Why don’t 300m track times count for records indoors?
Fair question, and it’s going to come more now that Michigan has three such facilities (GVSU, SVSU& LAB) and the SPIRE track in Ohio is doing big business. Plus, more big tracks are on the way.
For many years, the World Athletics rule was, “[For World Indoor Records] For races of 200m and over, the oval track may not have a nominal length of more than 201.2m (220 yards).”
Here’s where it gets weird: a couple years ago, the World Athletics people listened to some marketing folks who thought that track would be more successful if we adopted terminology from the wildly successful speed skating world. So now we have long track (ie. outdoors) and short track (ie. indoors) records. (Note that 300m track times are classified as long track marks.)
This change hasn’t gone over well. USATF hasn’t followed suit and still classifies records the traditional way. So does Track & Field News, which keeps the collegiate and high school national records. Michtrack.org keeps state records in the traditional outdoor/indoor fashion. And even World Athletics seems to have second thoughts about the bizarre long/short track business. It still holds the World Indoor Championships (not “short track”) and sponsors the World Indoor Tour.
But why have that rule in the first place?
Fairness. Oversized tracks are easier to run fast times on. It’s physics. Gentler turns, and fewer of them over the course of a race, means faster times (consider this analogy: you’d get more touchdowns if you make your football field 95 yards). Records need to be fair, which means comparing apples to apples wherever possible. That’s why downhill 100m dashes don’t count, wind-aided long jumps, 11lb shot puts, etc. Most indoor tracks in the world are 200m ovals, and most meets are not held on oversized tracks (and World, USA, NCAA Division I and National Scholastic championship meets never are).
A few other points to consider (or argue over):
*Tradition. Indoor track at the world class level has been about banked tracks. They used to mostly be smaller than 200m, but that trend started changing in the 1980s, when the 200m banked oval became standard. Not until 1987 did the IAAF start recognizing World Indoor Records, the same year as the first World Indoor Championships in Indianapolis. The 200m flat track was more common in the United States back then, because that worked for college fieldhouses, where the track had to circle a basketball court.
*The boom in 300m tracks in the U.S. is just an American thing. No other nation has an oversized track. Why are they big in the U.S.? Colleges control most quality track & field facilities in our country. Football drives most college athletic spending decisions in one way or another. It makes sense to a lot of colleges to build indoor training facilities that are huge and can accommodate football and a variety of other sports. No longer is winter just about basketball. So a 300m track fits well around a huge indoor training facility.
*NCAA qualifying is the other part of the equation, and here’s where it gets controversial. The formula the NCAA uses is skewed, and even though the indexing is supposed to provide a level playing field for qualification, it actually favors oversized tracks. Why else are college teams flocking to oversized tracks for qualifying times?
*”What about banked tracks?” That’s an objection you’ll hear from those who love the oversized tracks. Yes, banked tracks provide an advantage also. The same as oversized tracks? Who knows? The data I’ve seen is sketchy and incomplete. But this I know is true: banked tracks count for records, and they always will. That’s the tradition of our sport. Oversized tracks don’t, and probably never will.
By no means is this a slam against the good people at Grand Valley, Saginaw Valley and the LAB. They have great facilities and great programs. And nothing is wrong with running fast there. We are seeing some truly great performances on their tracks. They’re just not comparable with marks set on 200m tracks, and we think that high school athletes and coaches should be aware of that distinction.
What you do with your school records, your club records, and your personal records is up to you. But unless you have a lot of pull at the higher levels of the sport, the rule isn’t going to change. And it shouldn’t, out of fairness.
On our michtrack.org all-time lists, oversized track marks are always listed by themselves. If we mixed them in with the main lists, it would be unfair to the generations of Michigan runners who built our state’s great history running on standard-sized tracks.
Originally written in 2015; updated 1/2025.