What was training and logging runs like before high tech watches?

dangerous lol.

I enjoyed writing down mileage, times, and notes in a notepad, and still have them 20 plus years later.

Impossible, this is why no one went sub 4 until 1999, the year you were born and the last time you will ever see a vagina.

Some lunatic wrote:

Impossible, this is why no one went sub 4 until 1999, the year you were born and the last time you will ever see a vagina.

LOL

Seems kind of cool just to go out and have your watch tell you how far you've run and how fast, but I've never had a high tech watch other than a Timex Ironman with chrono or similar. No Garmin or anything with a GPS.

Since I only run approximately 20-25 miles a week now for general fitness, I just kind of keep it in my head. When I'm seriously training for a race, which is rare, I'll write my workouts and mileage in a notebook like I did in college. I never wrote stuff down in HS. My coach kept up with it.

In college nearly 30 years ago, I kept logs on notebook paper. I used a ruler and pencil and drew a kind of calendar, with an 8th box on the end for total mileage. We drove around in our cars and and made routes and mileage with the odometer. (Still do that sometimes, but it's easier to use an online run mapping program). It's fun to go back and look at those old paper logs that survived and see that I really did used to run 75-90 miles a week and did 12-15 milers. Damn, I feel old.

I see runner friends on Facebook posting stuff like "Did 8.263 miles today in 1:04:02." It's just a ho-hum daily run, but it's calibrated to the hundredth of a freakin' mile. Just say you ran 8 miles! Good grief! (Or better yet, don't post your everyday runs on Facebook!) Guess I'm old school, plus I'm not the typical OCD distance runner type. Who knows, though. If I got a Garmin watch or something, I might get hooked on it too.

Nice response, Mr. Freak.

I am at the age where I remember what it was like to only have a wrist watch and then now I am with the option to use GPS.

I like to blend the two worlds: use GPS device to track routes then go and run stuff regularly and update an online training log by hand and reckoning and tally up the end of week figures.

I also use the GPS to do important time trials. During training races I'll use GPS but, for important end of season or end of training periods I'll only use a stop watch stetting.

I couldn't imagine transferring over GPS info EVERYDAY after a run. That would feel inorganic. And I'm not even as old as you!

I couldn't stand using a gps watch. Just go run. Get the time off a regular old digital watch and then get the miles from that based on your pace. Guys with gps watches are always afraid to run more than a target goal miles a week and recording hundreths of miles like it matters, like they'll even get more than 10 miles that way at the end of the year.

In high school and the first couple years of college, I didn't log anything. 1987-1990

From junior year of college on (had 5th year plus 3 years after college), I had some kind of notebook and put in something for every day.

For track workouts, the coach called out most of the splits.

I would just remember them and write them down.

For distance runs we just went by minutes. I would divide by 7 and round to the nearest mile and put that in.

For an out and back tempo run, I would gauge the change in pace by effort - Out 25 back 20 was 7 miles.

Even the workouts I timed myself, I would just remember them.

Can't say if it was liberating if there was no experience to be liberated from.

I had all the info I needed to gauge my progress by comparing similar workouts and by races.

In the late 60s we didn't have high tech wristwatches. Only the coach had a stop watch. So, to time weekend runs, I'd stand outside of the kitchen and look through the window at the clock above the stove. When the second hand hit 12, I took off. I finished my run at the kitchen window, where I peered in and saw the time. Later I'd drive the course in the car to estimate mileage. After a winter run, I'd remove my gray cotton sweat pants, cotton sweat shirt, letter jacket and towel around my neck. Both the timing and clothing were effective.

distance dude wrote:

I couldn't stand using a gps watch. Just go run. Get the time off a regular old digital watch and then get the miles from that based on your pace. Guys with gps watches are always afraid to run more than a target goal miles a week and recording hundreths of miles like it matters, like they'll even get more than 10 miles that way at the end of the year.

Those who used the time and estimated pace and mileage seem t be consistently over-estimating mileage.

I am sure people were just as obsessed with hitting mileage values then as now. The truth is that the values now are much, much more likely to be valid or at least much closer.

When GPS watches started catching on, several running buddies lamented that all of our 7 mile runs were much closer to 6.5 and under than 7.

luv2run wrote:

When GPS watches started catching on, several running buddies lamented that all of our 7 mile runs were much closer to 6.5 and under than 7.

I found most of my routes were also shorter than we previously thought. Once i got a GPS and looked at the actual pace of my first couple of miles, i saw why. the majority of a run might have been at 7 min pace but the first couple of miles, especially in the morning, were more like 9:30-10:00.

I never wrote anything down except race times until the late 80's. I used to ride some on my bike to figure out how far they were, but I never kept a log. During high school track in the 70's runs were timed with a stopwatch, and the coach would tell you about how many miles he thought you did. No one I knew logged it.

When I started swimming with the college team in the 70's the coach would put the workout on the chalkboard with the total yards, and kept the workouts in a notebook, but I knew no one on the team that kept track of them separately.

Sometime in the late 80s' during one of my forays back into running I renewed my subscription to Runner's World that my brother had been giving me as a gift subscription and got a log book as a "perk". I read in one of the training articles about keeping a log so I started. Got a Casio watch too.

I find it more liberating with less info but more coaching. Just show up and do the workout. I did find when I started tracking more information that I was doing some unhelpful things like not enough pace variation and too hard on the easy days. I could also see improvement on the hard days when I stopped doing the unhelpful things, so being less liberated did have a benefit.

I do have a friend that when she found out one of her favorite runs was 7.75 miles and not 8 would run around the track once so she could log 8 miles, so you can take the lack of liberation over the edge.

Some lunatic wrote:

Impossible, this is why no one went sub 4 until 1999, the year you were born and the last time you will ever see a vagina.

His eyes were closed.

i am of the generation that is obsessed with the GPS crap. yes, i log every hundredth of a mile, though i dont run extra yardage just to hit a weekly total or something.

sometimes i just use a regular timex watch on my known routes and yes, its relaxing. although for easy runs i hardly ever look at my gps watch anyway until im done.

i wear the gps on the track too, but just so i dont have to mess around wiht details later. i would much rather do a track workout with just a normal watch, but then i have to add up all the laps to my WU/CD gps data.

i have only once that i can remember gone on a run without a watch.

The only time you need a watch is for track workouts, and then all you need is a cheap timex ironman. Whatever you're doing reps of, if you can't remember 10 numbers till later, then your memory skills need sharpening. If you're doing more than 10 reps, it's not that important to remember them all, because each individual rep doesn't say much about your ability. Just keep a running average instead.

For distance, all you need is the gmap pedometer to measure your course to about +/- 1%. Go run and then figure out the distance later.

I don't have a GPS watch and was wondering how they are typically set up. Specifically if you are getting mile splits during a road race- let say a ten mile race- do you preset it to record the mile splits or do you do it manually by hitting a button as you pass a marker?

Bruce Willis decides to go for a run. he gets to the end of his street & realizes he's forgot his shoes, vest, watch, shorts and socks. he's naked

I measured a lot of courses with my car- most turned out the be fairly accurate now that I have a GPS watch.

I wrote down training runs and workouts in a spiral notebook- still do.

Nothing fancy.

No GPS yet wrote:

I don't have a GPS watch and was wondering how they are typically set up. Specifically if you are getting mile splits during a road race- let say a ten mile race- do you preset it to record the mile splits or do you do it manually by hitting a button as you pass a marker?

Some devices will speak to you like a small robot and say your pace, avg pace, and time at each mile or km interval.

Most watches will beep and you look down and it will display the above on different screens.

Some devices you can attach to your shoe and wear a bracelet that will hold your splits and you don't see them until you synch it with a computer or smart phone.

So many options it's scary.