Obsolete events you actually ran?

[Conor Dary]

My brother and I and next door neighbor boys , who lived two miles away, used to run four mile races around section lines starting in opposite directions and finishing at the starting point..
The land was so flat you could see clear across the section which discouraged cheating by cutting corners.
How about having races of 400 meters and longer run in opposite directions? You could not sit and kick but would have to run to the maximum of your ability.. It might only work for match races. If you started half the field in opposite directions there could conceivalby be right of way problems when they met.
I dunno, maybe I need to give this more thought.

lonewolf, you usually have some decent ideas, but I am afraid this is not one of them. :P

[gh]

SF Examiner meet used to have a dual-start 160. Both runners went same way, but each did a lap starting diametrically opposed.

[dukehjsteve]

Great idea on the 500, especially with the waterfall start.

It is also about time to get a one turn stagger in the 400.

I've mentioned this here time and time again, namely, that 1)currently, the 2-turn all staggered 400 is the worst race to watch, and 2) if they switched to a one-turn staggered 400 it would become a fantastic race for fans to watch, plus you would get some mighty fast first 200's, everyone fighting for that pole, followed by winners being the runners with the biggest cojones.

[lonewolf]

Nah, no break, run in lanes all the way. Inside lanes get a longer straight but have tighter turn. Ideally everyone comes out of the turn onto the home straight more or less even, just as in the two turn 400.

[lovetorun]

jhc68 is right...I ran the 660, 1320 in track and many cross-country races that varied from 1.7 to 1.9 miles. The "cross-country "was anything but...usually run around big athletic, grass fields and a couple laps around the track. This was in southern California, Orange county.

I would have done better if they had 5K cross-country races back then...the longer the race, the better I did.

[sprintblox]

Great idea on the 500, especially with the waterfall start.

It is also about time to get a one turn stagger in the 400.

Nah ... too much push-and-shove in the 800 as it is. If anything, I'd want to see the 800 run with a 3-turn stagger like the 4x400.

[kuha]

Great idea on the 500, especially with the waterfall start.

It is also about time to get a one turn stagger in the 400.

Nah ... too much push-and-shove in the 800 as it is. If anything, I'd want to see the 800 run with a 3-turn stagger like the 4x400.

Seriously? In my mind that would produce a fatally dull event. Why not the whole bloody thing in lanes?

[gh]

They did that in the '76 Olympics.... suckiest 800s of all time.

[sprintblox]

Nah ... too much push-and-shove in the 800 as it is. If anything, I'd want to see the 800 run with a 3-turn stagger like the 4x400.

Seriously? In my mind that would produce a fatally dull event. Why not the whole bloody thing in lanes?

I'd be OK with that too.

[sprintblox]

They did that in the '76 Olympics.... suckiest 800s of all time.

Alberto Juantorena 1:43.50 WR sucked? With those lead changes on the last lap and the valiant fight for 2nd?

[Halfmiler2]

The most unusual event I ever recall running was the 280 yard dash at what was supposedly the NJ Catholic Track Conference Indoor Frosh/Soph championships back in the late 1960's. The meet was supposed to be set held on a 160-yard banked board track set up in a parking lot outside with no bubble. My race would have been 2 laps minus a turn. But moisture made the track slippery and unrunnable, so the meet was postponed and eventually held on an outdoor all-weather track in the winter. They kept the announced distances, and I ran a 220 plus an added 60 yards on the quartermile track. The starting line began mid-straight, so the extra distance brought the finish line to the end of the other straight. I got a tie for 5th in the frosh division with a time of 34.6 seconds to put my school on the scoreboard.

[Halfmiler2]

One event I'd love to see but I do not think it has been contested since the early 1960's (although it was in the rulebook for many years after) is the All-Around which is sort of a cousin to the decathlon: ten events in ONE day but imperial distances instead metric, and some different ones including a racewalk. I think Jim Thorpe and George Patton were pretty good at it in their day.

[Mighty Favog]

Way back before my time, my alma mater's big relay invitational featured 16-lap, 8-lap, and 4-lap relays due to the track being only a 400-yard circuit. Someone once split sub-4 for those 1600 yards. They ran the sprint relay as a 4x100y shuttle race on the football field, and ran the individual high hurdle race diagonally across said field. Since it was the social event of the spring, they elected a Relays Queen.