Wearing a bracelet or armband for the 1500m. How much time would that cost you? Let's estimate.

Any takers?

I thought of this after reading Michael Rasmussen peeled the stickers off his bike to reduce weight.

Yet runners don't seem to mind carrying extra weight in the form of necklaces and jewelry.

serious question for wrote:

Any takers?

I thought of this after reading Michael Rasmussen peeled the stickers off his bike to reduce weight.

Yet runners don't seem to mind carrying extra weight in the form of necklaces and jewelry.

Runners don't mind carrying the extra weight of a light bracelet because the impact is immeasurably small. When you pack for a flight, do you worry about how much your laptop is going to slow down the plane when you're deciding whether to pack it or leave it at home? Same idea.

Anyway, the 2 seconds per mile thing doesn't apply here (I'm not convinced that it's ever a good estimate, but that's another discussion). Added body tissue slows you down in part because it requires oxygen and blood supply for metabolism and thermoregulation. Extra fat means that my body's cooling mechanisms are pushed past their limit at a lower level of intensity. Extra weight attached to my body does not.

You are forgetting that the body is not perfectly symmetrical. One arm is often slightly heavier than the other. This creates an imbalance which requires extra effort to compensate. Adding extra weight to one arm balances them out and keeps you from tipping sideways.

Bad Wigins wrote:

You are forgetting that the body is not perfectly symmetrical. One arm is often slightly heavier than the other. This creates an imbalance which requires extra effort to compensate. Adding extra weight to one arm balances them out and keeps you from tipping sideways.

But then if you accidentally put the bracelet on your heavier arm, you're just exacerbating the issue, and you could end up just running in circles, which could be okay in track, but it could really screw up an XC race.