400 m

One lap of the track, run in lanes from start to finish with a staggered start. Nobody can sprint flat out for the whole distance, so the race is really about how much speed a runner can keep after 300 metres. Elite runners go through the first 200 within a few tenths of their best open 200 and then try to limit the slowdown on the final straight, where the difference between first and fourth is usually the size of the fade. Times are recorded to the hundredth. No wind reading is taken, since the lap faces every direction, so a 400-metre time is a 400-metre time whatever the weather.