A competitive track, constructed with a sub-base of stone topped with two lifts of asphalt and covered by separate synthetic force-reduction and wear layers, must be sloped enough in cross-section to shed water, but flat enough in the runner's direction of travel that there is no 'downhill' competitive advantage for one runner over those in other lanes or those posting recorded times on entirely different tracks.

But this is no parking-lot paving project.

Here's where the rubber truly meets the road in terms of exacting specifications. Once the track has been designed to take into consideration curbs and lane widths, all of the various steps of track construction to which Eldridge alludes can begin. 'That's four feet of base, four feet of pavement and four feet of surfacing.' 'You're saving four feet in width - half a foot each lane - on an eight-lane track,' Eldridge says, adding that the 42-inch lane is also an economic consideration. While there is more land - and exponentially more tracks - in the United States than in Europe (where the IAAF makes its Monaco headquarters), space may be limited within the boundaries of an American high school campus, and narrower lanes make for a significantly smaller track footprint. One reason for the difference, according to Eldridge, is real estate. (All widths include the 5-centimeter lane line to the right of the runner, which is considered part of his or her lane.) Lane widths on collegiate and high school tracks are typically 42 inches, or roughly six inches narrower than those on an IAAF track, and high school track lanes can be as narrow as 36 inches, though such a specification is not recommended. Olympic lanes must be a minimum of 1.22 meters (and no greater than 1.25 meters) wide.

Where the second lane line is marked likewise varies. There are tracks built to not have a rail. It's determined that the path of travel is 30 centimeters from a rail. At the high-end levels, you run against a rail, and because of the psychological fear of hitting that rail and breaking an ankle, you're afraid to run that close to it. And if you step on the stripe, you may get disqualified, but you're not going to get hurt. Says Fisher, 'Somebody decided however many years ago that if you're running against a white stripe, you can run 20 centimeters from that stripe and not step on the stripe. If no curb is needed, as is the case at the high school level, the track can be built with an inner line 20 centimeters removed from the runner's circuit. If a track is to allow for such a curb (it can be removed when not in use), the track's inner lane line must be specified at 30 centimeters inside the aforementioned runner's 400-meter path. 'When you put a rail on the track, that changes all the math.' 'It forces the runner to stay in his lane so he can't cut the corners, so to speak,' says ASBA immediate past chair Sam Fisher, of Fisher Tracks in Boone, Iowa. Olympic and NCAA records can only be set on a track featuring this two-inch-tall curbing, which sits directly on top of the inner lane line. The level of competition determines, for example, if an aluminum rail separates a track's innermost lane from its infield. 'While it might only be a high school track, it's still probably quite a bit more exacting than typical sports construction.' 'One of the unique things that we face with track and field construction that makes it a little challenging is adherence to all of the different governing bodies, and then building it to those exacting standards,' says Kristoff Eldridge, track division president for the American Sports Builders Association and an ASBA Certified Track Builder. Few sports facility construction projects pull together as much expertise as that required of track building, whether it's a high school track or one worthy of a world record recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations. There are contracts involved, to be sure. This is the path of travel of the lane-one runner, and it is the first step toward the painstaking process of building a competitive track. Not the kind that stretches a short distance across the bottom of a contract, but one drawn to represent a closed circuit covering 400 meters.

Running track asphalt texture