I personally believe they shouldn't, although I sure would have loved to run on one back in the day. And you can bet I would count my PR on it if I happened to run one. My problem with it is how it shuts out otherwise equivalent (or better?) performances run on 200M Tracks, banked or unbanked. Despite the hassles, a conversion factor should be adopted in Div I like in the other Divisions, although I will not volunteer to come up with one. The arguments and death threats one would encounter from
obsessives and others would be more than anyone could tolerate. That is even before introducing the lack of curbs, exact placement of cones and every other way of compounding the problem. It seems fairly simple to me; a larger track gives a distinct advantage. Luckily, qualifying can occur only on tracks limited to 300 M indoors now, so we won't see any 400 M tracks any time soon.
What are your opinions of the matter?
As someone with their fastest indoor 800m set on the Washington track, I can tell you that it certainly is faster than any banked 200m you can find. The lack of a curb is a whole 'nother issue
ReplyDeleteI realize it probably isn't a precise comparison, but my 5000 M PR was on Manley Fields track at Syracuse, a 200 M track without any straights (OK, they were 10 M long!) The curves were seemingly bigger than an outdoor track. And yeah, Brian Boyer beat me that day anyway! I loved that track.
ReplyDeleteAny PR on the Washington track should come with an asterisk. We ran once at E. Tennessee St which had an oversized track and we all set PRs that day - can't remember if it had a rail, but we didn't take much stock in the times. The NCAA took our DMR time as a qualifier, though. Harry didn't mind!!
ReplyDeleteI would count any PR set on even a downhill track! Imagine that, a 300M downhill spiral track! My 3/4 Mile PR was on a slight downhill road course with Coach Groves catching me at 3:03. Felt remarkable. I can only imagine what you real runners feel!
ReplyDeleteSee, we never have these issues in the throws. We just throw. Although, there was the time that we threw off the Tartan track surface at Syracuse indoors - that was an adventure. Just give me a sheet of plywood, a toy and some room. We don't worry about the size of the oval!
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