What are some interesting race ideas?

[fasttrack85]

I was thinking about if a race was all curve and no straight like a 100,200, or even 400 meter curve! Or what about a 400 meter straight?

BTW Christophe Lemaitre is the world best at 250 does anyone know if that has any curve or if it is all straight?

[gh]

The 1915 AAU Championships 440 in San Francisco was run on a straight.

[El Toro]

The 1915 AAU Championships 440 in San Francisco was run on a straight.

And the hurdles?

[lonewolf]

I don't recall ever seeing a 440 race on the straight but they were a training staple at OAMC in the (19)40s... on the campus golf course, suspect slight downhill, frequent south tail wind, fanstastic, never duplicated elsewhere times.

[LopenUupunut]

Maxey Long ran 47.0 way back in 1900 on an improvised 440 yard straight, as documented by the New York Times here: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-fr ... 5B808CF1D3

The good old days, when the papers still cared about us

[tandfman]

I was thinking about if a race was all curve and no straight like a 100,200, or even 400 meter curve!

I've never seen or heard of a circular track (all curves). But I do recall seeing one a long time ago that was almost like a capital D--a standard straight on the finish line side, but everything else was one big curve, a little flatter curvature on the backstretch than on the ends, but still not a straight line.

[Conor Dary]

I was thinking about if a race was all curve and no straight like a 100,200, or even 400 meter curve!

I've never seen or heard of a circular track (all curves). But I do recall seeing one a long time ago that was almost like a capital D--a standard straight on the finish line side, but everything else was one big curve, a little flatter curvature on the backstretch than on the ends, but still not a straight line.

I have mentioned this before. When I was in high school we had an 80 yard indoor track that was a circle. We also had room for the 50 yard dash on the side. We even had a couple of dual meets there. 22 laps to the mile. One guy even ran a marathon down there once with his girl friend counting the 576 laps.

We also used to use the second floor of the school in the early morning for workouts. 4 straights that came to about a 440 for a lap.

[gh]

i have this vague recollection that there's a school (maybe Texas Tech?) whose indoor "facility" is on the second floor of an athletic building, basically the hallway, and is close to round, if not so.

[Conor Dary]

i have this vague recollection that there's a school (maybe Texas Tech?) whose indoor "facility" is on the second floor of an athletic building, basically the hallway, and is close to round, if not so.

I suspect more than a few schools did that. Now that I think about it, my brother spent his freshmen year in 1972-3 at Illinois Chicago, and the basketball arena was circular with a large open concourse behind the seats with a circular track.

[Cooter Brown]

I've never seen or heard of a circular track (all curves).

I can give you 100' straights. It's not a 400m track though. They shoehorned it in at a middle school when they decided every middle school needed a track about 15 years ago.

http://goo.gl/maps/iToUE

[KDFINE]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Bring back the 200 meter low hurdles, either on the straight (if you can find a track) or on the curve. Its a place where high hurdlers, low hurdlers, and sprinters could all meet and test one another.

[repmujhgih]

I competed for Texas Tech. It is a 220m (ish, I was a jumper) circle. The times were always fast, because it is a soft enough curve that there was not much adjusting that had to be done like running on a tight curve or coming in/out of one. http://www.texastech.com/facilities/fac-atc.html

[James Fields]

The University of Portland has a circular track in Chiles Center, the athletics building. One lap is 240 meters (6.6 laps = 1 mi.) I visited there during 1996-97 school year, when I was assisting Oregon USATF, to research the track's utility for race walk competition.

That upstairs track, circling the basketball arena below, was then used for student fitness activities and low-key competition such as all-comers meets. There may have been a very short straight stretch near the entrance doors but after so many years my memory is faint.

[Vielleicht]

My highschool used to have a 270m track, making 400m and 4x100m races very complicated. Not very fair I guess, but entertaining.