Favorite Track and Field Event and Why

Fryowa said:
HS track season is going on and no Hawk sports currently. See thread title.

Mine has to be the 1600m relay. For those of you not from or living in Iowa, its a 200/200/400/800 relay in that order. I love the medley relays, especially that one because it has 2 sprints, a 400 which is the toughest event in track to do well, and a middle distance 800. You need 4 runners in 3 different disciplines to pull it off well and I really think it's more exciting than a 4x4 if there are competitive teams.

Fun fact that most people don't know...

Iowa is the king of HS relay races in track and field. All states do the 4x100 and 4x400 which are the ones run in college and international competition. 40 states add the 4x800 for high school, and 24 have the 4x200. The 1600m medley (called the distance medley in Iowa) is only run in 4 states, and the 800m medley (called the sprint medley relay in Iowa) is only run in 2 states. Shuttle hurdle relay is only run in Iowa and West Virginia.

Basically if you like relay races Iowa is your state. Most states are vanilla and only have 2, Iowa has 7.
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Relays definitely are a highlight.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
Go to the Drake Relays. That place can get rocking when there is a big race or big name involved.
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Yeah that's an event.. Had 3 cousins make it to there to compete in the shot there. 2 brothers and their sister all did in early 2000s.

Myself I was bored by T & F. Running bored me like crazy. I wasn't great at it so I just didn't care. I had to be playing ball or doing something else to get me to run. I had ok endurance as far as being able to play basketball all day long. But running around a track no thanks. I would rather take cuts in the batting cages in the spring to get ready for baseball then do that.
 
Hawkfnntn said:
Yeah that's an event.. Had 3 cousins make it to there to compete in the shot there. 2 brothers and their sister all did in early 2000s.

Myself I was bored by T & F. Running bored me like crazy. I wasn't great at it so I just didn't care. I had to be playing ball or doing something else to get me to run. I had ok endurance as far as being able to play basketball all day long. But running around a track no thanks. I would rather take cuts in the batting cages in the spring to get ready for baseball then do that.
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That is how I was at first. I think it is the natural inclination for those that are not automatically the fastest. But my school had a great tradition in T&F, and that wore me down over time.

There is a great comraderie in doing something hard together, especially when you know not everyone has what it takes to get through it. Also, for sprinters/jumpers, T&F practice is like 15 - 30 minutes of working hard and 1+ hours of screwing around with your friends. After not going out as a freshman (I lifted weights and played pickup BB), I got the sense that I was missing out on something good, so I went out as a sophomore and beyond. One of the best decisions I made. I even messed around with T&F in college...I had no business being on a college T&F team based upon talent level, but it was DIII and I had a bunch of buddies on the team. Both in HS and college I had tremendous coaches who emphasized improvement and the team aspect of the sport, which is definitely the best way to experience T&F.
 
CP87 said:
That is how I was at first. I think it is the natural inclination for those that are not automatically the fastest. But my school had a great tradition in T&F, and that wore me down over time.

There is a great comraderie in doing something hard together, especially when you know not everyone has what it takes to get through it. Also, for sprinters/jumpers, T&F practice is like 15 - 30 minutes of working hard and 1+ hours of screwing around with your friends. After not going out as a freshman (I lifted weights and played pickup BB), I got the sense that I was missing out on something good, so I went out as a sophomore and beyond. One of the best decisions I made. I even messed around with T&F in college...I had no business being on a college T&F team based upon talent level, but it was DIII and I had a bunch of buddies on the team. Both in HS and college I had tremendous coaches who emphasized improvement and the team aspect of the sport, which is definitely the best way to experience T&F.
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Yeah I was one of the 3 fastest guys growing up between us any given day we could all outrun each other through junior high. Only one of us ended up doing any track at all. Once we got into HS I wasn't even close to being the fastest guy anymore I was more quick then fast as a smaller guy.

We just weren't a track school at all. Our small school ran on one of those black coal colored rock tracks. I don't even know what that surface even is but it was literally a loose gravel surface I really did love baseball more and once the weather broke and was nice enough to be out doing that I was absolutely doing that instead with my bro and our buddies
 
Hawkfnntn said:
Yeah I was one of the 3 fastest guys growing up between us any given day we could all outrun each other through junior high. Only one of us ended up doing any track at all. Once we got into HS I wasn't even close to being the fastest guy anymore I was more quick then fast as a smaller guy.

We just weren't a track school at all. Our small school ran on one of those black coal colored rock tracks. I don't even know what that surface even is but it was literally a loose gravel surface I really did love baseball more and once the weather broke and was nice enough to be out doing that I was absolutely doing that instead with my bro and our buddies
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We didn't even have baseball as an option for many years, and when we did have it, you had to travel 15 min by bus to a neighboring school for practice. I think from the grade above me, my grade, and the grade below, we had a total of one dude who played baseball (and we convinced him to go out for T&F as a senior).
 
Fryowa said:
So I was technically out for track all through middle and high school but I sucked and didn't put tons of effort into it. Now as an adult I have a 17 year old son who's turned out to be really good and I've gotten a much bigger appreciation for it the past 6 years or so. I'm a high school baseball coach and I love watching track and XC meets as much or more than baseball because. Our school has a couple great coaches who our guys would take a bullet for, and this is a sport I don't know shit about the technical side of so I can sit back and just take it all in without trying to coach or second guess someone else. I just go watch and cheer my ass off and have a bawl. XC meets are great because in Iowa at least the weather is generally mild. What better fan experience than to go grab a bag chair, a book, and go sit on a golf course in the shade after work for a few hours.

The 4x400 is awesome. I have tons of respect for anyone who runs a 400 or 800. Can't sprint, but can't really take it easy either. You have to have the physical part squared away as far as being in the best possible condition that night, but you also have to have the mental side of being able to tell that you're riding just on the ragged edge but not go over. Run the first lap of an 800 three seconds too fast and you're toast. You ain't gonna run your second lap fast enough and if you do it's because you dogged it somewhere.
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You guys are bringing me back. Former high school and college 800 runner here. Nothing quite like the lactate acid pooling up and suddenly hitting an unmanageable level, yet the finish line is still 10-20 meters away. Absolute worst feeling. It's somehow pain and numbness at the same time. Arms keep pumping, but the legs no longer seem to respond. The crowd noise filters to dead silence, leaving only a throbbing/pounding sound in your head. You immediately know you are cooked and have no control over who might pass you. It's like suddenly being immersed in jello, you can't move much or hear the outside world. It usually ended with an involuntary collapse at the finish line, at which point you could hear the crowd again.
 
SwirlinLingerie said:
You guys are bringing me back. Former high school and college 800 runner here. Nothing quite like the lactate acid pooling up and suddenly hitting an unmanageable level, yet the finish line is still 10-20 meters away. Absolute worst feeling. It's somehow pain and numbness at the same time. Arms keep pumping, but the legs no longer seem to respond. The crowd noise filters to dead silence, leaving only a throbbing/pounding sound in your head. You immediately know you are cooked and have no control over who might pass you. It's like suddenly being immersed in jello, you can't move much or hear the outside world. It usually ended with an involuntary collapse at the finish line, at which point you could hear the crowd again.
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Very similar to what my kid describes. He runs the 16, 32, and 800 leg of the 1600 relay. When he really has a good run he says his legs are numb and his ears are ringing. I assume that's the point where you know you've "given it all you had," maybe that's what they mean by that saying. I've never reached that point myself physically lol.
 
SwirlinLingerie said:
You guys are bringing me back. Former high school and college 800 runner here. Nothing quite like the lactate acid pooling up and suddenly hitting an unmanageable level, yet the finish line is still 10-20 meters away. Absolute worst feeling. It's somehow pain and numbness at the same time. Arms keep pumping, but the legs no longer seem to respond. The crowd noise filters to dead silence, leaving only a throbbing/pounding sound in your head. You immediately know you are cooked and have no control over who might pass you. It's like suddenly being immersed in jello, you can't move much or hear the outside world. It usually ended with an involuntary collapse at the finish line, at which point you could hear the crowd again.
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Boy I have never heard it described quite that well. I now have PTSD and I have not run a competitive track event in 25+ years!

I enjoyed the competition and excitement when I was 20, but track would be hard to do professionally. The practices and meets were brutal and painful. Always. Whoever made up the term "runners high" is a goddamn liar. It just hurt.

At least with football and basketball you have to do hard conditioning, yes, but then you get to play a fun game. Track? Not so much.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
Boy I have never heard it described quite that well. I now have PTSD and I have not run a competitive track event in 25+ years!

I enjoyed the competition and excitement when I was 20, but track would be hard to do professionally. The practices and meets were brutal and painful. Always. Whoever made up the term "runners high" is a goddamn liar. It just hurt.

At least with football and basketball you have to do hard conditioning, yes, but then you get to play a fun game. Track? Not so much.
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Yep, what's weird is I am not sure I ever really liked running. Yet I ran cross country and track all through college. By about junior year of high school, it had become a year round sport for me. Lots of miles.

I think the reason I couldn't quit was the love of competing as a team. Plus cross country and track kids are usually pretty fun guys (I know, I am biased). Competitors, but also quirky and fun. Nobody who was "normal" would choose to run that much.

I'm suddenly reminded of one of my favorite stories. During college, we realized one of our main rivals filled their steeplechase pit with water the night before the meet. It had a cover, but it wasn't locked. So a few of us middle distance runners went fishing in the river that ran close to the track the night before. We ended up snagging a couple big carp, like 10-15 pounders, and dumped them in the steeplechase pit under the cover of darkness.

The carp were discovered the next morning, and at some point, the opposing head coach, a maintenance guy, and an equipment room guy were trying to stab/flush the fish out with various instruments.

Either later that spring or the next season (can't recall), we decided to pull the same thing on our coach before a big home meet. Except for this time, we ended up with a handful of walleye and some white bass. That steeplechase pit was like a real aquarium.

It was either that time or the next, that our coach went right up to me and blurted "Goddamn it, now you are putting game fish in there?! I'm calling the goddamn game warden on you next time you pull this shit."

Me and a couple of my teammates always denied it, tongue in cheek, but everyone, including our coach, knew we were the big fishermen on the team. 25 years later, I still deny it when I see him.

By my senior year, he started making sure there was no water in the steeplechase pit until the morning of the meet. So we'd find a hose and fill it up that night anyway. Then he started locking the cover of it, too. By then, I think we had about graduated.
 
The DRs were extraordinary this year.

Despite some very terrible weather conditions, several DR and state records were broken.

A sneak peak at the state meet.

Good stuff.
 
SwirlinLingerie said:
Yep, what's weird is I am not sure I ever really liked running. Yet I ran cross country and track all through college. By about junior year of high school, it had become a year round sport for me. Lots of miles.

I think the reason I couldn't quit was the love of competing as a team. Plus cross country and track kids are usually pretty fun guys (I know, I am biased). Competitors, but also quirky and fun. Nobody who was "normal" would choose to run that much.

I'm suddenly reminded of one of my favorite stories. During college, we realized one of our main rivals filled their steeplechase pit with water the night before the meet. It had a cover, but it wasn't locked. So a few of us middle distance runners went fishing in the river that ran close to the track the night before. We ended up snagging a couple big carp, like 10-15 pounders, and dumped them in the steeplechase pit under the cover of darkness.

The carp were discovered the next morning, and at some point, the opposing head coach, a maintenance guy, and an equipment room guy were trying to stab/flush the fish out with various instruments.

Either later that spring or the next season (can't recall), we decided to pull the same thing on our coach before a big home meet. Except for this time, we ended up with a handful of walleye and some white bass. That steeplechase pit was like a real aquarium.

It was either that time or the next, that our coach went right up to me and blurted "Goddamn it, now you are putting game fish in there?! I'm calling the goddamn game warden on you next time you pull this shit."

Me and a couple of my teammates always denied it, tongue in cheek, but everyone, including our coach, knew we were the big fishermen on the team. 25 years later, I still deny it when I see him.

By my senior year, he started making sure there was no water in the steeplechase pit until the morning of the meet. So we'd find a hose and fill it up that night anyway. Then he started locking the cover of it, too. By then, I think we had about graduated.
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Too bad you couldn't have filled the steeplechase pit with piranhas.

I knew distance runners who spent most of the meet hanging out in the team tent, even napping. If you ran the 4x800 and the 3,200 you and a lot of free time on your hands.

One benefit of distance running (for me at least when I did it) is that rain didn't bother me and it was more comfortable is the cooler weather we usually got for most of the season.
 
SwirlinLingerie said:
Yep, what's weird is I am not sure I ever really liked running. Yet I ran cross country and track all through college. By about junior year of high school, it had become a year round sport for me. Lots of miles.

I think the reason I couldn't quit was the love of competing as a team. Plus cross country and track kids are usually pretty fun guys (I know, I am biased). Competitors, but also quirky and fun. Nobody who was "normal" would choose to run that much.

I'm suddenly reminded of one of my favorite stories. During college, we realized one of our main rivals filled their steeplechase pit with water the night before the meet. It had a cover, but it wasn't locked. So a few of us middle distance runners went fishing in the river that ran close to the track the night before. We ended up snagging a couple big carp, like 10-15 pounders, and dumped them in the steeplechase pit under the cover of darkness.

The carp were discovered the next morning, and at some point, the opposing head coach, a maintenance guy, and an equipment room guy were trying to stab/flush the fish out with various instruments.

Either later that spring or the next season (can't recall), we decided to pull the same thing on our coach before a big home meet. Except for this time, we ended up with a handful of walleye and some white bass. That steeplechase pit was like a real aquarium.

It was either that time or the next, that our coach went right up to me and blurted "Goddamn it, now you are putting game fish in there?! I'm calling the goddamn game warden on you next time you pull this shit."

Me and a couple of my teammates always denied it, tongue in cheek, but everyone, including our coach, knew we were the big fishermen on the team. 25 years later, I still deny it when I see him.

By my senior year, he started making sure there was no water in the steeplechase pit until the morning of the meet. So we'd find a hose and fill it up that night anyway. Then he started locking the cover of it, too. By then, I think we had about graduated.
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This made me chuckle. Great caper.

Here is my best almost story. Drake relays when I was I think a junior in college. Carl Lewis was the special invite guest for the 100 meter open. He had never been before. He was on the back end of his career but still like an under 10 flat type runner. One of our sprinters who was a WR on our football team qualified for the open was in lane 6 right beside Carl. 30 minutes before the race our guy could not get his hammy right and told the coach he needed to scratch! Coach was mad, but the kid did not want to show up and pull something.

So, I was not going to waste this. I got the sprinters number and pinned it on and went down to report for the open 100. Not considering that the sprinter was a 6'3 black guy with an NFL body, and I was 5'9 white half miler, I was going to get into the blocks next to Carl. I had not decided whether I was going to false start or play it out knowing I could maybe break 11 flat if the wind was blowing me. Before I could carry this out my coach got wind and sent three guys to pull me out. I got within about 10 minutes of pulling this off. #almostlegend
 
Did any of you guys see this at the Penn Relays a few days ago??? Vid below.

Women's 4x8, Washington and Providence duking it out on the last lap, Providence runner in the inside lane has the baton in her right hand like a dumbass, Washington runner goes to make a move and the Providence runner clips her with the baton and drops it. Washington ends up with a collegiate record in W4x8 that probably would've gone to Providence along with an event win. Contact was ruled incidental and I agree. Washington runner made no change of direction, no unordinary movements, and never tried to initiate contact with Providence or the baton.

1) If you're the inside runner you keep that thing in your left hand no matter what. Any pass is going to be to the outside.

2) If you drop a baton go back and get it. Best case scenario it gets ruled in your favor and you win. Worst case scenario it gets ruled no foul and you get 2nd or 3rd instead of last. You need that baton to cross the finish line.

Penn Relays disaster
 
SwirlinLingerie said:
You guys are bringing me back. Former high school and college 800 runner here. Nothing quite like the lactate acid pooling up and suddenly hitting an unmanageable level, yet the finish line is still 10-20 meters away. Absolute worst feeling. It's somehow pain and numbness at the same time. Arms keep pumping, but the legs no longer seem to respond. The crowd noise filters to dead silence, leaving only a throbbing/pounding sound in your head. You immediately know you are cooked and have no control over who might pass you. It's like suddenly being immersed in jello, you can't move much or hear the outside world. It usually ended with an involuntary collapse at the finish line, at which point you could hear the crowd again.
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Great description. Nice.
 
SwirlinLingerie said:
Yep, what's weird is I am not sure I ever really liked running. Yet I ran cross country and track all through college. By about junior year of high school, it had become a year round sport for me. Lots of miles.

I think the reason I couldn't quit was the love of competing as a team. Plus cross country and track kids are usually pretty fun guys (I know, I am biased). Competitors, but also quirky and fun. Nobody who was "normal" would choose to run that much.

I'm suddenly reminded of one of my favorite stories. During college, we realized one of our main rivals filled their steeplechase pit with water the night before the meet. It had a cover, but it wasn't locked. So a few of us middle distance runners went fishing in the river that ran close to the track the night before. We ended up snagging a couple big carp, like 10-15 pounders, and dumped them in the steeplechase pit under the cover of darkness.

The carp were discovered the next morning, and at some point, the opposing head coach, a maintenance guy, and an equipment room guy were trying to stab/flush the fish out with various instruments.

Either later that spring or the next season (can't recall), we decided to pull the same thing on our coach before a big home meet. Except for this time, we ended up with a handful of walleye and some white bass. That steeplechase pit was like a real aquarium.

It was either that time or the next, that our coach went right up to me and blurted "Goddamn it, now you are putting game fish in there?! I'm calling the goddamn game warden on you next time you pull this shit."

Me and a couple of my teammates always denied it, tongue in cheek, but everyone, including our coach, knew we were the big fishermen on the team. 25 years later, I still deny it when I see him.

By my senior year, he started making sure there was no water in the steeplechase pit until the morning of the meet. So we'd find a hose and fill it up that night anyway. Then he started locking the cover of it, too. By then, I think we had about graduated.
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Lol. That's awesome. I would have had a tough time not filleting out the walleye and drenching them in hot oil. I would have loved to be able to catch them that readily in Iowa.

I did pull a 26 incher out of the Cedar River with my buddy once.
 
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