Why don't we have kilometer markers during 5k, 10k, etc. races?

You know that over here in the UK nobody even knows what a kilometer is. Road signs are all still marked out in miles, all runners think in terms of miles per week or miles per day, people measure weight in pounds and ounces and their height in feet and inches.

Very very few British people think of themselves as European, in fact I haven't met one yet. Actually most are disgusted by the suggestion.

If you can keep count in your head, every two and a half laps the white line on the track will be your 1000m split.

Ex Pat, of course, that's why it's called English units...I mean it doesn't take a genius to figure out that maybe the English use English units as well. Although I would think your statement may have surprised a number of people! But I think the point is, if the US switched over then Britain would probably succomb to the pressure sometime in the not too distant future.

flightless wrote:

People prefer miles.

It doesn't matter what people prefer! It matters what would be good for them. Sometimes they don't know and race directors need to ....

.

You sound like the last remianing Dictator on Earth. Are you?

Thanks for the laugh ha ha ha ...

Tongue in cheek. Glad you appreciated the laugh.

Just to clarify, my argument is only that races should have splits in the same unit the total is in.

I prefer mile splits for racing half and full-marathons.

Actually, the ideal marathon would have mile splits up to 20 miles and kilometer splits from 33km to the finish when you really need the mental boost of having the splits come a little sooner each time.

The whole pacing based on per mile time argument is BS.

Runners don't go into a race saying "I'm in 6 minute/mile shape," they base their estimated pace on their projected finish time (obviously you're not going to run the same pace for a marathon and a 5K). Then you just figure backwards. Whether you're dividing by 5 even kms or 3 and a fraction miles, THAT'S how you arrive at your goal pace. And even though you may be more familiar w/ miles, it doesn't take much to get your brain working the other way.

Case in point: we put on a couple 5km races during the year, marked only in km splits. Before the race we post several big charts showing various finishing times, in 15 second intervals, and what the pace and splits should be every km.

When the race ends, we invariably get lots more comments about "wow, that made so much more sense." In fact, I think only 1 or 2 people ever complained over the years.

So yes, it CAN be done.

And BTW, I have a friend who ran her first marathon in Vienna, where it was marked in 42km splits, and she said it made the distance fly by.

Yeah, I ran the Run vs Row 10K and it really sucked to find out it there were Kilometer markers instead of mile markers after I started.

I guess I missed the first K mark since I wasn't looking for it. I was disoriented when I didn't see a mile marker.

I passed the 2K mark and the split meant nothing to me. I didn't feel like multiplying 6:50 times 5 in my head while trying to keep up with the pace.

I was better able to gauge the 3K split.

The 5K and 8K splits were useful but the 6K, 7K and 9K splits were totally useless to me.

I've been pacing myself by miles for too long to deal with this crap.

It's like seeing speed limts in kmh and your car reads mph. I know ther's another row of numbers in kmh on your speedometer but I'll crash trying to interpret it.

yardage=dumbass wrote:

But I think the point is, if the US switched over then Britain would probably succomb to the pressure sometime in the not too distant future.

I shall repeat, the USA is the ONLY country of note left on the planet that is not officially metric. (I say "of note" because there may still be one or two 3rd world countries left that aren't. At one time Burma was in that category, but now with the mess in the renamed Myanmar, who knows.)

Of course, even though we're not officially metric, we do have a sort of split personality disorder about it as some things ARE metric. Nothing like consistency.

I would really enjoy seeing someone defend the idea of the USA not switching to metric. I could use a good laugh.

JimFiore wrote:

I shall repeat, the USA is the ONLY country of note left on the planet that is not officially metric.

Jim, by law, the United States officially went to metric in 1976.

JimG wrote:

And even though you may be more familiar w/ miles, it doesn't take much to get your brain working the other way.

Case in point: we put on a couple 5km races during the year, marked only in km splits. Before the race we post several big charts showing various finishing times, in 15 second intervals, and what the pace and splits should be every km. When the race ends, we invariably get lots more comments about "wow, that made so much more sense." In fact, I think only 1 or 2 people ever complained over the years. So yes, it CAN be done. And BTW, I have a friend who ran her first marathon in Vienna, where it was marked in 42km splits, and she said it made the distance fly by.

Exactly. It's not hard at all to adjust. Just check out any of the Oklahoma Race results at

to get an idea of what your "pace (in kilometers)" should be for a given time. This is just the way it is in Oklahoma, and no one complains. It's a very good, legit system. You can also check out the Oklahoma State Records for every distance from 5K and up, which list "Pace" in kilometers (even listed for the marathon).

When I plan and execute my training programs I prefer to use metric calculations. It gives me smaller whole numbers to work with. Much easier to increase 1k than 1 mile per day every few weeks. This allows me to keep on the steeper section of the improvement curve more often. As far as pacing I have pace charts in both miles and kilometers for easy conversions.

I have a loop that starts at the end of my cul-de-sac thats within 5 feet (wheel measured 3 times of accuracy) of being a perfect 1500 meters (half rolling hill, half flat). I have each 500 meter point marked (will mark the 250m points eventually) so I can get all my splits, do whatever interval or tempo runs I want and it has a spur off of the loop that is a 350m hill (fairly steep grade) for hill work. Its become my own little training compound.

Running 10 or 12 loops on the same course everyday would bother some but I like it, although I do occassionally hit the local trails for my long run. To each his own.

Hello McFly wrote:

Jim, by law, the United States officially went to metric in 1976.

Nope. I'll let the government's own web site (National Institute of Standards and Technology) give the final word:

"The United States is now the only industrialized country in the world that does not use the metric system as its predominant system of measurement."

In 1975 The Metric Conversion Act was passed to convert the US over to metric but there was no timetable enforced. Everything was voluntary. By 1982 the Metric Board was disbanded due to ineffectiveness and lack of authority. The government currently says that the "preferred" system is metric but has in place no requirements on the private sector. I will leave you with another quote from the NIST's web site (nist.gov):

"The current effort toward national metrication is based on the conclusion that industrial and commercial productivity, mathematics and science education, and the competitiveness of American products and services in world markets, will be enhanced by completing the change to the metric system of units. Failure to complete the change will increasingly handicap the Nation's industry and economy."

JimFiore wrote:

This brings up something else. Why are we the ONLY place on the planet that has high schoolers run the 1600 and 3200? Why don't we just do the 1500/3000 like the rest of the world, OR just run the damn mile and 2 mile? Is it so hard to make a couple of start lines about 9 and 18 meters back?

The best explanation is that track officials are too lazy to walk from the 1500/3000 start lines to the common finish line.

Technically, we ARE metric - the inch is OFFICIALLY defined as 2.54cm - everything else flows from that.

Other milestones in American Metrication;

1821 Secy State JQ Adams proclaims US must Metricate but needs a bit more time to do so;

1866 Metric act made metric measures legal(Public Law39-183);

Then Public Law 92-380(1974) directing US Publis Schools to teach metricly;

then George the Elder issued Exec. Order 12770 directing US Metrication in 1991.

Some where in there Ronnie,freshly flushed from the reissue of his "Bozo the Clown Movie" abolished Metrics but as with most of his acts no one noticed.

There is more but....................

As long as we're asking, for that matter, why do we have a 1500m race in the first place?

1000, 2000, 3000, those are nice even numbers. What is the point of a 1500? It's basically no better than the 1600 in being just a poor attempt at a metric "equivalent" of the mile.

Just throwing it out there...

If your goal is to even come off as being at all credible then you need to cite an independent and credible source that backs your assertion. As far as anyone reading this thread is concerned, you made up that statistic off the top of your head. It's not that you have no need to cite that statistic, it's that you CAN'T. And that IS the way it is. Now you're pulling out red herrings with mentioning Congress, which has jack squat to do with road racing. You confuse exacting for biased and rigid. Learn the difference sometime.

Well, if YOU'RE sure then that's clearly all we need, at least in your own mind. You're the one who said that they "know the pace by experience" so that would imply that splits would be unnecessary. If they need splits, then they obviously don't know the pace. Make up your mind.

Why do we have 0.4 km tracks in the first place? Seems like the most half-assed conversion to metric there is to just take quarter mile tracks, lay a bit more foundation on the inside, and put the new track over that. 0.5 km tracks would convert all those non-whole-number-lap distance races to a whole number of laps. 1500 = 3 laps, 3000 = 6 laps, 5000 = 10 laps (sorry, the steeple is still hosed.)

There are two debates going on here. One is whether the US should switch to the metric system. Maybe it should, but I don't think anyone has ever shown the average American why their life would be better if we did. Making less work for engineers by eliminating conversions or not crashing the occasional Mars probe really doesn't motivate the average person to scrap a measuring system he or she understands. Give people some tangible benefit from switching to metrics and you might make some headway.

The second debate is whether races should have markers at kilometers or not. If I'm a race director, I know that having only kilo splits will generate a fair number of complaints from runners who are upset that they didn't get mile splits, but I'll rarely have complaints from people if there are no kilometer splits. So I might have both, but if it's either/or, I'd have to go with miles.