EMU Track Is Short!

How could this have happened? It seems like someone would have noticed before now that the stagger between lane 5 and lane 6 was 4 meters longer than the staggers between all the other lanes. The correct stagger between lanes is only about 7 meters. Or does this mean the staggers for all the lanes are incorrect?

duker, I'll check it out in a couple hours. Might be, might not be....

Ya know Scotth, I was always suspicious of your indoor 200m PR. I guess this explains it. ;-)

Yeah, that lane 6 may splain a lot of my PR's!

If Parks could've only taught you to cut down to lane #1 after the break point, who knows what you would've done? But of course you knew you were getting an advantage since lane #6 was short. Explains a lot indeed.

Maybe I am missing some thing here? How can lane 6 be short if the rest of the track is accurate? or is the entire track short?

I have fun at EMU many times and always liked the track.

Kamikaze wrote:

Maybe I am missing some thing here? How can lane 6 be short if the rest of the track is accurate? or is the entire track short?

I have fun at EMU many times and always liked the track.

This would be the case if lane 6's starting line(2 turn stagger) was staggered too far forward. so, for events like the 200 you'd only run 196m.

bitchtits wrote:

This would be the case if lane 6's starting line(2 turn stagger) was staggered too far forward. so, for events like the 200 you'd only run 196m.

ahhh, I see said the blind man!

also my original message was supposed to read:

"I have run at EMU many times and always liked the track."

not fun, well it usually was fun also.

bitchtits wrote:

Kamikaze wrote:

Maybe I am missing some thing here? How can lane 6 be short if the rest of the track is accurate? or is the entire track short?

I have fun at EMU many times and always liked the track.

This would be the case if lane 6's starting line(2 turn stagger) was staggered too far forward. so, for events like the 200 you'd only run 196m.

But that's my point. The 1 lane stagger should be about 7 meters, so the starting line for lane 2 is 7 meters in front of the starting line for lane 1. The starting line for lane 3 is 7 meters in front of the lane 2 starting line, etc. And then the starting line for lane 6 is 11 meters in front of the starting line for lane 5? Nobody noticed this discrepency until now? Maybe they got the difference wrong in the story and it is really 4 tenths of a meter short.

yeah but this still doesnt explain the bogus 60 dash times that came outta there

Info was passed to Trackshark? From who? Not saying that the track is or is not short, but where did this info come from?

it says from one of the coaches and it was measured by an official.

I've never competed at EMU, but I have seen a couple of meets there. Never really paid much attention to the sprints, but you think SOMEONE would have noticed that the stagger in lane 6 looked a little short.

Think about this: you're at your local outdoor track, in lane 2 at the 1 turn stagger start (say, 1600m start). Someone else is in lane 3 and is supposed to also be at the 1600m start, but they're in the 2 turn stagger start (800m start). Wouldn't you notice that they're kind of far away? Isn't this about the same thing?

From the article cited we read, "Lane 6 was measured by an official and is in fact only 196 meters, not 200, for the 200 meter event. Also, all of the lanes were measured short which reflects all of the historic results ever set in the 200 and 400 meters at the facility."

Please not that the second sentance reads "all of the lanes were measured short."

That doesn't sound like only lane 6 is short, it sounds like "all of the lanes were measured short."

perspective wrote:

From the article cited we read, "Lane 6 was measured by an official and is in fact only 196 meters, not 200, for the 200 meter event. Also, all of the lanes were measured short which reflects all of the historic results ever set in the 200 and 400 meters at the facility."

Please not that the second sentance reads "all of the lanes were measured short."

That doesn't sound like only lane 6 is short, it sounds like "all of the lanes were measured short."

It still doesn't explain why the 60m is short (if it really is indeed).

I just reread the article and it says that ALL the lanes measured short. Did it say this previously? It says the article was updated at 6:30pm so they might have added that.

I hope they mean all staggered lanes measured short. If lane 1 measured short then any time ever run there would be in question.

Scotth, have you gotten the real story yet?

dukerdog wrote:

Scotth, have you gotten the real story yet?

What I do know is lane 6 WAS short. They rectified this by moving the finish back to use a different set of staggers. I don't recall hearing anything about any others being short...but that doesn't mean they weren't.

When I ran at Eastern , we did all of our training in lane 2, starting at different staggers for different length repeats. The track was long ago resurfaced so I feel secure in the length of those repeats...I think.

As for that really fast 60m run earlier this year...I can't help you there. Unless the timing system malfunctioned in some manner, the time is legit. Since the fast guy isn't from EMU, there's little chance of a 'homer' call on reading the finish pic.

Have I mentioned the EMU men won the MAC meet, again. CMU gave'em a good run.

[quote]dukerdog wrote:

I just reread the article and it says that ALL the lanes measured short. Did it say this previously? It says the article was updated at 6:30pm so they might have added that.quote]

That's new. They're going to get some shit for this!

I just took a reread of the article like others and it read to me that lanes 6 & 1 were short...'and all of the other lanes except one were also short'. How can that be? Or was it trying to say only lane 1 was correct?

As per EMU taking shit for the discrepancy, yeah, I can see that happening. But, I'm thinking the track engineer deserves to have his winky spanked for the boo-boo. Sure, sure, you'd think somebody would've noticed before this. Maybe I'm wrong but I'd chalk it up to human error/oversight except for the guy paid to paint the lines.

On another tangent, possibly the last time we'll see the BSU and WMU men at the MAC indoor champs. There seems to be a well-organized effort to restore track for the Broncos but it's so hard to reverse this crap. After the meet, a large group of EMU track alums got together. Eastern has had an alumnus group in the past and only a few but very capable people did much. The idea was to attract more members and it appears a strong collection of folks that'd raise a LARGE STINK should the school consider dropping men's track.

Finally, Paul McMullen may or may not be aiming for the OTrials. W/out asking him I'd guess he's 'waiting to see how his training goes'. He was inducted into EMU's Hall of Fame y'day.