The TrackReels blog
Plain-English guides to marks, rules and recruiting, written for athletes and the people helping them.
Good Pole Vault Heights for High School and College
Boys pole vault: state qualifier 12 ft 6 to 14 ft 6, D1 4.50m to 5.40m. Girls: 9 ft to 11 ft, D1 3.70m to 4.30m. 2026 marks, middle school to NAIA.
Good Hurdle Times for High School: 110m, 100m, 300m
Boys 110m hurdles: state qualifier 14.43 to 15.86, D1 14.10 to 15.70. Girls 100m: 15.03 to 16.32, D1 13.50 to 14.10. Plus the 300m hurdles. 2026, FAT.
D1 Walk-On Track Times: 6 Programs' Published Standards
Walk-on standards published by Florida State, Iowa, Villanova, Fordham, Longwood and Eastern Illinois, event by event, and what the 45-athlete cap changed.
Cross Country Footing: Acorns, Burs, Wet Leaves
Cross country season overlaps the weeks oaks, hickories and beeches drop nuts. What lands on a course and when, why some years are worse, how to run it.
Pre-Med Track Athletes: When to Take the MCAT
Running college track as a pre-med: which 2027 MCAT dates miss your seasons, the 7.5 hour test day, attempt rules that bite athletes, what to ask coaches.
Good Mile Times by Age and Grade: Rate Your 1600m
Published 2026 qualifying 1600m and 1500m times from California, Oregon and Florida, the college ranges, mile versus 1600 versus 1500, and hand timing.
Good 800m Times by Age and Grade: Rate Your Time
Published 2026 qualifying 800m times from California, Oregon and Missouri, a middle school standard, the college ranges, why splits matter and hand timing.
Good 200m Times by Age and Grade: Rate Your Time
Published 2026 qualifying 200m times from California, Oregon and Missouri, the college recruiting ranges, the bend, the wind rule and the hand-time catch.
Hurdle Heights and Spacing: Youth, HS, NCAA, WA
Every hurdle height, spacing, run-in and hurdle count for the 80m to 400m hurdles by level, transcribed from World Athletics, NFHS, NCAA and USATF rules.
Long Jump and Triple Jump: Meters to Feet Chart
6.50 m is 21' 3.75" and 21' 4" is 6.50 m. Long jump and triple jump conversion charts that round the way NFHS, NCAA and World Athletics rules require.
High Jump and Pole Vault: Meters to Feet Chart
6' 0" is 1.83 m and 16' 0" is 4.88 m. High jump and pole vault bar heights in feet-inches and meters, and why a bar set in inches is 3 mm off the metric.
Shot Put, Discus, Javelin: Meters to Feet Chart
50.00 m is 164' 0" and 131' is 39.92 m. Shot put, discus and javelin charts rounded the way NFHS and World Athletics require, plus shot weights by level.
NCAA Altitude Conversions End in 2026-27
The NCAA voted in June 2026 to end altitude and indoor track-size conversions for championship qualifying from 2026-27. What the report says, what changes.
There Is No Cross Country Recruiting Standard
Every 5K cross country recruiting table online falls apart on inspection. What college coaches actually recruit distance runners off instead.
Indoor Track Sizes: Banked, Flat and Oversize
A standard indoor track is 200m, but banked, flat and oversize tracks run at different speeds. The NCAA converts between them with published factors.
Is 11.5 a Good 100m Time? Rate Yours by Level
For a girl 11.5 is inside the D1 recruiting range. For a boy it is not a recruiting mark. Hand-timed, it is really an 11.74. The full ladder, D1 to NAIA.
Good 100m Times by Age and Grade: Rate Your Time
Boys 100m: varsity 11.04 to 11.54, state 10.77 to 11.56, D1 10.30 to 10.80. Girls: varsity 12.84 to 13.24, D1 11.40 to 12.00. Published 2026 marks, FAT.
Good 400m Times by Level: Rate Your Time
Boys 400m: varsity 51.54 to 53.14, state 49.17 to 52.50, D1 46.10 to 49.00. Girls: state 57.23 to 1:02.82, D1 52.20 to 57.00. Published 2026 times, FAT.
Good Long Jump Distances: Rate Your Mark by Level
Boys long jump: state qualifier 6.05m to 6.65m, D1 6.80m to 7.70m. Girls: state 4.67m to 5.45m, D1 5.60m to 6.50m. 22 feet is 6.71m. Published 2026 marks.
Good Shot Put Distances: Rate Your Mark by Level
Boys shot put (12 lb): state 12.95m to 15.78m, D1 16.00m to 20.20m (16 lb). Girls (4 kg): state 9.67m to 11.79m, D1 13.00m to 17.00m. Published 2026 marks.
How to Get Faster in the 100m
The parts of a sprint that actually respond to work, in the order they pay off, and the honest limits of anything you read online.
How to Improve Your 400m Time
Why the 400 punishes pacing errors more than fitness, how to read your own split, and what a realistic in-season improvement looks like.
How to Get Recruited for Track and Field
The actual sequence, from working out your realistic division to what to send a coach and when they are allowed to reply.
MileSplit vs Athletic.net: Which Is Better?
Both paywall their rankings. What each covers, what a subscription buys, which one your state uses, and the free option that ranks every legal mark.
How to Film Track and Field: Every Event
Where to stand and what to shoot for sprints, hurdles, distance, jumps and throws, so the footage is actually usable for recruiting.
How Long Should a Track Highlight Video Be?
The team-sport answer is wrong for track. Why full races beat montages, how much footage each event needs, and what coaches skip.
NCAA Track Recruiting Calendar 2026-27
Every contact and dead period for Division I cross country and track this cycle, taken straight from the NCAA calendar updated July 30, 2026.
MileSplit Alternatives for Track Athletes
What MileSplit puts behind its paywall, the free and paid alternatives for results, rankings and video, and the one that ranks every legal mark for free.
Getting Recruited as an Unattached Athlete
What unattached means in track, whether those marks count for recruiting, and how to get them in front of coaches when no team uploads them.
When Can Coaches Contact You? By Class Year
For D1 track the line is June 15 after sophomore year: for the class of 2029, June 15, 2027. What each class can do now, and two moves legal at any age.
Track Meet Abbreviations: NM, SB, PR, DQ, NT
Every code on an athletics or track results sheet decoded: PR, SB, MR, CR, NR, AR, WR, NM, NH, DNF, DNS, DQ, FS, SCR, NT, NWI, the w flag and q versus Q.
What Is a PR in Track? PR vs PB vs SB
Which marks count as a PR: wind-aided, hand-timed, indoor, the mile versus the 1600m, practice time trials, in one table, plus what coaches accept as real.
Seed Time Rules: NT, Heats, Lanes and Faking It
A seed time decides your heat and lane. What to enter when you have no time, what NT does to your draw, and why inflating a seed backfires at check-in.
Hand Time vs FAT: Why a Stopwatch Reads Fast
What fully automatic timing is, the exact conversion coaches apply to a hand time, and why a stopwatch PR does not travel.
Recruiting Standards: the Three Real Sources
Why the recruiting standards you find online are usually wrong, and the three places to look up what your event really needs.
Which track event should you actually run?
An honest guide to picking an event: what each one really demands, why the 400m breaks people, and which events are quietly desperate for athletes.
Track Scholarships and the New Roster Limits
The 12.6 and 18 scholarship numbers everyone quotes stopped being the rule in 2025. Here is what replaced them, and what it means for your recruiting.
How to Email a College Track Coach
The rules on who can contact whom differ by division and changed recently. Here is what to send, when, and why coaches may already know your times.
Indoor vs Outdoor Track: The Real Differences
An indoor track is 200m with tighter turns, so the same athlete runs a slower 200m indoors. Events by season, plus the NCAA flat-to-banked factors.
Wind-Legal, Wind-Aided and NWI: What Counts
Enter your time and wind reading to see the still-air mark and whether it counts for rankings, then the +2.0 rule, the events it covers and what NWI means.
What Track Coaches Want in a Highlight Video
Coaches watch film differently from football recruiters. What to film, what to cut, and the mistakes that get a video closed in ten seconds.
Track Recruiting Timeline: Year by Year
When coaches can contact you, when they actually start looking, and what to do in each year of high school if you want to compete in college.