US High School distances should mimic US college distances

And I think they shouldn't. As is, high school track has zero fan base except parents, coaches and teammates. A kid's only chance to relate to the rest of the American public is to tell them his/her times in miles. Even kids who run the 16 and 3200 tell people their times as if they were miles, because no one has any inkling of what 16 and 3200 meters are - they are meaningless to the public. At least they are close to mile equivalents. Now people like you want to take even that away from them so they can prepare for college distances? Why? A kid running 16 and 3200 meters can't possibly run 15 and 3000 in college? Whatever. Let's make the sport even more inaccessible and obscure than it already is. In fact, maybe you'd like to revise the time system as well and do away with minutes and seconds, too, since I don't think those are really metric either, right? Why not go ahead and divide the day into 100 units and subdivide from there, just for track events.

I agree with the OP.

First- at our meets we get a lot more than parents, coaches, and teammates and even most of them question why the boys run "odd" distances. In NY the girls run 1500/3000.

They should be in line with the rest of the world.

naw wrote:

And I think they shouldn't. As is, high school track has zero fan base except parents, coaches and teammates. A kid's only chance to relate to the rest of the American public is to tell them his/her times in miles.

So what does a 110m hurdler tell people?

luckily my state runs the 15 and 3k

i think there should be a 5000 instead of 3200 or 3000

I run the quarter mile, half mile, mile, 2 mile, 3.1 mile, the 6.2 mile, the 10 mile, the 13.1 mile, and the 26.2 mile. I don't do no metric crap I leave that for the sprinters

The US collegiate system should run the mile and not the 1500.

It will never change.

But ever jogger knows the 5k thanks to the popularity of road racing. But this would be awful in everything but the championships, it takes too long. So run 2 mile in duals, 5k in invites and championships.

The next Huck Finn wrote:

It will never change.

But ever jogger knows the 5k thanks to the popularity of road racing. But this would be awful in everything but the championships, it takes too long. So run 2 mile in duals, 5k in invites and championships.

thats what i thought too, but another thing is what if you make it so that only the varsity level runs 5000? For cross country in Texas its setup so that freshmen boys run two miles while JV and Varsity boys run the 5K distance. Why not do the same in track? From a competition standpoint I think it would show who the good coaches are that develop aerobic ability instead of relying on having their runners pound out 400s.

Why do people here get so worked up about the exact distances run in meets? As long as there are a variety of races offered and everyone in a given race runs the same distance, it doesn't really matter. We could run the 1547.39m for all I care. I can kick your ass at that distance just like I'd kick your ass in the mile or 1500m.

All I am saying is choose a system to mimic. Obviously we chose the metric Olympic distance system for practically everything besides the 1600 and 3200. College system chose metric distances for everything but the indoor mile. To be honest the mile is the only remnant anyone even cares about from the english system, so if you want it just run the mile in high school!! (not this 9.3 meter shorter version, the 1600m). We need these people to stop saying they ran a 4:30 mile when really what they ran was a 1600m equivalent of a 4:31.5 mile [quote]tjmiler wrote:

'Merica wrote: >>I run the quarter mile, half mile, mile, 2 mile, 3.1 mile, the 6.2 mile, the 10 mile, the 13.1 mile, and the 26.2 mile. I don't do no metric crap I leave that for the sprinters

Response: Actually, unless you are running in the 1970's or before, you probably don't run the quarter (440 yards) or half mile (880 yards), you probably have never raced that distance. A simple conversion from yards to meters will show that it is a few meters longer than the 400m and 800m

There's a difference. In college, those who are good enough are preparing for a "job." So getting used to 1500/3000/5000 used internationally can help.

I do think that high school should be running 1 mile and either 3000 or 2 miles (those that wanted to could take 3000 splits on the way to 2 miles).

Really, in high school only a handful for sprinters can compete internationally right away so the international distances really don't matter. Where did Webb, LV, and others run their "known" high school times? Not in high school meets.

In HS, it goes from 400 to 800 to 1600 to 3200 because that's 1,2,3, and 4 laps as much as for the near-English equivalents. I'd be fine either way (and when we recently had our HS track re-striped, we paid extra to have all the lines done, just in case).

Oregon high schools run 1500m/3000m, you know Olympic distances, rather than 1600/3200, which were caused by tracks going metric but State Associations being unable to, thus creating the nine-meters-less-than-a-mile/ 18-meters-less-than-a-two-mile hybrids that really no one can relate to. Our track is stil a yards track, but we have been running the classic metric distances since the Ford Administration. It's not that hard. Just mark the track appropriately. From our standpoint, this discussion is so 20th Century, settled before Saturday Night Fever hit the big screen.

I don't understand what there is to gain by switching to 1600 and 3200.

3000 is not an Olympic distance, 5k is.