Must read: NCAA Institutes Indexing System for 2012-13 Indoor Track and Field

NCAA Indoor Track wrote:

Article and Indexing Conversion Summary based on NCAA track and field committees' data analysis, and vote to implement a formula-based approach to converting times between varying track configurations (flat, banked and oversized), effective for the 2012-13 indoor track & field season.

http://www.athleticbusiness.com/articles/article.aspx?articleid=3936&zoneid=16http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/index.php/special-articles/1384

TL;DR conversion is now formulaic, the standard is a 200m flat track. Banked and oversized tracks share the same conversion ratio which varies based on the distance. Link to screenshot of conversion factors for all races:

wow this is lame

Bump.

Why is this lame? It makes things more fair for the people stuck on 200 m tracks....

Faster than you wrote:

Why is this lame? It makes things more fair for the people stuck on 200 m tracks....

It's lame because the conversions are so arbitrary. Do a 300 meter track and a banked trick really help you run equally faster for a 5k? Do all banked tracks help the same? Won't some athletes, due to their body type and stride, benefit more from a certain type of track? There are so many factors that go into a race that all that should matter for qualifying is the time you ran.

It seems that they made some decisions on track designation that might have created some of the empirical issues that seem to be off. Specifically, what I read (T&FNews) is that all >200m tracks are treated the same, whether they are 220 yards (i.e., 200.12m) or 300m. Clearly a Flat 210 or 225 track is different than the familiar big ones (300+ for ND, Washington..). Probably by next year the flaws will be diminished.

What should happen is that people will seek out the 'easy' tracks with good conversions and make good marks on them. The next round this will alter the empirical results and they will move in the direction of equalization.

Give it a year or two.

I don't mind that they're using formulae with data behind them, but using a flat 200m track as the "standard" is super lame.

Old system: check the list, run your time, know where you stand on the list. Done.

New system: check the list, struggle to remember times because they don't line up with what you expect (4:03 rather than 3:58?), find a calculator, do the conversion, round (which way do you round? Always up? Nearest .01?), know where you stand on the list.

This is coming from the perspective of someone who mainly races on banked or oversized tracks, which is everyone.

My guess is that...

80% of the competitive tracks in america are 200m flat

10% banked

10% oversize

I can see why they use 200m flat as the standard

coast xc wrote:

I don't mind that they're using formulae with data behind them, but using a flat 200m track as the "standard" is super lame.

Old system: check the list, run your time, know where you stand on the list. Done.

New system: check the list, struggle to remember times because they don't line up with what you expect (4:03 rather than 3:58?), find a calculator, do the conversion, round (which way do you round? Always up? Nearest .01?), know where you stand on the list.

This is coming from the perspective of someone who mainly races on banked or oversized tracks, which is everyone.

The reference standard is irrelevant, they could have made it the outdoor track and all of the values lead to improvements, all that matters is the relative adjustment. If that is not apparent, then maybe you do not have the right understanding.

If you want to be the one running on the reference track and think everyone else should do the added calculation, then it is 'too bad'. Since most tracks are Flat 200s, it make sense to use that as the reference point. Your perspective seems to be "So what if 10% have to make adjustments rather than 90%, if I have to make the adjustments it is bad." I guess you just are not very good at arithmetic.

People's reasoning here on who will have to calculate adjustments is totally backwards. If you look at the top-50 or top-100 lists for NCAA D1, > 90% of the performances are on banked or oversized tracks. Most people whom this conversion actually affects will have to convert their times. Furthermore, NCAAs is held on a banked track so that should be the standard.

It's not just the annoyance of having to convert times around to a poor reference, it's bad for the sport because it'll make things more confusing for the press. E.g. now you'll have articles in the local paper "So-and-so's time converts to 4:02.8, placing him second on the national list behind so-and-so's 3:57.3, which converted to 4:02.5." And so on.

coast xc wrote:

People's reasoning here on who will have to calculate adjustments is totally backwards. If you look at the top-50 or top-100 lists for NCAA D1, > 90% of the performances are on banked or oversized tracks. Most people whom this conversion actually affects will have to convert their times. Furthermore, NCAAs is held on a banked track so that should be the standard.

It's not just the annoyance of having to convert times around to a poor reference, it's bad for the sport because it'll make things more confusing for the press. E.g. now you'll have articles in the local paper "So-and-so's time converts to 4:02.8, placing him second on the national list behind so-and-so's 3:57.3, which converted to 4:02.5." And so on.

Those statistics actually point to a problem that the adjustments try to address. Specifically, those venues are too generous relative to Flat 200s. Also, it really does not matter so much which tracks they finally came from, vastly more performances are made on the Flat 200s. Now that the playing field has been 'leveled' (even if too much in some regards), you will see people attacking qualifying at many more different venues (such as when Reed Connor qualified for the 5000 at Madison's Flat 200. Thus, the historical proportions will be altered.

I suspect that they will say something like the mile time of 3:59 is the 14th best mark, using the adjustment. They will not necessarily be listing the adjusted marks. As a runner doing a specific distance, the calculation of the factor times the marks will be approximated well enough by keeping in mind a (semi-)fixed differential. For instance a factor of 1.01 for the mile works out to 2.40 seconds at 4 minutes for the mile, and a 3:58 has an adjustment that is 2.38 seconds.

There are some mistakes in the particulars that they will fix -- probably some even by the next time (e.g., counting all >200m tracks the same whether they are 220 yards (201.16m) or 310m. Apparently a lot of the data came from not-too-large >200m ovals.

How will this equalization work? The vast majority of runners who qualify for NCAAs in the 3K and 5K make one serious attempt at qualifying during the season. So, their data isn't analyzed, as the committee's methodology only compared times on different tracks for the same athlete. The standards are currently (and apparently will continue to be) based on the analysis of relatively mediocre athletes, who won't be qualifying for nationals and so won't be adjusting which tracks they run on.

26mi235 wrote:

What should happen is that people will seek out the 'easy' tracks with good conversions and make good marks on them. The next round this will alter the empirical results and they will move in the direction of equalization.

Give it a year or two.

Don't worry boys, the full sized 400 meter track is coming soon. Football will get a full field indoors and someone will put a track around it for title IV women's track to ward off that pesky NCAA.

Because they did it that way in the first pass does not mean that they will stay with that limitation. If you find a lot of people getting Qs right where they are said to be weak, then the methods will be tuned to try to overcome the issues left problematic on the first round. The first round might take two years, although I would be surprised if there is not an adjustment of some sort for next year.

This new method is kinder to smaller schools because they cannot afford to send their athletes all over the place looking for fast time trials.

By the way, what exactly is the problem with using the doublette marks of those competing on both types of tracks? Does it really matter if a 7:50/300 is used to link with their 7:55/Flat 200 or if it is a 8:20 guy doing a 8:26 mark on the Flat 200? The might be less variance with the top guy but I suspect that someone that is trying to time-qualify will run multiple times. This points up a possible flaw with your argument. Specifically, because they will take the top 16, there is not an Auto Q that allows an athlete to rest on their laurels unless that are clearly a cut above those athletes in the 8-16 or even 5-16(and higher as well) slots. Lawi might be secure with a 13:30i but someone with a 13:40i might feel that they have to do another to help solidify their qualification.