Outdoor track and field

The outdoor track and field season begins in the spring and may last through the summer. Usually the tracks are an oval shape track of 400 meters. However, some old tracks are still measured in yards, so they measure 440 yards. The track consists of 6-10 lanes and, for the bigger tracks, a steeplechase lane with a water pit. This can be inside or outside the track, making for a tighter turn or a wider turn. Often schools will place a playingfield in the middle of the track, usually football/soccer/lacrosse, due to their size and shape. This inner field is usually known as the infield. Recently, some of these fields have been made out of AstroTurf or FieldTurf instead of grass.

Field events consist of the high jump, pole vault, long jump, triple jump and shot put. They also consist of the javelin, hammer and discus throws; however, often these are outside of the stadium because they take up a large amount of space and may damage grass fields. However, many tracks without a playing field in the middle use the infield for the throwing events.

Events

There are other variations besides the ones listed below, but races of unusual length (e.g. 300 m) are run much less often. The unusual races are typically held during indoor season because of the shorter 200m indoor track. With the exception of the mile run, races based on imperial distances are rarely run on the track anymore since most tracks have been converted from a quarter mile (402.3 m) to 400 meters; almost all recordkeeping for imperial distances has been discontinued. However, the IAAF record book still includes the mile world record (currently held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco for men and Svetlana Masterkova of Russia for women) because of its worldwide historic significance.

Men and women do not compete against each other. Women generally run the same distances as men although hurdles and steeplechase barriers are lower and the weights of the shot, discus, javelin and hammer are less.

• Track events - running events conducted on a 400 meter track.
  • Sprints: events up to and including 400 m. Common events are 60 m (indoors only), 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres.
  • Middle distance: events from 800m to 3000 m, especially 800 metres, 1500 metres, mile and 3000m. In the United States (especially high schools), distance events include 800 m, 1600 m (mile), and 3200 m (2 miles). (1 mile=1609.344 meters)
    • steeplechase - a race (usually 3000 m) in which runners must negotiate barriers and water jumps.
  • Long distance: runs over 5000 m. Common events are 5000 m and 10000 m. Less common are 6, 12, 24 hour races.
  • Hurdling: 110 m high hurdles (100 m for women) and 400 m intermediate hurdles (300 m in some high schools).
  • Relays: 4 x 100 metres relay, 4 x 400 metres relay, 4 x 200 m, 4 x 800 m, etc. Some events, such as medley relays, are rarely run except at large relay carnivals. Most American high schools run the 4x100 and 4x400, with the 4x400 being the finishing event to the meet.
• Road running: conducted on open roads, but often finishing on the track. Common events are half-marathon and marathon. The marathon is the only distance run in major international athletics championships such as the Olympics.
• Race walking: usually conducted on open roads. Common events are 10 km, 20 km and 50 km.
• Field events
  • Throwing events
    • Shot put
    • Hammer throw
    • Javelin throw
    • Discus throw
  • Jumping events
    • High jump
    • Standing high jump
    • Pole vault
    • Long jump
    • Standing long jump
    • Triple jump
    • Standing triple jump
• Combined or Multi events
  • Pentathlon
  • Heptathlon
  • Decathlon

Source: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_and_field