Noticed this on another thread and thought it'd make for fun! I recall current Honolulu Marathon co-director, Jon Cross of UM, winning an indoor 6 mile at EMU back in the day (73?).
Noticed this on another thread and thought it'd make for fun! I recall current Honolulu Marathon co-director, Jon Cross of UM, winning an indoor 6 mile at EMU back in the day (73?).
If I recall correctly that Western Michigan Unversity use to have an indoor steeplechase (minus the water jump) at one of their invitationals, this was up until mid/early 80s.
again, as posted in the other thread, in high school I was at a meet where a 4x3200 was held.
Inern chasing was pretty big in my day.
Several meets featured a "Devil Takes the Hindmost" mile. Whomever was in last place at the end of each lap was pulled from the race. It made for some wild surges and close contact racing on the straights.
i saw a devil take the hindmost race one year where it was a 1 mile race and there was a guy dressed as the devil. the devil could basically do whatever he wanted to: set up barricades across the track for the runners to go over, cut across the infield, through water ballons/cream pies at the runners. that was some seriously funny stuff.
I've also been to a VERY BIG meet that consisted of only 3 events for 3 different levels of grade school (elementary, junior high, senior high). the events were the 200, 800, and the 8 by 200m relay. NOW THAT WAS A KICK ASS EVENT!!!
I always thought that 4 X 55m (or 60m) hurdles race was wierd with the hand-offs being exchanged with teammates running towards each other.
I recently saw the same type of concept (obviously with no baton) at an indoor dog show / races. Wonder who was first with the idea... the dogs seemed safer.
The 200m hurdles. It was like a roller derby, only each contestant had hurdles to throw at each other.
Good memory PR! I saw a devil-take-the-hindmost in a national level race, maybe San Diego? I have heard of, but did not see a 4 X 300 hurdles in a high school meet. No, not adding together times, but complete with a baton and hand-offs. I guess only the anchor could worry about steps. I also saw a huge high school invitational (80+ teams from 5 states) hold a shuttle hurdles final with 8 teams. One team per lane. The exchange area (no batons) was something to see. I guess liability finally caught up with two runners from each team running against the pull-over weight of the hurdle and the format was canned sometime in the mid eighties.
scotth, Sorry, I can read. Although only at a 3rd grade level, but still good enough to see 'indoor' upon further review.
I remember that too. Pretty strange race, I remember somebody running a pretty fast time, like 8:40, for that one time.
Don't know if they run this indoor (in my high school conference, nobody ever did this event except girls), but I think the most ridiculous event was the male 3000m walk. Something just annoyed me about the whole walking part in a track and field meet.
x & oldy: yes, WMU held indoor steeples w/about 4 hurdles per lap, or was it 3. Either way, you had to leap a minimum of 45 hurdles (sans water) and think it was Jeromee Liebenberg that probably ran the 8:40. My coach at EMU didn't enter me in it because he'd only enter guys he was trying to entice into trying it outdoors. I already ran it.
I think my school hosted one or more of these nasty steeples too.
Portland and r-dog: I've heard of those devil take the hindmost races but haven't seen one. There SHOULD be one at every meet...or nearly so as not to spoil the novelty. THAT'D spice up meets!
JEH: the outrageous thing about the shuttle hurdles isn't the race back and forth, it's the race to set the hurdles back up by daredevils racing to and fro.
Idealist: indeed, 200m hurdles, a bizarre race full of intrigue.
MxPx: since racewalks are rarely contested inside, they qualify as outrageous in a mild way. Must confess, I've never seen one and I'm sure it'd generate a lot of talk among those watching.
I've seen 400m relays by high schoolers indoors. Those make for some wild and wooly handoffs!
Not an indoor event, but asinine event anyway. In our conference high school meet in Colorado, they have an event called the two mile team race. Each school gets four 3200 guys and they score it like cross country. They either set up this stupid chute with hurdles or a bunch of coaches holding hands and at the end of the eighth lap the runners go through it and they get handed index cards with their place on it. Made me real glad I was a 800/mile guy. All these kids would run in a humongous pack until it came down to a real wild kick at then end. Just a silly event.
The shuttle hurdle race is pretty stupid too, where kids on the same team took up two lanes, jumping hurdles in opposite directions on a straightaway.
Triple jump is a pretty silly event too. Is there a more unnatural series of motions for ones body to go through?