The 1600 or the Mile... Really? In an Olympic Year?

I feel truly sorry for all the American high school athletes who might have a chance at Olympic glory had they trained for the 1500 instead of the 1600.

"It's a nice novelty event"

Seriously?

someone had to do it wrote:

"It's a nice novelty event"

Seriously?

"the quality of being new, original, and different"

Yes, seriously, It's my opinion. Lets bring back the 100 yard dash, 220, 440, 880, how about the 180 yard low hurdles?

US High schools don't run the mile unless it's at a special Invite. Also, unless you set up an automatic timing system at the 1500 meter mark and capture that time the mile can't be used as a qualifying mark for any national team 1500, the conversions are too subjective.

Given, the event is not new, but it is for high school athletes that are used to 1500 and 1600.

problem with the mile and the 1600m is that it's a really fast race and it starts on a curve. It means everyone has to rush to the 1st lane as fast as possible, which punishes you a lot more when you're running at 1600m pace than when you're running a 5k or a 10k pace. Just say screw it and make everyone switch to the 1500m.

The problem is that we've gone to metric tracks and there's an over-abundance of morons in charge of coaching and running most HS meets. The options for resolution are (A) replace all incompetent HS coaches throughout the country with non-morons or (2) replace all metric tracks that replaced the 440y tracks with 440y tracks. Neither will happen in my lifetime.

1500m or mile one or t'other

1600 is a joke

3k is not an Olympic Event.

5k should be the event run in High School.

High schools should have the 1500 and 5000. They are real events. The 1600 and 3200 make no sense at all.(I would also prefer a 10000 in high school but I think I am the only person I know who would want to race it)

I like your thinking ukathleticscoach, Cheers!

Skeptic of it All wrote:

3k is not an Olympic Event.

5k should be the event run in High School.

If you add 35 barriers it is! ;-)

The USATF Junior Olympics has done away with 5000 meters in it's program , not enough participants (Young Men & Women), they've replaced with 3K. As much as I like the 5K good luck getting into any HS track meet.

616456 wrote:

High schools should have the 1500 and 5000. They are real events. The 1600 and 3200 make no sense at all.(I would also prefer a 10000 in high school but I think I am the only person I know who would want to race it)

The 5k, maybe. The 10k would have to be an invitational only thing. How long is it going to take the JV girls at a small school to finish a 10k? 50, 55 minutes? Dual meets would run until 11 at night.

Also, there's so much talent disparity in high school that there's already lap traffic in the 3200. The 5k and 10k would mean the runners would be spread across several laps, it would be hard to keep track of who is where. Also, with how condensed dual meet schedules are, some of the better runners would end up racing an awful lot.

The 1500 is a stupid distance. It really is if you think about it. It's not really an even number in metric (1.5?), it's an awkward number of laps ("three and three quarters"), it doesn't follow the previous progression of doubling (1, 2, 4, 8, ...15?).

Just because the Olympics run the 1500 doesn't mean the US has to be equally stupid. Bring back the mile, an event that people actually know about. Everyone in the country has had to run a mile in PE or something so they know what it is.

den bosch wrote: Everyone in the country has had to run a mile in PE or something so they know what it is.

Ha, in my PE class, our "mile" run started and finished at the 100m start line and was 4 laps on a standard 400 meter track.

Guess what...the Mile, 1500, and 1600 are the same event. a 1500 specialist is a miler, as is the kid who runs 4 lap high school race!

Also, the more I see the argument for the 1500 because it starts on a straight, the more i like it.

616456 wrote:

High schools should have the 1500 and 5000. They are real events. The 1600 and 3200 make no sense at all.(I would also prefer a 10000 in high school but I think I am the only person I know who would want to race it)

Absolutely disagree.

Can you imagine how "overraced" or "overworked" a great deal of high schoolers would be if they raced the 5k instead of the 3k/3200/2mile? Some people complain about having more than one 5k race a week during cross country, what would they say when some kids were racing two 5k races plus a couple 1500's and maybe a 800 every week during track?

Certainly, there are many coaches out there that wouldn't put such a burden on their athletes, but do you really believe there wouldn't be a few out there who are more determined to score points for their teams by doubling or tripling their athletes, as they do today?

As for the distance of 1500/1600/mile ... to be honest, it really doesn't matter to me. About the only worthwhile point made in these discussions is where the races start (is it better to start on a straight or on a curve?), everything else is irrelevant ... and even that can theoretically be fixed (does anyone thing lane staggered starts in the 800 is unfair? there is your alternative if you don't like waterfall starts in the 1600/mile)

[quote]Runtowin1 wrote:

US High schools don't run the mile unless it's at a special Invite. /quote]

Not in Massachusetts. The 1M and 2M are regular events at all meets, indoors and out.

Runtowin1 wrote:

The real dream is to have all Olympics Athletics events (steeplechase, hammer, etc) available to the high school athlete in the US, then and only then will the US build Olympic structured programs and athletes.

I for one cannot wait to go to a high school track meet and watch the 10000.

Because converting from 1600m to 1609m is so difficult...

Who really cares? Most people don't know what a good time is for the mile anymore than they do for 1500m.

Should stay 1500m for NCAA though.

Ken Goe of the Oregonian:

http://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2012/02/oregon_track_field_rundown_bri.html

While surfing the internet to put together this morning's links post, I ran across a piece by Eddie Pells of the Associated Press on the "Bring Back The Mile" campaign.

The story is about a group of grassroots runners in the U.S. who want to replace the 1,500-meter race with the mile because American audiences don't connect with metric distances.

The idea seems to be that U.S. fans would return to the sport if the mile was the standard mid-distance race.

It's an interesting thought and, in my view, more a symptom of the problem than the problem itself.

I think the real issue is the dearth of U.S. track fans under 50.

I attended a TrackTown Tuesday event in Eugene earlier this month. The turnout swamped the establishment in which it was held. There were several hundred people there, all passionate about the sport. But you could count on one hand the fans who weren't Baby Boomers or members of the Greatest Generation.

Shoot, most probably saw Steve Prefontaine run in person.

Older fans grew up with 100-yard sprinters and mid-distance runners training to get under four minutes.

That was several generations ago.

It's a smaller world now and track & field is an international sport. The rest of the world isn't going to give up the metric system because it's uncomfortable for the U.S. geriatric set.

I don't have the answers. I'm just a nuts-and-bolts sportswriter who covers track & field part-time. But it's hard for me to believe that young fans only are waiting for the return of the mile to become passionate about the sport.

Track & field needs a makeover.

Not a time machine.

I'm not sure what the 'Bring Back The Mile' campaign's actual goal is, but I think they're trying to get a string of high profile mile races in the United States to promote interest in the US, but race the 1500 at the trials.

I don't know about you, but when someone runs a 1500, I automatically try to figure out what that pace is for a mile. I think Joe schmo identifies with the mile because his odometer reads in miles and he ran the mile in PE in high school.

I am willing to bet if you ask a random dude on the street how far 1500 meters is compared to a mile, haha... well... i'd like to see the results of that one. But almost everyone knows 4 laps = a mile. And yes, if someone runs 4:00.09 for a 1600, I give 'em the benefit of the doubt that they could sneak under 4 for a 1609m race.