Serious - how did people track their mileage before GPS watches and were people so anal about recording every metric

tarckstar wrote:

I'm older than most, and don't run every day. Off days, I have a skierg machine. Look it up.

When I skierg, I 'ski' to a distance, not a time. Sometimes, I try to get TO that distance in a certain time, but if I'm not feeling it, I don't. I simply ski to 5K or 10K, whatever.

Same as I run. I have courses I run, and I might check the time before and after to get a rough idea the speed I was going. If I add on, or come up with some other course, I just sort of pay attention to the time. What's it matter, anyway?

I race a 5K now and then, and assume the course is somewhat accurate. If it's the same course I ran last year, I can compare. Just run, as they say.

Off-topic, is the skierg any good ?

Great question. Years ago (1980), running in Berkeley and the surrounding area, I used a local road map and a weird little gizmo with a roller that measured inches. I'd roll that around on the map and then use the map's scale guide (1 inch = 1500 feet or whatever it was) to figure mileage.

Later in the pre-GPS period, I'd drive the course.

Amazing! It wasn't hard to find one. I used something very much like this.

https://www.cutting-mats.net/measuring-tools-2283.html?cmp=googleproducts&kw=measuring-tools-2283&utm_source=measuring-tools-2283&utm_medium=shopping%2Bengine&utm_campaign=googleproducts&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI57b8muGO6gIV0MDACh0-wAxUEAQYCCABEgJkNfD_BwE

KudzuRunner wrote:

Great question. Years ago (1980), running in Berkeley and the surrounding area, I used a local road map and a weird little gizmo with a roller that measured inches. I'd roll that around on the map and then use the map's scale guide (1 inch = 1500 feet or whatever it was) to figure mileage.

Later in the pre-GPS period, I'd drive the course.

The "poor man's" version of that gizmo was a piece of thread that I would lay out along the mapped route, then measure its length and use the map scale to convert inches to miles. Probably not quite as good as your wheel but not bad.

Not a clue why predictive text corrected that from mapometer!

I’m still too cheap for a GPS watch I still measure courses with a car and use a cheap wristwatch to keep time

Charlesvdw wrote:

Off-topic, is the skierg any good ?

Not the person you originally asked this of, but I've got one at home, and I'm really a skier first these days, so jumping in here fwiw.

I love it. For background, I'm a nordic skier at heart, which is why I bought it. I think that it is absolutely a helpful training stimulus for classic skiiing, obviously for doublepoling but also for striding to a larger extent than I had anticipated; this probably isn't the aspect you're asking about this for, but if you want to know more about this for skiing, I'll be glad to hold forth at greater length. (I'm a Birkie Elite Wave skier, and medalled at World Masters, if that means anything to you. Not that I'm hot sh*t - lord knows there are scads better skiers out there - but that I'm a decent enough skier at the citizen racer level that I might have helpful anecdata re: using the SkiErg for ski training.)

As for running? I don't know, if you've got the space, and $900, it's a great form of crosstraining. It works your upper body, obviously, although maybe less than you'd think - if you're doing it right (that is, the way you'd do it on snow), you're more dropping with the entire torso than just pulling with your arms, so it might not make your biceps swole right away. (But, well, you're a runner, so you don't need swole biceps, amirite.) It works your lower body, too, maybe more than you'd think - if you're doing it right, you bend at the knees and ankles with each stroke.

It's not easy. I often do 30min as a shakeout workout on days when I have a big foot workout in the evening, that's pretty manageable for me. Sometimes I do 60min straight on it, and I find that a lot of work. And that's speaking as someone who probably spent 300 hours in ski-specific training last year (mostly on snow, but also some rollerskiing and SkiErg time).

Bottom line, as a runner, I'd call it a great low- or no-impact crosstraining tool, but keep in mind that you'd likely have to work up to putting in meaningful amounts of time on it if you don't have a significant nordic ski background.

(P.S. random, but potentially significantly, it doesn't have to plug in; the monitor runs on two D batteries, and the machine itself doesn't need any power source to operate. I have one in the unheated shed in my backyard, since there's really not space for it, or a treadmill, anywhere inside my small house without really disrupting an entire room. The average temperature in Anchorage in January of this year was something like +7° F, with some nights down to at least 10 below, maybe 15 below. The SkiErg seemed unharmed.)

early 70's used 1;24000 scale USGS topo maps. Used the edge of a sheet of paper to measure and mark between every corner along a road or route (like a trail, beach, Then lay the paper edge along the scale at the bottom of the map to come up with cumulative total distance. These maps showed enough detail (one inch on map equaled 2000 feet on the ground) that with a little care you could easily measure a 10 mile route to within 1/10th of a mile or less.

The Jones counter, a device that hooks up to a bicycle wheel that would measure many units per wheel revolution, was invented in 1971. It is still used to officially certify running race courses today. Got one of these in 1977. Without going through all the fine details required to accurately measure a course, one could ride over route and come up with an accurate distance within 100 feet for 10 mile route.

There were also the surveyors wheels that you push. Still used today by many coaches to fairly accurately measure out shorter routes (such as loops in a grass field). Could also be used to walk over longer routes. Reportedly someone once pushed a surveyors wheel over 13 miles while walking up Pikes Peak to measure that trail.

If you lived in a place where running was popular in the 70's there would be known favorite popular courses everyone would regularly run, and someone would have measured these. The distances of those popular routes were shared between runners. Normally distances to the tenth of a mile.

Seems like regularly running a certain high total weekly mileage was believed to be more important in the 70s than it is is today. Consistently keeping your weekly mileage above a certain number was an important part of developing the discipline to become a committed serious runner. People would regularly go out for an extra run the last evening of their mileage week in order to log enough miles to hit their weekly goal total.

The serious runners never overestimated the mileage of their routes. Distances were normally rounded down. Routes they referred to as 8 miles were closer to 8 and a half or more miles.

Yuuuup same here. Every run was 7 min pace no matter what. Sometime slower and sometimes faster. There was probably a + or - of 5 miles each week.

Aunt Jemima bye bye wrote:

All the people I know are obsessed with every little metric you can possibly track. Just go run.

As one of the older guys that have run continously since late 70's , I can tell you that I, at least , was anal at the time. I've also been an early adopter of technology, so had the gizmos as they came along, yet nowadays, besides the fact that the 935 records everything, I don't care about the data.

Initially I had a logbook with columns for all sorts of things, then drew up my own spreadsheets that I filled in, inc 'who with', 'how I felt', 'weight' 'weather' etc etc etc...still have those.

As time went by and you became more perceptive about pace (lots of racing), I went back and adjusted the distances more accurately, eg my '10km' became a 9.6km, so everything in hindsight is very accurate.

On the other hand we had less sense of achievement over what is now thought of as huge good milestones, no hoopla over breaking 3hr in 1978, or even that much at 2:45 a few months later still only 20...the University 'Half Blue' time was 2:35, so no one cared or even slapped me on the back.

Our pace/distance judgement was extremely accurate, something lacking now, and reflected in performances. I recall running the regular 5km TT one week in mid 80's with another guy as we came up to 1km (which by then we had measured using a wheel), we estimated without looking at watch what our pace would be...he said 3:12, I said 3:10 and we went through in 3:11 per km.

Started measuring courses with bike in mid 80's so the distances were extremely accurate.

GPS watches have really done very little to enhance , for someone like me, other than automatically recording everything, I already knew how far and what pace I was running.

becomes harder to judge pace as you get older an slower, best judgement is at flat chat of course

Love J. Daniels interval alternative workouts,i.e. run hard 1 minute, easy 1 minute, 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 3 off, etc. Many variations. I dreaded measured and timed interval distances, then I started doing these off effort. It doesn't even matter whether I was hitting certain paces, the point was I was doing really good workouts with a clear head, and was becoming a better runner. Did this about a month and was surprised how much I had improved.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Take your car out and measure the distance. Also, just having a good sense of pace.

Exactly. Have some routes that you can measure by car. After running those routes you have a sense of your training pace at various effort levels. Thereafter, you can run your routes or you can run for elapsed time with an approximate idea of how far you ran.

If I recall correctly, Rod Dixon often ran based on time rather than a set number of miles.

I would have a few different routes that I ran often that I measured using a car. Then you time your runs and figure out what pace you run at. You can also measure stretches of runs, preferably stretches that are straight lines, and time that portion of your run to check your pace. Most runners are pretty consistent with what pace they run at on easy runs after getting warmed up, so then you can figure out your mileage even when running a different route just by diving total time of run by your running pace. Of course it's not going to be 100% precisely accurate, but it is very much accurate enough for all incense and porpoises.

Back in 1979, starting college in Seattle, I used a city map and a piece of string, measuring by the map scale

bvffn wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Take your car out and measure the distance. Also, just having a good sense of pace.

This. Also, usatf used to have this online map where you could measure the distance. Mostly it was just get in your car a drive the route. Sometimes I’d take a marker or spray paint and make small marks at the mile.

It still exists!

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

I used google earth in high school to measure my regular routes. I know those before computers who measured on a bike.

I can seem to figure out how it's possible to accurately measure using Google Maps (

), but I've used Google Earth, not Google Maps, for measuring precise routes for a few years. It's a download, and GE is also spectacular for looking at satellite imagery of an area over time. And for turning on the relief option and being able to tilt the land and view terrain from any angle and elevation you wish, to get a feel for hills. You can also measure heights, just by moving the cursor.

In regard to setting courses to run, I measure in feet and then convert with a calculator to miles, because if the GE unit of measure is set to miles, you might be one foot away from, say, 10.0 miles, but it will only register as 9.9 miles. If you like precision, then choose feet (or yards, or meters).

Deception (self-deception or lying to others) is not exactly unusual among runners, such as those who claim they run 5 miles a day, when the course really is shorter than that (and they only run four times a week). I'd rather have the cold, hard numbers to keep me honest.

In the past, I borrowed a friend's father-in-law's measuring wheel and laid out a number of courses through woods and around farmer's fields. The old man worked for the police at road accident sites, taking measurements of lengths of skid marks, and so on, so the measurements were accurate.

rudy wrote:

Love J. Daniels interval alternative workouts,i.e. run hard 1 minute, easy 1 minute, 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 3 off, etc. Many variations. I dreaded measured and timed interval distances, then I started doing these off effort. It doesn't even matter whether I was hitting certain paces, the point was I was doing really good workouts with a clear head, and was becoming a better runner. Did this about a month and was surprised how much I had improved.

You don't even need to time them. When I want to run hard for a minute, I just count 180 strides.

I don't have a GPS watch. I prefer a $15 Timex "Marathon".

Courses can be measures on a car or a bike, or you can time your run and estimate. My fave trail has signs indicating how far each segment is.

I admit that my 60-mile weeks might be 58.73 miles, or maybe 62.29. It's not a big deal. It leaves some tasty mystery for race day. And you can always go to a track, right? (Well maybe not at present, but usually you can.)

I don't know. That's sounds impossible. I suppose there must be a way with google maps to do this. I heard that they used to use paper maps that folded up. How could anyone figure out how to do that? Did you ever see the Caine Mutiny? He had some metal gadget that I think measured distance? Maybe, like you could drive your car and see how fast you were going per hour then divided it, or multiply by something and then you get the answer? Like trigonometry or something? But what if you like stop, or what if the speed limit makes you going faster miles an hour? Gonna drive by the Stop n Shop, with the radio on. Maybe like you have a friend who is smart and stuff and like could give you like the answer is the best way. Did they have Waze before google?