Thinking about taking the leap of faith. Sure i can just wear it and not look at it, love to know how many people could resist doing that. I'd like to know if I'm a slave to my watch in a race. (Guessing I am if im asking)
Thinking about taking the leap of faith. Sure i can just wear it and not look at it, love to know how many people could resist doing that. I'd like to know if I'm a slave to my watch in a race. (Guessing I am if im asking)
Why didn't I think of that?
Curious guy wrote:
Thinking about taking the leap of faith. Sure i can just wear it and not look at it, love to know how many people could resist doing that. I'd like to know if I'm a slave to my watch in a race. (Guessing I am if im asking)
Get off my lawn!
Casio g shock is way better.
GPS watches didn't exist when I ran in highschool. I bought one over the winter and I have an 8k coming up. Itll be my first race ever with GPS. I've never known my splits in a race that wasn't on a track. I'm curious how much of a difference it will make
JaneSeo14 wrote:
Why didn't I think of that?
lol
Don't do it! I recently ran a 5K where the race course mile marker was 45 seconds beyond the (roughly correct) GPS mile mark. I was already hurting somewhat at that point - had I thought I was 45 seconds slow I might have thrown in the towel and coasted the rest of the race, all the while feeling sorry for myself. As it was, I suspected they did the mile mark wrong (which was true - the 2 mile point was the same for both the GPS and the road mark) so kept going and ended up running a passable race. Honestly, if you're 45 seconds slower than expected for the first mile of a 5K, that can be pretty dispiriting, even if you think it's likely they placed the marker wrong.
As a side note, in my experience, the GPS usually seems to run a little too fast/short - it usually has me in a race hitting the 5K point around 5-10 seconds before the finish, and 10Ks 10-20 seconds before the finish. Perhaps I'm not running the tangents correctly. Anyone else have this issue?
It depends on models. You should expect 0,3-1,0% accuracy (bias = i.e. usually short or long) and precision (variations along the same course) for a GPS watch. That's 5 to 25 seconds on a 10K.
GPS watches are great tools, but they are not 100% precise. The difference could be due in part to not running tangents, but it is also in part due to the natural margin of error associated with the device. That margin of error is even more notable where turns and curves are involved. To confirm that, just look at the map of your runs produced on Garmin Connect when you do a track session. I guarantee you won't see perfect ovals around lane 1.
As to the 45 second issue - I am saying this not to be critical, but to be constructive: you really need to do more work at race pace if you would have honestly thought that you were 45 seconds slow through the mile based on where the clock is. I acknowledge that even being 5 or 8 seconds off from goal pace can be disconcerting, and that would be harder to discern in a race, but even then I would be wondering about the accuracy of the placement of the clock more than not trusting myself in establishing the right pace. That confidence in my ability to set the right pace comes from a lot of work at 5k race pace, and paying attention to the feedback from my body during that work (thinking of how open my stride is, how much knee lift I am getting, how high my heel is coming up behind me at different pace, etc.).
That being said, I do wear the damn watch every race now. I find it keeps me honest when I inevitably end up in no man's land, which seems to happen in every race I ever run.
No, no one has ever run a race without a GPS watch. To even suggest it is madness.
Smoove wrote:
GPS watches are great tools, but they are not 100% precise. The difference could be due in part to not running tangents, but it is also in part due to the natural margin of error associated with the device. That margin of error is even more notable where turns and curves are involved. To confirm that, just look at the map of your runs produced on Garmin Connect when you do a track session. I guarantee you won't see perfect ovals around lane 1.
As to the 45 second issue - I am saying this not to be critical, but to be constructive: you really need to do more work at race pace if you would have honestly thought that you were 45 seconds slow through the mile based on where the clock is. I acknowledge that even being 5 or 8 seconds off from goal pace can be disconcerting, and that would be harder to discern in a race, but even then I would be wondering about the accuracy of the placement of the clock more than not trusting myself in establishing the right pace. That confidence in my ability to set the right pace comes from a lot of work at 5k race pace, and paying attention to the feedback from my body during that work (thinking of how open my stride is, how much knee lift I am getting, how high my heel is coming up behind me at different pace, etc.).
That being said, I do wear the damn watch every race now. I find it keeps me honest when I inevitably end up in no man's land, which seems to happen in every race I ever run.
Couple of caveats - this was my first race in almost 5 years and I had only been doing workouts for a couple of weeks before the race so my pace judgement wasn't spot on. Also, I obviously didn't think I was 45 seconds off but I might certainly have thought I was 10 or 15 seconds off; you would assume the race director would be at least reasonably close to the actual mark, not 200 yards off. As you say, even being 8 seconds off is troubling. Still, though, your point is basically correct - if you train correctly and have a good sense of pace you won't really need any watches to get things right. I just like to have it!
Again, I use my watch all the time, so I'm not against it. I just wish I could let it go and not use it; but the compulsive part of me can't go without having the data to look at after the fact. The compulsiveness is also what makes me a decent runner, so it's kind of a "dance with who brung ya" thing.
I am almost never surprised by how badly some race directors can botch an event. I live in a town with one of the better event management companies in he nation, so most of our races are done very well, but with the seemingly exponential proliferation of events, more and more races are being put on by folks who don't have a clue about what they are doing.
Finally - I just wanted to note again that I was trying to be constructive, not insulting.
I have. Had a stroke right after I tried to check my pace 200 feet in. Would not recommend.
Using the watch in a fearful , or overly hopeful way,would be the only problems with the watch. Can't depend on it because it might not work that day.
You know how your body is supposed to move and feel . Focus on that , the clock just confirms you are doing well, or slightly less well.
Yeah man, I forgot mine for the Brooklyn Half. Felt overly insecure at first, the way you do when you leave your cell at home, but then you realize you just go out and run. Luckily, the course had about 10 functional clocks at the mile-markers. Without that, I might have been a bit more worried and I am decent enough at math that I can calculate splits.
Still, it's not so bad once you're out there. I didn't try any less hard and you gotta just find your groove. That said, I wasn't obsessively targeting a specific time as much as just trying to give it everything I had. I only check my watch every mile anyway, because then I get too obsessive about it and time passes too slowly.
I feel naked without my Garmin. Largely because I started running with one about two years ago. So to have a GPS watch and not run with it would seem crazy, especially if one has a certain goal they want to hit in that race.
One thing that I've done and noticed about myself is the less often i see what my HR is i naturally run faster at a lower HR. The more i look at the stupid watch the more my HR increases and pace decreases.
Curious guy wrote:
I feel naked without my Garmin. Largely because I started running with one about two years ago. So to have a GPS watch and not run with it would seem crazy, especially if one has a certain goal they want to hit in that race.
One thing that I've done and noticed about myself is the less often i see what my HR is i naturally run faster at a lower HR. The more i look at the stupid watch the more my HR increases and pace decreases.
So why not try running a few training runs or hard workouts without it and seeing how it feels at the end? You're intrigued and the stakes are low. What's the worst that could happen?
I always run with GPS because I like to log the data, but I rarely use it for pacing during training, and I never use it for pacing during racing.
My "race screen" shows only elapsed time and current lap, which I manually trigger at each mile marker. In a marathon I have a third field for number of laps, because sometimes I forget in the late miles and math gets hard.
I think you should try running a 5K without a GPS and see what happens if you have to race the whole thing by feel. Even if it goes horribly wrong, it's not like you can't just race another 5K with your GPS the next weekend. You might even learn something useful.
Hey Smoove, which watch do you use?