The total number of competitors will vary from league to league, state to state, and level to level. There are two types of h.s. races, distance and sprinting. sprinting events run in lanes for most (if not all) of their race. distance events are not run in lanes, and race strategy becomes much more important. This is how we do it in Massachusetts: for a duel meet (a meet between two schools only; we have 10 schools in the league, so therefore, we have 9 duel meets in a season)- the number of runners from one school in each event are generally limited by the lane restrictions. So for sprinting, if there are say 6 lanes on the track, then you could fit 6 people in the race. divide that by the two teams that are facing each other, and you find that there can be 3 runners from each school running in the race. in a distance event, the entries are limited more for safety. clearly, 50 runners could not fit on a standard track in one race. in general, 12-15 competitors run in a distance event 800m+. Points are awarded for team scoring on a first, second, and third place basis. the first place runner's school recieves 5 points, 2nd-3 points, and 3rd-one point. at the end of the meet, these points are tallied up, and the team with the most points wins. for this reason, many meets have 'jv' races- races in which coaches may place their athletes to run when the do not expect them to run a time fast enough to score 1,2, or 3rd place. when a heat is made up of all 'jv' runners, it is beneficial for both the runners-as they get ~equal competition among all of them; and for the 'varsity' runners, who can then focus on their real competition. There are some bigger meets-Invitationals or state meets. a runner generally has to meet a qualifying standard to enter into a meet such as this. although the invitational itself has control over who enters, and the specific rules, usually runners from any league or level (h.s.) may run. the meet director may also limit the number of runners in each event, or from a school, or any number of variables.

In most highschool meets they will let you enter as many athletes as you want from your respective schools. Some meets, such as state championships meets, however will only let you enter 2 or 3 atheletes from one school in one race. The only circumstance that i have ever seen when no more than one person from a school can enter an event is when no more than one person has qualified to run in the event.