Wouldn't a grass track get chewed up faster than grass grows?
I would think it would be very difficult to maintain. You can't just add grass when you want, like you can with cinders on a cinder track.
Wouldn't a grass track get chewed up faster than grass grows?
I would think it would be very difficult to maintain. You can't just add grass when you want, like you can with cinders on a cinder track.
There is a cinder track in Vernonia Oregon. I run on it every week and working to restore it. The cinders are still there and it was used by the school for practice till last year.
doctorj wrote:
Not fun to run on them on a rainy day
I disagree. Its great fun to run on a cinder track in the rain.
MovieMaker wrote:I'm making a short film about a famous runner from the mid-1960s.
How did the film you were making turn out?
Back in the mid-70's all we ran on were cinder tracks except for championship meets. Those would be held at better facilities with an weather track. Not as good as what is available today but a big improvement over the cinders.
I ran on a cinder track all through high school.
Basically, hard clay with gravel lightly and unevenly scattered on the surface with occasional moon rocks (at least that's what we called them) thrown in. It was uneven and formed large puddles after every rainfall. Different world.
If you want sound effects, I think that running on gravel is good enough.
grass tracks wrote:
Wouldn't a grass track get chewed up faster than grass grows?
I would think it would be very difficult to maintain. You can't just add grass when you want, like you can with cinders on a cinder track.
Agreed. A grass track seems like a really nice concept. But I don't see how it could be maintained.
malmo wrote:
doctorj wrote:
Not fun to run on them on a rainy day
I disagree. Its great fun to run on a cinder track in the rain.
Agreed! My HS still had a cinder track in the early 90s. It was basically the same as a stone dust / crushed gravel rail trail. Very comfortable to train on, rain or shine... though when frozen solid in winter, it was a bit of a hard surface. When it rained, it was splashy and muddy. Great fun indeed.
I graduated in 2000. my school had a cinder track that was condemned for running meets, but we used it for practice. I didn't really know any better. it still seemed like a real treat when we went somewhere with all-weather surface. We also ran on one track that was either asphault or concrete.
There are still at least 2 cinder tracks within 3 miles of my house. They are at middle schools. Not sure if there are many cinders left, or if it is more like clay at this point. will have to get over to one sometime soon to check it out.
My high school just replaced their cinder track with an all-weather track. Back in the 80s we were one of the only schools in the area that had cinders. It felt luxurious to run on all-weather tracks at the bigger schools. When we held meets at our school our coach would make us line up across the track (we had a small team) to pick up the large cinders so the chalk cart could make straight lines. Cinders were all we knew outside of going to track meets so we had no complaints.
Over the years I occasionally ran miles on that old cinder track while in town visiting family. I loved the nostalgia of it and it brought back great memories. I forgot how much it channeled during heavy rainfall though so it made it difficult to get good footing at times.
We just replaced our dirt track at Hughson 3 years ago. There was quite a bit of clay in the soil that was laid down for the track and water would sit on it all winter. Then when it dried out it would get rock hard. Many tracks in our league are still dirt. One of our rival schools has a high sand component and almost has to be a little wet to keep from turning into a beach. Our track sounded like running on concrete in spikes, click, click, click.
My high school had a track made of decomposed granite. It was not bad if it was watered, but lane one would pack really hard with everyone running around it in trainers all week long and the other lanes would be pretty good. High crunchyness sound factor. Definitely had some bigger chunks of granite that one of my teammates described as "running on marbles" when doing a workout in trainers.
The city of San Jose had a public track made of either crushed brick or crushed red lava rocks. When maintained, it was actually really nice
Ran almost exclusively on dirt/sand tracks in the 70’s. Our home track always had a rut in lane 1 on the first turn and the back stretch was right field for our baseball field so it was all torn up by steel baseball cleats . It was so luxurious (and fast) when we got to run on tartan tracks at invitationals. I was a sprinter and no matter how long a spike you had to secure the blocks they would frequently slip anyway.
The choice of track also depends on climate. In Australia, most schools & local athletics clubs use grass. Smaller than State level meets are often on grass. State & bigger use the synthetic track surfaces eg. Mondo.
Our local grass track has a few hundred athletes using it every week plus atleast 2 weekend competitions (eg. club champs; a gala day) September to March. About 30 days during winter for primary & high school athletic carnival days. Training are discourage from using inner 2 lanes & home straight, no football studs. With regular water, yearly aeration & occasional fertiliser. Plenty of Sydney sun & rest for 3 to 4 weeks around Christmas & New Year. Local pests include rabbits so a few holes get patched. Hot & dry causes a few bare patches but generally faster. Wet weather can often lead to a soft & spongy track so it becomes slow. If avoiding poisons & ankle rolling risks, the lane lines may need respray every 1 or 2 time it's mowed. Grass gets slippery with rain but does drain if the sun comes out. Generally nice to train on. The modern synthetic tracks are better for faster times & all weather comp.
MovieMaker wrote:
I'm making a short film about a famous runner from the mid-1960s. Thing is, he ran on cinder and dirt tracks his entire career. I want to know if any of you guys have run on those kind of tracks and if so, what did they feel like? How did it sound when you were taking a step? What did they look like up close? What were they made of?
I'm figuring out on how I want to shoot this, I have 3 options
1. Shoot a video of the runners on a 400m track and CGI it to look like a 440y Cinder track
2. Find one of the few cinder tracks still in existance
3. Cover a 400m track with cinders or dirt
~1/3 of all tracks in Iowa are cinder. I assume many states are the same. If you want to find a cinder track, just go to a rural high school. Paying for a rubberized track isn't worth it when you only have 100 kids at your school.
Our high school cinder track had no border on the inside of lane 1 – the border was simply where the infield grass met the cinders.
The starting end of the 220 straightaway chute had weeds growing through the cinders, because we only used that part of the track for time trials (rare) and for meets.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the quality of the ¾ inch spikes we wore. Ours were Spaulding. In those days, as Bowerman said (see Kenny Moore’s book), Adidas were too expensive. We wore the same shoes for training and racing. There was absolutely no mid-sole. Thank God high school muscles were supple because they really got pounded.
If you are going for “Chariots of Fire” authenticity in your film, you’ll have to find something like these shoes, and it turns out you can buy them on ebay. Let us know the title and the premier date!
I didn't read the entire thread so maybe it was commented on before but cinder tracks were brutal for blisters. My sophomore year I had blisters under my blisters and actually missed a meet. The next year I ran without socks, dumped baby powder in my shoes and stood in the grass between intervals. The powder and sweat resulted in an extremely funky smell.