So in races like the 800, where you break after one turn, people tell u to break gradually all the way to the 200 meter mark. When running with a regular waterfall start, what is the most direct route to take to the inside lane? My assumption is that the line is drawn as an arc of a circle, how can you trace it back to find the center?
This might be really stupid to ask, but I just figure it's a sport of inches.
The shortest distance will be a straight line to the start of the second turn in the inside of lane 1.
Waterfall lines are not circular arcs. They are laid out so that the shortest possible distance to the finish line from any point on the water fall (see above post) is the same. There is a good description of this in the high school rule book. It's not available free online, but hopefully your coach has one.
Run a tangent from the point where you are starting to the to curve of lane 1.
You can easily eyeball this.
Or take a long staright pole, put one end at your feet at the start of the waterfall and lay it to where it touches the rail but extends beyond the rail and not crossing the rail.
Every runner will have a different target point to get to the rail.
For the purpose of how to run, the above is correct. However, for layout purposes the tangent line is not tangent to the rail. It is tangent to the theoretical running line. On a track with a rail this is 30 cm out from the rail. On a track without a rail is it 20 cm out from the inner line of lane 1.