What running group says, "let's run 4:25 pace to warm up and then run some 3:38s and then cut down to 3:03 during our 17km tempo"?
If I run a 90 second lap, that is 6:00 mile pace. Or, doing it your way (which nobody has ever done), it is also 90 x 2.5 = 225 seconds per Km, whatever that is.
To your first question, any European team would say that, although 17km probably isn’t a very common tempo run distance and we usually round up or down to the nearest 5seconds. Sounds like you’re just trying to convert a workout in the imperial system to a metric workout.
If I run a 90sec lap, I run a 90 second lap. I don’t say I’ll run a one lap at 3:45min/km pace. Converting min/km pace to 400m pace is pretty straightforward btw. Most people know at least a couple of conversions by heart. For example 3:00 is 72, 3:20 is 80, etc. From there you can get to other paces very quickly. Every 5sec/km is 2 seconds per lap.
Sure, it’s easier to multiply 90 by 4 to get to 6:00, which isn’t even the exact mile pace. However, 87 x 4 still takes most people some time. Plus, people generally don’t calculate that direction anyway. They plan to do 1600m @ 5:25 and then need to convert that to a pace per lap. That’s not necessarily easier than converting 1000m @ 3:25 to 82 sec laps.
I used to live in the US and people would talk about their first mile split of a 5k. It made sense for them because they knew what a certain min/mile pace felt like, but it’s a pretty crappy split if you’re trying to predict your final time.
I did notice that using the imperial system vs the metric system changed the training a bit. In the US, people do a lot more mile repeats. In Europe kilometer repeats are more common. A 15km run is also more common than a 10mile run in Europe. Other than the 3 and 6 mile run, most of the imperial alternatives to a metric distance are a bit longer. Not sure if that has any training impact.
What running group says, "let's run 4:25 pace to warm up and then run some 3:38s and then cut down to 3:03 during our 17km tempo"?
If I run a 90 second lap, that is 6:00 mile pace. Or, doing it your way (which nobody has ever done), it is also 90 x 2.5 = 225 seconds per Km, whatever that is.
To your first question, any European team would say that, although 17km probably isn’t a very common tempo run distance and we usually round up or down to the nearest 5seconds. Sounds like you’re just trying to convert a workout in the imperial system to a metric workout.
If I run a 90sec lap, I run a 90 second lap. I don’t say I’ll run a one lap at 3:45min/km pace. Converting min/km pace to 400m pace is pretty straightforward btw. Most people know at least a couple of conversions by heart. For example 3:00 is 72, 3:20 is 80, etc. From there you can get to other paces very quickly. Every 5sec/km is 2 seconds per lap.
Sure, it’s easier to multiply 90 by 4 to get to 6:00, which isn’t even the exact mile pace. However, 87 x 4 still takes most people some time. Plus, people generally don’t calculate that direction anyway. They plan to do 1600m @ 5:25 and then need to convert that to a pace per lap. That’s not necessarily easier than converting 1000m @ 3:25 to 82 sec laps.
I used to live in the US and people would talk about their first mile split of a 5k. It made sense for them because they knew what a certain min/mile pace felt like, but it’s a pretty crappy split if you’re trying to predict your final time.
I did notice that using the imperial system vs the metric system changed the training a bit. In the US, people do a lot more mile repeats. In Europe kilometer repeats are more common. A 15km run is also more common than a 10mile run in Europe. Other than the 3 and 6 mile run, most of the imperial alternatives to a metric distance are a bit longer. Not sure if that has any training impact.
You are spot on for Europe. If you grew up in Europe, then Ks makes sense.
I totally messed up and thought this thread was about America. That is my mistake.
It really depends on where and what you're running. I, for one, run marathons in the US. We typically use min/mile for pace and miles for distance. All of the like runners I know use the same.
I once tried really hard to be cool and switched my watch and running log to metric. Even after several months I was always mentally converting pace and distance back to miles during and after runs, so I eventually gave up.
Not everyone can be cool.
This post was edited 48 seconds after it was posted.
95% of the world don't even know what 'miles' are. Why do you Yanks want to stick with that relic of British colonialism. Get with the metric system already
We won the right to use the "British" units when we whipped the Brits in the late 18th century. They are American Units now.
What running group says, "let's run 4:25 pace to warm up and then run some 3:38s and then cut down to 3:03 during our 17km tempo"?
Nobody in any American running group that I have ever run with in high school, college, club, masters, or with friends has used minutes per Km as our pace measurement.
First, not every runner belongs to a running group. Many of us train alone. I have never been a part of any running group, although I have many friends in my local running community.
Second, not every runner in America was born and raised in the US. I grew up in a country where the running distance has always been measured in metric. So I measure the running pace in min/km, and record the total distance in km.
By suggesting I am not a "real American" like yourself, you have othered all Americans who were born and brought up in other countries.
Kms are for people who want their Strava runs and stats to look greater than they are.
Well, if mileage looks higher then by the same token paces look faster when you use KM.
I am Canadian, where most everything is metric, including the fact that we have km markers and not miles on race courses. (Although in the 90s/00s some marathons/HMs still had mile markers and not KM!)
When I started running in the early 00s, I'd say about 95% of my knowledge was from American books and message boards, most of which used miles and MPW, not KM.
However, increasing most good training talk (even on US message boards like this) is in KM. It could be that the Europeans seem to be innovating and sharing more (e.g. Ingebrigtsens, Canova).
So it has been very easy to switch to KM. The only exception would be final preparations for a US marathon, when I switch my Garmin to miles and plan my race pace in minutes per mile. (Since US races hilariously still use mile markers, with KM only every 5k or not at all.)
What running group says, "let's run 4:25 pace to warm up and then run some 3:38s and then cut down to 3:03 during our 17km tempo"?
This is just a bad take. The same point works both ways!
What running group says, "let's run 7:06 pace, then some 5:51s, then cut down to 4:54s during our 10.5-mile tempo"?
If anything, per-km pace maps logically with round numbers onto actual common race distances of 5k/10k. (When was the last time you raced a six-miler aka 9.6km?😆)
I set my watch to metric when I'm out of shape and don't want to feel bad about how slow I am. All my mental pacing is in min/mile (or occasionally seconds per lap if I'm doing track stuff)
I’d like if my watch displayed km/min and mile/min paces while I run. Reasoning: I like the mile pace for half marathon/marathon training and km pacing for 15km-1500m stuff.
In the last couple of years I have run race distances of 5K, 5 miles, 10 miles, half marathon and full marathon. I set the pace to km for 5K’s because it is easier to do the math and project my finishing time by using KM. For the 5 mile and 10 mile races using mile pace is easier to project a finishing time. For the marathon and half marathon, neither option is easier (than the other) to do the projection, so I use miles because that is more common in the US and that is what is marked on the course.
Well, I thought about it for a second and if I were racing on the track I would say, "I am planning on running 70s until the last lap..." I think we always used laps (in seconds) as our pace for the track races we did.
For ALL other races, 5kms to cross country to the Marathon we measured our pace in minutes per mile. After a race, every "results page" gives you your pace that way as well. We are literally in America where nobody normal uses km for anything when talking to other Americans.
You can do it how you want, but it is absurd to act like people generally know minutes/Km and use that (without converting it back to miles).
