Your Mile Time Might Not Be Accurate

 Your training plan tells you to go out and test yourself in the mile. You head to the local track and line up at the starting line and prepare yourself for the hard 4 laps around the track. You feel pretty good about your time and then someone ruins your day by stating "Did you know a mile on a track is more than just four laps around a 400 meter track?

You argue for a while and then you grab your phone and ask the little know it all device and she confirms that a mile is actually 1609.34 meters, not 1600 meters. There is a different starting line further back on a 400m track for a true mile race. You say to yourself--"Well, 9 meters changes things by only a few seconds. No big deal."  What if you finished each race 9 meters short? You wouldn't have finished. 

How did we adopt this myth? Way back when, many tracks in the U.S. were constructed to be a quarter of a mile, 440 yards and this made the mile actually a four lap race and it was a true mile. In the 1970's, the U.S. adopted the international standards and went to the metric system due to international competitions. Now most tracks in the U.S. are now 400 meters. American high schools usually run the 1600 meter race because it’s an easy four laps around a 400 meter track.

So, next time you head out for your speedwork drills on the track, make sure you use a metric calculator for determining your pace/goal times.  Afterall, no one wants to come up several meters short of the finish!