# How TrackReels sources its numbers

> Every conversion factor and recruiting standard on TrackReels, where it was transcribed from, when it was last checked, and what the site refuses to guess.

Every factor and standard on this site is transcribed from a published source, cited where it is used, and dated. This page says exactly which sources, and where the site refuses to produce a number at all.

## The rule

An invented number on a recruiting page is worse than no number, because a 16-year-old will
plan around it. So where a governing body publishes a figure, this site transcribes it and cites
it. Where nobody publishes one, the site says nobody publishes one.

## Hand timing to FAT

Two conventions, both published, and they disagree. NFHS adds 0.24 seconds at every race
distance. Track & Field News and Athletic.net band the correction by distance and add
nothing at all at 800m and above. Both require the hand time to be rounded up to the next tenth
before the factor is applied, which is the step most quoted conversions get wrong. The
[converter](https://trackreels.io/convert/hand-time-to-fat) runs both so you can see the difference.

## Wind adjustment

From the peer-reviewed Moinat, Ruiz and Fuentes-Vega (2018) model, fitted on 150,169 elite
and sub-elite results, with the coefficients copied from the authors' own published calculator.
No federation adjusts a result for wind, so the output is for understanding what a mark is
worth, never for claiming a time you did not record.

## Indoor track conversions

The NCAA's own published flat, banked and undersized factors, transcribed from the
USTFCCCA chart and cited with its URL on the
[conversion page](https://trackreels.io/convert/flat-track-conversion). The site refuses to convert
toward an undersized track, because that direction is not published and inverting a published
factor is not the same as having one.

## Field mark rounding

World Athletics records a mark to the lesser centimeter and never rounds up. A calculator
rounding to the nearest value will hand you 6.25m where the results sheet says 6.24m, so the
converters here round the way the sport rounds.

## Recruiting standards

The division bands on the [standards pages](https://trackreels.io/standards) come from a published
recruiting service, cross-checked against a second one, and are dated on each page. They are
**not** published by the NCAA, and the pages say so. Programs and conferences vary
widely, so they orient you rather than rule you out.

## Age progression

The running-event projections use the World Masters Athletics age factors, transcribed and
cited on each page. Jumps, throws and hurdles have no published youth factors, so their curve is
TrackReels' own: the USATF championship meet record for each Junior Olympic age division, for the
U20 championships and for the open championships, each division record taken as a fraction of the
open record and interpolated between divisions. It is labeled as a TrackReels derivation wherever
it appears, the records and the implement changes are printed on each page, and it is not an
official standard of any body. The one adjustment the derivation makes, holding the curve flat
where a younger division's record beats an older one with the same equipment, is stated on the
page it applies to.

## What the site will not do

It will not publish an "average time by age": nobody publishes one, and every table claiming
to is either scraped from meet results, which only include athletes who competed, or invented.
It will not convert between distances where the ratio is the wrong model. It will not rank a
mark beyond the world record.

## How these pages are written

Articles on this site are drafted with AI assistance and then edited and fact-checked before
publishing; the data, factors and standards are transcribed by hand from the sources named
above. If you find an error, send it to
[support@trackreels.io](mailto:support@trackreels.io) and it will be corrected and
the change dated on the page.

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Canonical page: https://trackreels.io/methodology
Site guide for agents: https://trackreels.io/llms.txt