BEREA, Ohio - Anyone watching track and field sees athletes who lace up the spikes, stretch, and take off. Practice and training shaves tenths of seconds off times. But at Baldwin Wallace University, a new track aims to give an added edge to competitive runners.

A lot of science, dedicated research, a keen understanding of physiology and a tree indigenous to the rainforest have contributed to the quarter-mile track at George Finnie Stadium.

We're a far cry from the days when runners traversed grass, dirt, cinder and asphalt surfaces in competition.

Synthetic material began to be developed in the 1950s and '60s, which makes Roger Bannister's 1954 vanguard achievement of becoming the first person to break the 4-minute mile all that impressive.

Some surfaces used to be poured to form a track, buckets of "goop" squeegeed out, said Joe Eby, who coaches B-W's men's and women's teams. It yielded an imperfect, uneven oval.

Technological advancements have resulted in surfaces like the Mondo Super X 720. It sounds like a video game, but it's a state-of-the-art-track.

"We're the only (college) track in the state of Ohio to have a Mondo surface," Eby said. "This is like the Cadillac of track surfaces."

The biggest challenge for Eby is the litany of coronavirus restrictions the Ohio Athletic Conference and other conferences are facing. So the school of just more than 3,000 students has a pristine track with no formal competitions scheduled.

The latex-based track is about half an inch thick and laid over the school's previous track, which was installed in 2008 and lies atop asphalt and a French drain. Workers in May began the installation process, laying it down from 49-foot rolls and assembling it with glue between seams. It took about a week or two, Eby said, and another week to paint the lines.

Mondo Super X 720 has a hexagon shape designed for "the way people move," said Phil Rickaby, regional sales manager for Kiefer USA, which distributes the line of tracks.

But as Eby strode on the surface recently, he sees a simple yet important necessity: "These tracks are built for competition."

Eby - who grew up in Silver Lake and went to Walsh Jesuit High School and ran for the University of Mount Union - has been coaching at Baldwin Wallace since 2015. He knows about competition. In 2016, the B-W women were national indoor champs and runner-up outdoors.

"This was always one of my favorite places to run," he said. "I've run multiple PRs (personal best times) at this facility on this surface. It's always been known as the fastest track in the area."

But behind the speed is a lot of science.

Baldwin Wallace University track coach Joe Eby checks out the new Mondo track.

It's a "dual durometer" surface, meaning it's a two-layered product. The top layer serves primarily for durability, energy return and traction. The bottom strip is a performance layer for shock absorption and energy return.

The track holds a "three-dimensional component of the way people move," said Rickaby, who competed for and coached at Kent State.

Down a straightaway, runners need that "forward and backward horizontal-type movement."

When taking off in a jumping event - like hurdles and pole vault, for instance - "you want that vertical energy return and also that shock absorption as you take off the ground and when you hit back down."

Then there are curves in the 400 or 800 meters, distance events and high jump. "You want that energy return," Rickaby said.

It all comes from the track's hexagon shape that allows for consistent energy return - athlete to athlete, lane to lane, event to event.

Rickaby puts the science into layman's terms:

"If you imagine a bow string, when energy is stored in a particular product, that energy return is very important to an athlete. If you have a track that is too soft - consider sand. It's a good shock absorber, but it has no energy return. You want to have a very fine balance of having a product that stores that energy with the force that an athlete applies to the ground but is able to return that energy without that energy disbursing through that surface."

Mondo, an Italian company, has had years to study tracks. The company has been around for about 70 years, starting with toy and bike-tire production, Rickaby said.

Its first Olympic track was for the 1976 Games in Montreal, and recently the company finished work for the 2020/2021 Games slated for Tokyo. To date, Mondo has installed tracks in 170 countries, with dozens throughout the United States, as well as flooring for recreation centers, weight rooms and multi-purpose gyms.

And it all starts with a tree.

All the product is extracted from the Hevea tree, much like latex is, he said. So its a latex-based product from a rubber tree where they take the product from the tree and then they harvest the raw material and turn it into a running track. Its a product of nature.

The sustainable effort is like tapping a tree for maple syrup. Bark is cut, latex is extracted. That liquid will harden and undergo vulcanization. The resulting surface is anti-bacterial and anti-microbial, decreasing staph infections, Rickaby said.

Surfaces have come a long way since Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile on May 6, 1954. AP

The physiology of the foot is the basis for much of the research.

"As the athlete hits the ground, they don't hit flat-footed; they actually roll from the first out to the fifth metatarsal. As the pressure is put onto the foot, it moves effectively from one toe out to the next toe. The track allows the energy to be stored, and as the pressure is applied and then released that energy also is released back to the foot as it lifts off the track."

The metatarsal bones are one to five, middle joints numbered from big toe on out.

The track minimizes contact time, allowing more energy to be returned. It helps reduce injuries because the track allows athletes to apply less force to take another step, Rickaby said.

Over time, those steps add up. The track's lifespan ranges with use. Some of the Mondo tracks in indoor facilities have lasted 29 years, Rickaby said. Outdoor surfaces can go about 15 years, and the tracks come in multiple colors.

Prices are based on square footage, from half a million dollars on up. B-W's was paid for mostly through donors, Eby said. Indoor hydraulic systems, creating banked curves resembling a NASCAR track for athletes to stay within the curve, "can run upwards of $3 million," Rickaby said.

This is B-W's third iteration of a Mondo track, and its newness compares to the football field turf, which is a year old.

All the technology can improve performance, but it cannot conquer coronavirus and its ever-changing restrictions. For now, the OAC has postponed all sports until Jan. 1, 2021, Eby said.

I feel so bad for the kids, he said. We had our spring season taken away, and all summer theyve been training and training and training, and now fall season is taken away. So a lot of them are Whats the point? Eventually were going to get back to it. Its hard to just train with no light at the end of the tunnel.

When they do get back, having a high-tech track can lead to a "wow factor" for recruiting, Eby said.

"We've got a brand new facility at this point," he said. "I'm glad we got it in when we did."

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