Cinder track times...how to convert?

Boston26boston wrote:

Is there a difference between cinder and tartan mondo etc?

If so, how to convert?

Can't. Cinder tracks were all different from themselves even...some had a deeper level of cinder, some had very few cinders and hard-packed dirt there that was the main surface, etc.

Boston26boston wrote:

Is there a difference between cinder and tartan mondo etc?

If so, how to convert?

It makes no difference to any average schmo what the conversion is. You aren’t running for a world record or making a living at it. So who the hell cares if it’s 4% slower or 14%?

Get a life.

If you have cinder track times they are most likely hand timed and inaccurate beyond the few tenth of difference caused by surface differences.

report them as they are.

It doesn’t matter wrote:

Boston26boston wrote:

Is there a difference between cinder and tartan mondo etc?

If so, how to convert?

It makes no difference to any average schmo what the conversion is. You aren’t running for a world record or making a living at it. So who the hell cares if it’s 4% slower or 14%?

Get a life.

Making someone else feel bad or a poor attempt at denigrating them will not make your own obvious problems disappear.

Not necessary.

Thx

There's really only one way to do this:- You need to measure out and build your own modern running track out in the middle of a corn field. Then the track stars of yesteryear will magically appear to have a shot running on it. Simple time their performances on the modern surface and compare with their pbs back in the day in order to get an accurate conversion ratio.

I will give a serious response as an old timer. 90% of my high school races were on cinder tracks.

The rule of thumb that we used was that tartan tracks were one second faster per lap (400 meters) than cinder tracks.

I was in h.s. during the conversion era, converting from yards to metres. We sometimes raced on 440 yards dirt one day and 400 metres composite asphalt the next day. I pretty much agree with another poster, but I'd say more like 1.25 seconds per lap. Many so-called cinder tracks were so poorly maintained. One also needed to wear longer and heavier spikes on so-called cinder tracks (most often just very uneven dirt tracks). Cinder tracks had 120 yard straightaways with tight 100 yard curves. Tighter turns on cinder tracks slowed one down.

There’s a difference between cinder and cinder, never mind synthetic.

Bob Hayes was obliged to run on inside lane that had just been chewed up and rutted by the race walkers when he won the 100 final at the Tokyo Olympics.

He still ran the first hand-timed sub 10, electronically rounded up to 10.06.

His anchor leg in the sprint relay, still the most impressive ever, (many timed it at 8.6!) shows what time he might have run given a specially prepared cinder lane.

He retired early from athletics and went on to play in a team that won the Super Bowl.

1.5%... so for example R. Bannister ran 3:59.4, on today’s carpets he’d probably have run 3:55.81

https://youtu.be/8COaMKbNrX0

Ackley wrote:

I will give a serious response as an old timer. 90% of my high school races were on cinder tracks.

The rule of thumb that we used was that tartan tracks were one second faster per lap (400 meters) than cinder tracks.

That is mind bogglingly stupid. The paces for every race vary dramatically. The rule wouldn't apply evenly across distances.

Idiots.

Ackley wrote:

I will give a serious response as an old timer. 90% of my high school races were on cinder tracks.

The rule of thumb that we used was that tartan tracks were one second faster per lap (400 meters) than cinder tracks.

That's probably the number I heard most often too. But really, you have to figure what sorts of synthetic track you're talking about, remember the old Grasstex ones? They're a far cry from a Chevron one. And you really need to know what sort of condition the cinder track is in at the time it's being used. Rain is going to affect such a track and even the time of the meet when you're running factors in. When Ron Clarke ran his 27:39 in Oslo in 1965 he ran most of the race in the second lane. The 10,000 was late in the meet and by the time he was running the inside lane was badly cut up. A well maintained cinder track is a totally different animal from an almost never maintained one.

I ran most of my college races on cinders back in the 1970s. One of my teammates was an All-American hurdler who had trouble switching between surfaces because his stride was longer on the synthetic tracks. Our coach would drive him over to the new track at UMass to train so that he could work on his steps in the intermediates. The second per lap differential between a well groomed cinder track and tartan seems about right. One of our assistant coaches spent most of the spring on a garden tractor prepping the track surface. Training on cinder tracks was easier on the legs.

lucetree wrote:

I ran most of my college races on cinders back in the 1970s. One of my teammates was an All-American hurdler who had trouble switching between surfaces because his stride was longer on the synthetic tracks. Our coach would drive him over to the new track at UMass to train so that he could work on his steps in the intermediates. The second per lap differential between a well groomed cinder track and tartan seems about right. One of our assistant coaches spent most of the spring on a garden tractor prepping the track surface. Training on cinder tracks was easier on the legs.

So you goons think that the effect of a 200m race on cinder is .5 seconds and then it’s 1 second per lap at 10k pace? That’s there’s some constant that accounts for a difference in time no matter the pace?

Confederacy of Dunces.

When I saw the post this was the athlete that came to mind. I have often wondered how his times matched up with modern sprinters.

Bob Hayes 1964 Olympic run is the performance that intrigues most pundits. Several are convinced that he is the fastest man that ever lived.