Although most, if not all states in the US now use meters for measuring
running events, it should be pointed out that when this happened for high
school events, it was some time AFTER colleges had converted. The
international standard for the middle distance event is 1500 m, and this
distance is used in the Olympics, in international meets, and in college
meets. High schools, however, in order to either preserve the sense that
the "mile" was still being run, or to make their old "mile" records still
meaningful, or to achieve starts and finishes at the same place on the
track, decided to have a 1600 m event instead. So the 1600 is sort of a
bastard event as far as I am concerned, and it leads lots of old timers to
still think and say "mile". It sort of makes sense, since the other
running events in shorter races are 100, 200, 400, and 800 m. I think in
speed skating on ice they use 500 m as the short event as well as 1500 m.
For longer events, colleges also use 5000 m, but high schools, at least in
Calif., use a "double mile" or 3200 m. One reason, maybe good, for this is
to shorten the time of track meets, as it takes a long time to run these
distance events in separate flights for girls and boys.
HARRY WYETH
