If you do intervals on the road, how do you measure distance?

not always wrote:

GPS watch, sites like mapometer, measuring wheel/bike or something else? I've found mapometer can be 6% out which for 800m means +/- 50m. What's the most accurate?

Some cities, like Chicago, are mapped out on a grid. ChiTown is 8 city blocks per mile. I am sure this info is easily searchable on the Interwebs.

Country bumpkin...... wrote:

Angry Willy wrote:

Most of the rural US and probably even urban centers are laid out in a grid in 1 mile increments. (Marked and measured by real surveyors! Once I figured this out, I never worried about measuring my runs. Cross street to cross street >> 1 mile.

My gps says it's only .99 and .98 miles. I nave never wheeled it though

You have to start and finish in the middle of the intersection.

Typically I'm doing 1, 2 or 3 mile intervals on the road, so I just let the auto-lap handle the distance. After the recovery time I hit the lap button and go again. If I'm doing anything shorter I'll create a workout and load it on my Garmin. It will give a series of beeps when the start or end of an interval is coming up. You can also have it monitor your effort by providing a pace or heart rate range and it will beep at you when you stray from that range.

GMAP Pedometer is your friend if you want to measure out something on the road. GPS works just fine for anything north of 1200 meters though in my experience.

https://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

I Chose D2 wrote:

Country bumpkin...... wrote:

My gps says it's only .99 and .98 miles. I nave never wheeled it though

You have to start and finish in the middle of the intersection.

Then I would get hit by a car.

I have a 1 mile loop outside my house measured by my GPS /Garmin (measured over and over and always is the same start/stop), so at least it's consistent. The start /stop is a "Stop sign" that goes in a loop starting and stopping same place (the stop sign). So as long as that stop sign is there, I can base my progress on the same course. Whether it is .99 or 1.01, really does not matter I just run the same ~1mi loop ~ course is the same. You could do this with any distance really. Pick a start and stop and you can track progress on the same course.

You have a 1 mile LOOP and you think you need to start and stop at a specific sign for this LOOP to be consistent? Wouldn't it it still be a 1 mile LOOP if you started and stopped at say, a shrub just before the all powerful sign? Or a mailbox just past the infallible sign? It's a LOOP, bro. If I start and stop at the same spot on a track it's still 400m. There's nothing special about the start/finish line.

not always wrote:

GPS watch, sites like mapometer, measuring wheel/bike or something else? I've found mapometer can be 6% out which for 800m means +/- 50m. What's the most accurate?

I use a 25 foot Craftsman tape measure. It takes awhile, but it's really accurate dude!

It may surprise op to learn that training can be effective even if intervals are 989 meters or 1003.

I count trees. 2, 4, 5, etc.

MemeBot3000 wrote:

I count trees. 2, 4, 5, etc.

Reminds of a fun "fartlek" run I sometimes do, where I surge/stride from telephone pole to telephone pole. I.E surge/stride out to one telephone poke and take it easy to the next.

To the OP OG question, remember, you don't have to be perfect. At the end of the day if you do 750 or 850 meter reps as opposed to 800 meter reps right on the dot reps. All that matters is effort and time. So, let us assume one has a half marathon PR of 80 minutes. And they want to do mile reps at about threshold pace, which according to VDOT is about a 6 minute pace for a 80 minute half marathoner. This hypothetical runner could either do mile reps at 6 minute pace or do timed 6 minute intervals at threshold effort. At the end of the day it doesn't matter how you get the job done, just get the job done. As the saying goes there's more than one way to skin a cat. And if you end up running your reps a little bit slower due to how roads aren't perfectly flat, that's ok. It doesn't have to be perfect.

Andy Dufresne wrote:

I measured 200, 300, and 400 with a wheel. Everything else I do by time. Ex 6x3:30 hard/2:30 rest.

It's super convenient rolling out the front door and being able to do any workout I want.

Same here, I've got local routes of 400 and up and it really is convenient. Only because I measured them on mapometer and then found it can be 6% off, I asked the original question. A wheel looks the best solution.

Even allowing for the piss takers in the thread, I'm surprised how many people are relaxed about this. 6% doesn't mean a few seconds here and there, it means running at a completely different pace to what you intended. If you're hitting 800m intervals at I pace (vVO2max) but it turns out the course is 6% under, 750m, then you're running around your LT pace, so you're doing Daniels-style cruise intervals that are way too short with way too much rest. If it's 6% over, 850m, then you're running around your speed rep R pace. That would wreck a distance/pace based workout.

start here wrote:

GPS watch. It's close enough for road intervals. The difference between running :73 and :75 does not matter as much as you think it does.

If you want more accuracy, careful use of straight-line segments with a satellite view of the road can be slightly more accurate that a GPS watch.

None of those things are remotely accurate.

Andy Dufresne wrote:

I measured 200, 300, and 400 with a wheel.

Wheels are not accurate either.

All of this is totally false wrote:

start here wrote:

GPS watch. It's close enough for road intervals. The difference between running :73 and :75 does not matter as much as you think it does.

If you want more accuracy, careful use of straight-line segments with a satellite view of the road can be slightly more accurate that a GPS watch.

None of those things are remotely accurate.

All you guys are clowns!

I rented a total station and surveyed my loop. Accurate to +/- 5mm, but +/- 1m is good enough for a 1200m loop.

I use the loop for calibrating foot pods and doing aero testing on my bike.

Most people have zero idea how to verify if the data they collect is reasonable, let alone precise and accurate.

Sure, but if what they run in 6:00 is actually 1.06mi (1.7K) or 0.94mi (1.5K) then I'd guess that's different enough to change the nature of the workout and stimulus, i.e. it wouldn't do what they intended.

I know what threshold pace feels like but I don't think I could consistently run close enough to it on feel alone for the whole workout without straying too fast or slow (I'd probably go too fast).

In both cases you'd end up with something that wasn't a LT workout, or not a good one anyway - too fast and cut the workout short or too slow and underplay the stimulus. Which leads to another question...

Daniels and others talk about specific paces (+ distances + rests) to stimulate specific adaptations, mainly VO2max and LT. E.g. if you go slower than target pace on intervals 3-6 because you went too fast on 1-2, then you get the target stimulus from 1-2 and not from 3-6 so it's a wasted workout, at least in terms of the intended purpose.

He makes it sound binary but is it? If 100% of LT pace stimulates 100% of LT adapation, what does 99% of LT pace generate, or 95% or 90%? I'd guess the relationship is an S-curve. If it is, he ideally would have addressed that in his book. If it isn't, then "if you end up running your reps a little bit slower due to how roads aren't perfectly flat, that's ok" actually isn't ok.

I do my intervals on a slight uphill road route . Then for racing I have the advantage because I’m faster on flat land. FYI I’m a ranked Spartan elite.