How long is a lap in lane 8?

Most running tracks are exactly the same size, thanks to their adherence to the IAAF Technical Specifications. That means that, as a general rule, you can assume that a trip around the track in Lane 1 is 400 meters, or about ¼ mile.

But if you’re at the local track doing a workout, you probably shouldn’t be in Lane 1, so how long are your laps in the outer lanes? This table will tell you, or you can use the track lane distance calculator further down the page.

Or, if you have a specific pace that you’re trying to hit, try the track lane pace calculator. It’ll tell you how long each lap needs to be in order to maintain your pace in your selected lane.

Track Distances by Lane

Track Lane Distance Calculator

Which lane were you running in?

How many laps?

Optional: How long did it take?

The Math

Think back to your high school geometry days and you’ll recall that the circumference of a circle is equal to 2πr (that’s 2 times approximately 3.14 times the radius of the circle). A track is basically just a circle chopped in half with two straightaways connecting the halves, so to calculate the total distance, we use 2πr+2s with s being the straightaway length.

Those straightaways, according to IAAF specifications, are 84.39 meters long and the radius of the inside line of Lane 1 is 36.5 meters. Do the math and that gets you to… 398.12 meters.

Wait! Isn’t it a 400-meter track? Good catch. It is, but they add in an extra 0.3 meters to account for the width of the runner’s body. So, instead of using 36.5 meters as the radius for Lane 1, we use 36.8, and that gets us exactly to 400 meters.

Each lane is 1.22 meters wide, so you can take that same equation and apply it to any of the lanes’ curve radius to get your lap distance. A lap around Lane 4 ends up being 23 meters longer than a trip in Lane 1, and a lap around Lane 8 ends up being almost 54 meters longer. Again, to see all the lanes’ distances, check out the table.

Track Lane Pace Calculator

Which lane are you running in?

What pace per mile are you trying to hit?

How Many Laps Around the Track Is a Mile?

Short answer: About 4 laps. Longer answer: It depends which lane you’re running in. Because the track’s distance varies by lane (see table above), the number of laps you’d need to run to get to exactly a mile vary by lane too. Here’s another table showing exactly how many laps you’d need to run a mile in each lane:

A Note on Track Lane Etiquette

Chances are, your local running track has a sign saying not to do workouts in Lane 1. But even if it doesn’t, you should keep your workouts to Lanes 2–8, leaving the first lane in as good of condition as possible for track meets.

And if you’re walking, stick to one of the far outside lanes. If faster folks generally stick to the inside and slower to the outside, there’s less confusion and less chance for an on-track collision.

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 4:40am EST

  How far is one lap on an outdoor 400m track in lane 8. I do alot of my training in lane 8 so I'm wondering how far it is ? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 4:52am EST

  If I've got this right, you need to measure the lane width on your track and then multiply that figure by (2x Pi) or (2x 3.14)

  If your lanes are four feet wide, for example, the added distance per lane (from the start line, obviously, not the stagger) would be 4x6.28: about 25 feet, give or take and inch.

  So...running in lane 8 from the starting ling would be about 200 feet longer than running in lane 1 from the starting line.

  Again, I think I've got this right, but some of the egg-heads on the board might have noticed something wrong.

  Martin

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 5:05am EST

  Good thinking, if only tracks were round...

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 5:15am EST

  Here's my attempt:

  The track consists of two shapes, straightaways and turns. I'm assuming the turns are arcs of a circle. The straightaways are 100m for every lane, so that's 200m. The turns are 100m on lane 1. I think the two-turn stagger in lane 2 is 10m ahead of the starting line on a standard track, so lane 2 is five meters longer on each turn than is lane 1. C = 2(pi)r, so circumference changes linearly with r, that is, by a constant for each constant increase in r. Now I've shown that if r changes by the width of one lane, C increases by 5m (since we're talking about one turn here.) If you take this out to lane 8, that's seven lane widths, so C increases by 35m for the turn. Since you have two turns, that's 70m more than lane one, for 270m on the turns.

  Therefore, the length of lane eight is 470m.

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 5:23am EST

  take a wheel and measure in lane 8 from the start line to the stagger line. you can run a wheel on a "turn" and not lose much at all (as opposed to a sstraight measuring tape). i mean, every track official should know this distance, andi'm sure it's in every officials' handbook and at USATF somewhere.

  and if 470 is the case,then you can go BACK 70 meters from the start line and get your 400m split, thus doing quarters in lane 8 - no problem. now, any longer distance, you've got a lot of work ahead of you!

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 5:32am EST

  this isn't all that hard to figure out. how long is the stagger that 400m runners get when they are in lane 8? i've never run a 400m before but the 470m seems to be about right.

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 5:33am EST

  "tale of the tape" has it right, and the easiest. Simply measure the distance back from the stagger point to the finish line, and add that measurement to 400 meters, and "voila" (that's french for there you have it).

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 5:40am EST

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 5:53am EST

  Exactly right. About 446.5 meters in lane 8.

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 6:11am EST

  so everyone is sure its 446 and not 470 now ... ?

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 6:30am EST

  As long as the track goes around a full 360 degrees (where is the degree key on the keyboard) the fact that it's not a circle is not important -- the same calculations apply.

  An average oval track is a circle that's cut in half along the middle (the end bits around a track are circular) with added stretches of equal length on either side.

  Thus, the shape of the track is irrelevant -- it just has to go a full 360 degrees.

  You're not counting the distance on the straights anway - they're the same whether you're in lane 1 or lane 8: the only thing that matters is the bends - and they are circular!

  Martin

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 6:35am EST

  Pie in the eye wrote:

  Good thinking, if only tracks were round...

  As long as the the turns are circular then the formula is correct: 2Pi* lane width*(lane number-1)

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 7:20am EST

  The stagger between lanes is about 6 meters, not 10 meters. What you might be thinking of is the make up distance for the measured mile. 4 laps on a metric track is about 10 meters short of a mile.

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 7:30am EST

  hmmmmm wrote:

  The stagger between lanes is about 6 meters, not 10 meters. What you might be thinking of is the make up distance for the measured mile. 4 laps on a metric track is about 10 meters short of a mile.

  All right, I thought the two-turn stagger (400m start lines, not 4x400m) was ten meters, but I might have been wrong about that. If you're right, then it gets three meters longer per turn each lane you go out from lane one, so the turns on lane eight are 21m longer than those on lane one, making one lap of lane eight 442m, which is pretty close to what some people here have been saying.

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 7:32am EST

  Phil. wrote:

  Pie in the eye wrote:

  Good thinking, if only tracks were round...

  As long as the the turns are circular then the formula is correct: 2Pi* lane width*(lane number-1)

  Actually, the turns don't even have to be circular for the formula to apply. As long as you turn left 360 degrees more than you turn right, the formula will apply. If your local road race was run in lanes you could use the same formula to figure out the stagger as long as the course was a single loop.

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 8:16am EST

  Anyone read "The Life of Pi?" I hear it's good

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 8:39am EST

  The shape of the track does in fact matter - you are assuming that the length of the turn and the straight away in lane one are the same but this is not true on a lot of tracks. If the track has long turns and short straights then the outer lanes will be longer than the outer lanes in a track that has equal straight/turns. You pretty much have to check out the stagger for your particular track...

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 10:18am EST

  Anybody see the movie Pi? It is pretty good.

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 10:43am EST

  malmo, where are you!

  you know EVERYTHING! (i'm in middle school w/pimples and think alan weebb invented the mile run)

• 19 years ago 11/01/2003 11:41am EST

  It doesn't matter how long the straights and turns are. It doesn't matter if your track is oval-shaped, or triangular-shaped, or an octogon, as long as the turns are rounded. The reason is that the circumference formula

  circumference = 2*PI*r

  is true for any arclength.

  arclength = (angle in radians)*r

  The difference in the radius between lane 1 and lane 2 is the width of the lane regardless of how sharp the turn. So the difference in the arclength between lane 1 and 2 is

  arclength difference =(angle in radians)*(width of the lane)

  The difference in the length you travel between lanes 1 and 2 depends only on the angle that you're turning through and the width of the lane. It doesn't matter if you turn with a constant radius (a circle), or turn with a constantly changing radius. If you end up turning 360 degrees, or 2*PI radians, the difference between lane 1 and 2 is

  2*PI*(width of lane)

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