That's a pretty interesting article. Unfortunately, here in
California--and I think in other US states as well, high school sports
officials many years ago decided that they weren't going to follow the
international standard of 1500 m, but would instead have the old mile
race now be a 1600 m one. This, I suppose, so that it would be an even
4 laps of a 400 m track and also so the old and new school records for
the race would be about the same. Unfortunately, another result is that
lots of coaches and athletes still refer to it as a "mile race".
And, of course, when runners go on to college, they face a 1500 m event.
HARRY WYETH
Jeremiah MacGregor wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8139994.stm
You might find this article of interest. It seems that due to the
metric system taking over in running sports, the mile is disappearing
and no new records are being attempted.
Jerry
