In a large college track (8/9 lanes) which lane should you use if you want exactly 400m in one loop? The track I use might say it, but I couldn’t find it among the 50,000 other markings of what distances start where.
What’s the time/distance difference between lane 1 and 4 per 400m @ about a 70second clip?
Basic questions, call me a track newb if you’d like.
Inside lane is the only one exactly 400m. That’s why they stagger the 200/400m starts. Don’t know of the time/distance difference off hand to the other lanes. I’m sure others will chime in.
ok great thanks that’s the answer I was hoping for! Does this hold true even for the huge 9 lane tracks? The one I was running at today had different markings for lanes 1&2.
I believe that the inside lane is exactly 400 m in one loop. I did a search for standard track dimensions and it came up that each lane is 1.22 to 1.25 meters wide. Assuming that it is 1.25 meters wide, then the 2nd lane is 408 meters long, the 3rd is 416 meters and the 4th is 424 meters. If you are running 70 seconds per 400, then it would take you 74 seconds to go 424 meters.
I’ll admit that I could be wrong on this, because I took the standard dimensions published for the inside lane and drew it in my cad program. I offset each line by 1.25 m to get the distances for the adjacent lanes.
Perhaps someone who knows for sure can verify this or correct it.
unless you are running at university of pennsylvania, lane 1 is 400m
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I’m running at Upenn, so which lane should I be using if I want 400m?
This is kind of a fun link too, a lane calculator for a track, though you have to know the lane(s) width…
lane 1 is ALWAYS 400 meters around…but if you and everyone else does all their training there it will prematurely wear it out. Many tracks I visit ask runners not to train in lane 1.
You can find the 400m stagger start in the other lanes. From that point to the one finish line is going to be 400 meters. Off-hand I don’t know what that distance is, but if you take out a tape measure you can find out. Then you can do the math to figure out that x-laps = y.z miles.
I made the mistake of running in lane one at UPenn and thinking “man, I must be in great shape b/c these splits are really fast for the effort I’m putting in.” If you look closely, you can see where they put a rail down on the track when they hold meets–I think it’s somewhere around lane 2 or 3. I don’t know why Franklin Field does this, but I watched the Penn Relays soon after running on that track and saw the rail and thought “OHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Most tracks put a rail on inside of lane 1, but Franklin puts rails between the 2nd and 3rd? lanes from the inside (at least they used to). Try running in lane 3 or 4. Of course, things might have changed since I ran there almost 10 years ago.
Funny, I thought the same thing! I guess I need to go back to the real world next week and see what the splits are…
I’m guessing (based on what a poster above said) that it’s probably 6-7 seconds slower if you add 2 lanes for a 1200
It REALLY depends on the pace, so I can’t help you there. The illusion of speed was a lot of fun while it lasted 
Most tracks are 400m for the inside lane, and heatmiser got it right, for each standard lane you go out, you run 8m further for the same start/stop point. So lane 4 is 24m further and around 6% slower (based on 6% further). Not all tracks are 400m, I have been to school tracks (grass usually) that are 300-350m. Does make you feel like a hero until you figure out it is short! 
you ruined my day, I was on a high!
Ha. You never ran at Franklin Field (aka University of Pennsylvania). It used to be like 15 lanes wide (an exaggeration), and they put extra lanes inside of lane 1. Why? Beats me.
Looking at it via Google Earth, it is no longer that green color it was when I ran there in the late 70s: looks like they redid it completely.
Well…good point. I wasn’t considering warm-up lanes. Putting those extra lanes on the inside of the ‘real’ track allows athletes to warmup in those lanes while the meet is going on.
Here’s an article I wrote about track lengths: http://www.amateurendurance.com/2/training/training-on-the-track-differences-in-lane-lengths/
Here’s a calculator that you can use too: http://www.csgnetwork.com/disttracklanecalc.html
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Well, to be precise, the extra distance you run is the product of the lane width(s) and pi. The answer will be in the units you used to determine lane width(s)
I thought the explanation at Penn was that they wanted to expand the track bout couldn’t go to the outside of the track like usual because of the footprint of buildings and stands surrounding the complex. So they went to the inside to add them and the one lap=400M point is like lane 3 or 4 (original lane 1) and you have to check for the stagger marks on lanes inside of that.
I thought the explanation at Penn was that they wanted to expand the track bout couldn’t go to the outside of the track like usual because of the footprint of buildings and stands surrounding the complex. So they went to the inside to add them and the one lap=400M point is like lane 3 or 4 (original lane 1) and you have to check for the stagger marks on lanes inside of that.
Lane 4 at penn is 400m. I am pretty sure it was a 6 lane track with lane 6 flush up against the stands, when they wanted to expand they had to go in towards the infield. Its weird starting a 400 15 meters behind the finish line.
If my memory serves from when i designed the indoor track at Lakehead (well I handled the regulations to make it legal, and the engineers did the schematics), the standard is that the distance is measured 10cm from the edge of lane 1, thus in lane 1 you will be running 400m, as others have mentioned there are calculators to figure out the other lanes based on track specifics, but typically on a regulation track, its simplest to run on the inside, to get accurate distances (on offsized tracks, mainly indoor, that’s where running further out might be advantageous for measurement, I’ve run on tracks at 145m, 166.67m, 230m, 300m, 150m and 400m to name a few at various universities, colleges and indoor athletic facilities, as well as the standard 200m tracks)
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