Has anyone ever ran on a clay track?

Yes someone has

It's much slower, especially when it rains because the clay gets wet and turns into sticky mud. Make sure you don't wear spikes because then you'll never get out of there. That's where I am right now. Basically glued to a clay track with a bunch of other runners who didn't know better...

Clay tracks were used in the 1950s and were common before cinder tracks became available. Some high schools measured tracks around the grass football field.

Peter Snell once ran a 3:54.4 miles on a grass track!

This is also my post wrote:

It's much slower, especially when it rains because the clay gets wet and turns into sticky mud. Make sure you don't wear spikes because then you'll never get out of there. That's where I am right now. Basically glued to a clay track with a bunch of other runners who didn't know better...

Hope you're not in the North. With freezing temperature you'll be stuck there until May.

"Answer the question...the question you jerk!"

John McEnroe

I did in JH in the 80s....Many small HSs in Kansas still had dirt, cinder, clay, ours had a strait asphalt surface! Ran on a standard gym floor at the Pitt State indoor meet and banked wood track at Ok State indoor meet. Never ran on a grass track. My uncle still lives in a town with a cinder track and we have one at the local JH...grass slightly growing thru.

I started out running on a cinder track and all of our meets were on cinders.

You didn't want to fall down! I remember that we had a guy running the 440 who did fall down and his nickname after that was Sargent Stripes!

Cinder tracks are still pretty common. Clay seems like a terrible choice for drainage.

Ryun 3:51.1 on Cinder

Mills 28:24 for Gold in 1964 on wet Cinder.

Today's mondo tracks are so much faster than cinder: 1sec / lap IMHO and probably more in longer races due to more energy return so the body does not tire so quickly. They have better grip also. Historical time comparisons need to include track surface. Ryun's mile was probably equivalent to Webb's mile AR based on surface.

But cinder is a decent training surface.

No, but someone has RUN on one.

Decent analysis.

Have you ever had any experience on a clay track?

InCinderary wrote:

Today's mondo tracks are so much faster than cinder: 1sec / lap

That is just ridiculous. If Ryun's 3:51 converts to 3:47 on synthetic, why didn't he do it himself? They were available to him.

The track surface alone is not springy enough to produce "energy return" because the footstrike takes too long. By the time the runner takes off, the track is compressed under the trailing foot and does not move until the foot breaks contact. This contributes nothing to the runner's acceleration.

Think of standing on a trampoline for a while until it stops bouncing, and then jump. The trampoline doesn't turn your jump into a bounce. In that initial equilibrium state, it is exerting a force on your body equal and opposite to your weight, just like any other surface you stand on. To get a bounce you have to push it lower so it exerts more force. Indeed, when you try to jump, the force you exert does displace the trampoline a bit and rob you of acceleration compared to a jump from a static surface. It takes several jumps to get going.

Only Monaco seems to have a bounce effect, and I have long suspected it's due to construction under the track surface. If so, it should be banned and all records set there struck. The rules have long been against mechanical assistance.

"Bad Wigins"

By mentioning the Monaco track you just admitted to us that there are tracks whose trampoline effects are an aid to track times.

Jim Ryun's 3:51.1 was done in 1967 when he was 21 years old. That was his peak as a runner. Synthetic track surfaces were crude, if they existed at all in 1967! Perhaps there were some asphalt tracks by the late 1960s. Is asphalt synthetic? Does it provide "energy return?" Perhaps even more important, is it as easy on the legs as the mondo tracks of the new millennial?

Clay tracks were popular on the west coast, where there wasn't much rain by the time big meets came around. Those tracks were quite hard and held through many races. Sometimes, the track was rolled in the middle of the meet to fill in spike damage.

If I am not mistaken, Ryun's 3:51 was on a clay track, but I could be wrong. In any case, cinder tracks were dominant in the midwest and east where weather would have caused issues with the clay tracks.

As to which was faster? No question the clay tracks were quicker than the cinder tracks.

I mostly ever ran on a red clay track, but I did get to run on an artificial surface a couple times.

Ok, I know I'm old but since you asked and I don't see a lot of experienced answers I'll say the little I know.

I liked red clay just fine but it has a couple drawbacks. I liked that they stayed quite plane and uniform with little expense that I was aware of. Occasionally someone had to drag the track (pulling a length of chain link) but you never saw teams of custodians working on it like they did non-stop on the football field. And you have to re-chalk the lanes often.

It drained well and dried fast. I THINK that it seemed to heal any little damage when rained but I never saw it damaged hardly because they were tough.

The downsides I observed were if you didn't have cleats, they were very slippery because of the layer of fine particles. (We were poor so I didn't get spikes for the first couple years.)

I never saw the mud someone mentioned. Ever. Maybe caused by poor track design?

Another big drawback was DON'T FALL!!! You could get a horrible road rash type burn/scrape with lots of clay particles that had to be cleaned out. (And the coach often said if you don't fall at the finish tape regularly, you're not trying hard enough.)

In spite of the drawbacks others mentioned I was still running under 2min in the half mile in about 1971. (Which I have come to know is not so uncommon now.)

Now the couple times I got to run on artificial surfaces, I LOVED them. It felt like my feet were being kissed. But I don't know faster or slower. It FELT slower because of the way your spikes dug in. They gripped great but the surface seemed to grip you back. I remember having to swap out our long spikes for the short. The artificial seemed to be reluctant to release your spikes while the clay crumbled a tiny bit with each step and released even the long spikes smoothly.

Sorry about not knowing the difference in times between the surface types. I just never paid attention to times. Just winning.

A couple poorer schools had asphalt tracks. (That is not modern asphalt based artificial surfaces. That's asphalt as in macadam, like the street in front of your house.). In addition to the obvious problems, running on that stuff gave you shin splints.

I can't give any more intelligent comparisons with other kinds of surfaces. Just no experience.

PS: Is that THE John McEnroe?

It is slower because they were less smooth.
When it rained, cinder tracks became muddy and slippery, similar to dirt tracks, but they could also develop puddles and become more challenging to run on due to the loose, granular surface getting washed away in places. This often made them slower and more difficult to navigate compared to dirt tracks.

Cinder tracks were more common in the 1960s than today. They provided a firmer, more consistent surface compared to dirt tracks, allowing for better traction and faster times. However, in rainy conditions, cinder tracks could become slick, while dirt tracks were more prone to muddiness and rutting. Overall, cinder tracks were generally preferred for competitive events due to their speed advantages.