in.

I was a very young Shaftesbury Harrier and it was hot alright. But this was two years before the world record, and Ol' Redsocks had yet to compete in a major champs. The coastal arena in which he booted that 27:47 was reported as being very open and with loose cinders blowing around in the heat. Very much unlike Clarkey's Scandinavian run.

Big buzz down at the track that Sunday morning !

Memory says that the run you refer to was in '68; Clarke was certainly in fantastic form going into Mexico.

Ready to experiment tactically, too.

Nogad wrote:

I stand corrected! Always thought his WR was the UK equivalent of Shorters Munich win - got many people into the sport, including me![/quote]

welcome to all our yesterdays

:O)

No, Bedford had the Palace house rocking for a while before that.

But of course, ya man Foster who took care of things there immediately after that WR.

This is well stated--and needs to be read by all the turkeys who think tracks come in only two varieties: 1) all-weather ("good"); and 2) "dirt" ("really bad").

The term "dirt" is really pretty useless here. The huge majority of serious tracks before the mid- to late '60s were cinder tracks (with a tradition of grass hanging on in NZ and a few other places, and some clay or partly clay surfaces) that were usually very well maintained. A good cinder track was not necessarily slow. I think the guess of one-half to one full second per lap difference (cinder to all-weather) is about right.

Ron Clarke was very adamant about the difference. He ran 27:39 in '65 on the Oslo cinder track, and 27:49 in London in '68 on an all-weather track. He stated something to the effect that the latter race felt worth about 28:15 or so; that equates to one full second per lap.

There weren't many (or any?) WRs set on cinder tracks after '68. The record books don't reveal it, but it's interesting to speculate between records like: Ryun's 3:51.1 on cinders in '67 and Bayi's WR 3:51.0 on an all-weather surface in '75. Bayi's time was clearly "better," but was it really a better effort, all things considered?

Many other mid-60s records fall into the same category (broken later by modest margins on the newer, faster surface).

Ryun might’ve run ~ 3:47.7 on the same surface Bayi bounced around on. Clarke and Ryun were massive talents that might’ve held their records for close to 20 years if the surfaces were equal to those that superseded them.

For any conversion, you also have to look at how many events were held prior to a given event, as well as how long the event was. E.g., a cinder track for a 400m held first thing would be a lot different than a 10k held last thing, and even the last few laps of a 10k would be a lot different than the first few laps. Cinder tracks got pretty chewed up, especially in lane 1.