Did old runners lie about the training mileage? (Pre-GPS)

wineturtle wrote:

everyone lies

Oh, ye of little faith. (Matthew 6:30)

Back when I was in HS if I was running road races out of season I never told the truth about milage if kids from other schools asked how my training was going. I'd always tell them not very good and would tell them I was running 1/3-1/2 of my actual miles.

The games people play.

I also think guys exaggerate the other way around. Because of my job I only have the opportunity to run 10 miles per week says the local 5K winner. (The guy looks to have 2.5% body fat~~~)

You cannot always believe what people say.

In fact one of the runners I coached told me he did not run all winter. Then he ran some good times that spring and he admits that he did not count any of his 2 mile morning runs.

There was a softball player at my high school that said she ran 10 miles in 45 minutes every day. I asked her where and she ran in on country roads (all were 1 mile x 1 mile squares), but she thought they were 2-3 miles each road. As a matter of fact, she still believes this.

Another time, the volleyball team ran our 5k XC course, which is 3 loops of ~1 mile. They thought they ran 3.1 miles x 3, so 9+ miles.

I saw a funny shirt an older runner had. It said, "The older I am the faster I used to run"

Here is how we measured runs at my high school in 1976-1979 (North Hills, Pittsburgh, PA)

I bought USGS too maps and used something like this little wheel thing.

https://www.draftingsteals.com/20625.html?cmp=googleproducts&kw=20625&gclid=CjwKCAiAnabTBRA6EiwAemvBdwJt9ailBnzhJCCIPqYEcUt9KZ0NYxRfc0qQTsMBLl3vMO6QbpPqIhoCuaMQAvD_BwE

Out team had a variety of routes and I measured them out. e.g. we have 5 different 5 mile routes, five 8 mile routes, five 10 mile route, five 12 mile routes etc.

they each had names "Brandts", "Bellevue"," Reis Run" etc.

It would be interesting to compare to GPS estimates. I bet they are comparable. GPS is not perfectly accurate, try running around a 400m oval and you will get less than 400m because the curves are cut by GPS into octagons etc.

Some of us ran up to 100 miles/week, no BS.

I tried, but my girlfriend would go into my log, white out my entry and enter what she thought we'd actually run. My 8 mile runs were quickly changed to 7 mile runs.

I tried to convince her that running was 90% psychological, so by over-estimating my mileage I was gaining a mental edge. She wasn't buying it. My mileage increased dramatically when we broke up.

Yet all our tracks we ran around were 440 yds, not those tiny little 400m tracks they use now.

No reason to lie. No one saw my paper log when I kept one except for me. No one would care except for me, and I barely cared because I sometimes didn't bother to log my miles back then.

I'd measure with a well calibrated bike odometer, but not whole runs. I'd memorize locations of 1, 2, 3, 4... mile (un)markers from home on different routes. I'd also know the distances to the trailheads that I'd frequently use. If I did a loop, I would add up the know miles on the way out and back, and calculate the in-between/non measured places based on pace if the pace was reasonably consistent. If the in-between miles were on trails, I'd use trail maps.

For trails and hills, where the pace would go out the window, I would always be collecting trail maps for new places. These usually show distances between intersections, that you can then add up. For routine runs, I obviously didn't have to add them each time.

Some paper road maps would also often have distances between intersections/tick marks on them that you can add up.

Add:

I never used the string trick measuring from a paper map. I found it easier to just use a ruler, pivoting the ruler carefully around corners and bends. If it was 4.6 cm to a corner, make sure that same corner is still at 4.6 cm after pivoting the ruler.

Another old runner here. I measured the routes by car. Thing to keep in mind is that I only had 7 or so routes I consistently ran from my house ( 3, 5, 6, 7 3/4, 10, 10 and 18). After gps the only one really off was the 18 which was really 16 3/4 . The 6 was a bit off (5.7) everything else was on.

Now with gps you can run any which way and have a measurement .

I grew up in a rural area and like many rural places, roads were laid out in a 1 mile grid. Crossroad to crossroad or stop sign to stop sign was 1 mile. 4 miles around a square. It was very easy to keep track of mileage.

Angry Willy wrote:

I grew up in a rural area and like many rural places, roads were laid out in a 1 mile grid. Crossroad to crossroad or stop sign to stop sign was 1 mile. 4 miles around a square. It was very easy to keep track of mileage.

It's that way for many cities too, including where I live in AK. But I rarely do those loops because I have better trails to run.

zzzz wrote:

Angry Willy wrote:

I grew up in a rural area and like many rural places, roads were laid out in a 1 mile grid. Crossroad to crossroad or stop sign to stop sign was 1 mile. 4 miles around a square. It was very easy to keep track of mileage.

It's that way for many cities too, including where I live in AK. But I rarely do those loops because I have better trails to run.

In the old days I had a number of set routes which had been measured in various ways such as by car or a bike. Since using a GPS when the first garmin came out one of the great benefits has been an inclination to explore and still have a reasonably accurate distance (no GPS is perfectly accurate).

You can also skip the watch and just map the run when you get home.

When I first started running at 14, I measured with a county map. When I got my license I would occasionally drive a course. Most of the time I went by the mile markers on the highway to get an average pace I was running. I usually ran around 6:40 pace so If I ran an hour, I would record that as 9 miles. Back then, there were not only mile markers, but many other markers along the way. They might say 9.29 miles. I could then spend the next couple minutes figuring out my pace. If it took me 2 minutes to get from the 9 mile mark to the 9.29 mile mark I could divide 120 by .29 and get 413 so I knew I was a little under 7 minute pace. That made the runs go by a lot faster!! All those markers are gone now as that was almost 40 years ago. The mile markers are still there though.

I still have 4 routes that I never have to measure. Those are a 5 mile loop in town, an 8 mile hilly loop, a ten mile hilly loop, and a 7.8 mile flat loop.

As for the first loop outside of town that I ran when I was 14, I measured it at 4.3 miles on the map. My goal was to run it in 30 minutes. I lived on the last street in town so I could run the loop counterclockwise and never have to stop for cars. I managed to get my time down to 30 minutes before running my first 10k. I ran that in 42:20. Over 30 years later, I mapped the 4.3 mile course and it turned out to be a shade over 4 miles. It was extremely hilly though so even though I had been running closer to 7:30 pace I was able to race faster than 7 minute pace.

I never really cared about how accurate those training runs were as the only important thing was how fast you could race.

Those of us over 60 can remember not only running without GPS, but without a stopwatch function. Yes, I carried a wind-up stopwatch on my tempo runs.

All you ever needed was a watch and the ability to divide by 6.

YMMV wrote:

Those of us over 60 can remember not only running without GPS, but without a stopwatch function. Yes, I carried a wind-up stopwatch on my tempo runs.

Very true . I remember having to start each run by looking at the clock in my mother's kitchen and then running right in after I finished to see how far I ran .

I never go for a run without my wheel measure. I'm very well known in my town because of it.