Running before digital watches existed?

Analog watches.

I've seen old pictures from races with people wearing analog watches. You could always mark out courses with your car using the odometer.

I used a wristwatch with a second hand, or else carried a stopwatch in my hand.

Later I used a hanhart stopwatch for track stuff, before someone stole it.

For a short time I used a bulova watch with a tuning fork, where I could pull out the stem and stop the second hand at the top.

Then the digital watches came out.

Mostly though, pre digital, it was a regular wristwatch with a second hand.

We just ran with regular analog watches. I used to sprint for 1 min and jog for 1 min just by actually looking at the second hand on my watch. It worked OK. The nicest innovation today is the vibrating watch wherein I can listen to my iPod and run that workout at the same time without having to look at the watch. Pretty slick.

Detailed knowledge of the sun's path across the sky and the movement of the stars helped them a lot I'm sure.

Runners were not nearly so anal back then.

You had several routes that you were familiar with and had a pretty decent handle on their distance. With experience most runners could ultimately gage the length of pretty much any run to within 5% or so. And for the most part nobody gave a rat's ass if you were running at 7:20 pace or 7:05 pace.

Just run. Forget the Garmins, digital watches, and obsessing over every calorie and pound. Just run for crying out loud.

the way it is wrote:

Runners were not nearly so anal back then.

You had several routes that you were familiar with and had a pretty decent handle on their distance. With experience most runners could ultimately gage the length of pretty much any run to within 5% or so. And for the most part nobody gave a rat's ass if you were running at 7:20 pace or 7:05 pace.

Just run. Forget the Garmins, digital watches, and obsessing over every calorie and pound. Just run for crying out loud.[/quote]

Thats exactly what I'm trying to do now, just forget about my Garmin. I had to have it every run and obsess about the pace. I really want to start running by feel and stop pushing the pace all the time. I might just use a digital watch to keep track of time but thats it.[quote]Here is

Sorry the post got messed up but what I was going to say is that I had to have my Garmin for every run and I would always obsess about the pace and keep pushing it. Now I'm probably going to run with a digital watch just to keep track of time. I really want to run more by feel.

I would just run to the lake, swim awhile, then run home. It was like 80 miles.

Phishguy wrote:

How did runners keep track of mileage and know their pace before digital watches existed?

Never saw "Marathon Man," huh?

Mr. Lindgren wrote:

I would just run to the lake, swim awhile, then run home. It was like 80 miles.

So you completely just ran by feel?

Mr. Lindgren wrote:

I would just run to the lake, swim awhile, then run home. It was like 80 miles.

1/2 a day?

Right, you timed it then huh.

Left at sunrise, came back at sunset. Just lay by the lake and watched the sun's position in the sky. The sun man can tell you so much. Most of the time I just lay there. The runs were like 3 hours each way but I drafted off a deer.

back when my uncle was a serious runner and absolutely obsessive about it (waking up at odd hours in the night just to run) he would time his runs using one of those old analag alarm clocks (the ones with the bells on the side that were rung by the miniature hammer) and he would just carry that around.

funny story actually, during one of his nightly runs that he did he was out on something like a 12 mile run and as usual was carrying his alarm clock in hand. he was a pretty fast runner for his age (17?) so he was moving at a decent clip. well, as luck would have it, 3 am in the morning is usually the time the police officers in his area would drive around to check up on the place. and when police officers see a 17 year old kidding running as quickly as he was they thought something was fishy.

so they pull him over and start questioning him, asking what he's doing at a time like this and what not. they ask him what he's doing, and my uncle is one of those very short response types of people so he says

"i'm running."

"what are you running for?"

"I felt like it."

they see the clock in his hand and ask him

"son, what do you got that clock for? did you STEAL it by any chance? maybe thats why youre running."

"its my clock."

"really, well why are you running with it then?"

"Because i cant afford a stop watch."

after that and a call back home to make sure he was who he was, they sent him on his way to finish up his run. that was right around the time my uncle stopped running at 3 in the morning.

just thought I'd share that with you guys.

I distinctly remember racing a 10 miler and memorizing each mile split as I ran. Got through the finish chute and went straight to the car to write them all down. Quite a feat, I thought. Now I can barely remember where I left my flats.

I remember timing my own interval workouts with an analog stopwatch I carried in my hand. And I'm not even that old! At that time there were digital watches, but they were expensive, like $50 and up.

Remember the beginning of that James Bond movie when Roger Moore looks at his super-hi-tech LED watch. We all thought it was soooo coool.

I carried an analog stopwatch in my hand for reps. Problem was that all that shaking screwed up the mechanism so was unreliable.

I remember doing time trials on a 5+ mile course using the wall clock at my parent's house which had a second hand. I would wait for the the time to approach a 5-minute increment and... GO!!!

Lunging breathless back through the front door to catch the second hand was the tough part.

GA Pilots wrote:

General Aviation pilots still use mechanical analog stop watches for timed instrument approaches since they are more reliable than electronic analog or digital stop watches.

Umm, thanks?