Are indoor tracks faster than outdoor tracks? Nick Willis says yes*. What say you?

Hardloper wrote:

Yes. They are for tons of reasons. Every college season where 30 guys break 4:00 indoors and only 15 break the equivalent outdoors (despite that they should be in better shape) proves this. Galen Rupp running 3:50 also supports this. I think Nick will find it still applies to his pace, especially since the bank on the track can be adjusted.

The banked turn makes up for any wider turn on the outdoor track, plus if you "hug the rail" you can actually run less distance. The track is measured 30 cm from the inside (with a rail), so if you run 20 cm from the outside, you "gain" .63m per lap. On an outdoor track that's 2.5m gained, on an indoor track that's 5m gained. So that's 2.5m less you ran which is another .38 seconds.

Then you have the perfect temperature, no wind, loud atmosphere...

College runners posting faster times indoor could be because they are coming of high volume, long intervals, strength XC training and then going into track work.

ventolin^3 wrote:

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I think he and the rest of us have already found the biggest TOOL on the boards!

Quite simply: No. 2x the number of turns (assuming the track is 200m), shorter straightaways for smooth running/passing people. It's extremely difficult to pass anyone on the turns because they're so sharp. The air indoors is always really dry and makes it nearly impossible to breathe correctly.

agip wrote:

I think indoor is faster mostly because of the bounce - the Armory track in NYC is like a trampoline - you bounce on down the track. I run significantly faster at the armory than I do outdoors.

That's the consensus with Armory runners in various distance events, but the acceleration off banked turns also plays a role, and I think a dominant role. The new Mondo track there should give us more data on this topic. I remember the last indoor season when Alysia Montano ran the Armory for the first time -- 600 meters in 1:23.59. This was one of the highlights of the Millrose Games. It would be good to have her take on this, especially if she comes back in 2014 for a reprise. I don't know if she has ever run a 600 outdoors in competition. She pretty much ran alone at the Millrose. Ajee Wilson could not keep contact.

I have doubts this indoor advantage holds up in the 200 and 400, even with banked turns. Only the two outside lanes in the 200 seem to work well at this distance.

Max Effect wrote:

I think he and the rest of us have already found the biggest TOOL on the boards!

Ha. Actually that last bit by ventolin was hilarious...

Did someone mention that part of the reason there are so many sub 4 miles indoors is because there's no 10k or steeple indoors? Outdoors those guys run those events at the big meets at their peak. If they didn't have a choice they might be mile/5k instead of 5k/10k of mile/3k instead of steeple.

Another factor is that a 4:00.00 mile is a tangible target that is regarded as a worthy achievement. Whether someone says the equivalent 1500 meter time is 3:41.XX or 3:42XX, the time just doesn't have an equivalent allure of the sub 4 mile.