Forums >Suggestions and Feature Requests>Pace rounding
Hey there,
I'm guessing this has come up before, but wondering if there is a reason why the pace calculation always rounds up?
For instance, I had a recent race that calculates out to a 7:04.19 pace, but it shows up as a 7:05. I would think either a standard round would make sense (.5 or higher, round up... <.5 round down) or just show the fraction of the second in the pace calculation.
Anyways, just a suggestion...figured this would be the place! Thanks for all the work on the site!
The convention in track and field: anything above .0 rounds up.
"I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."
-- Dick LeBeau
Feeling the growl again
If you want credit for running faster than you did, run faster.
The only reason I noticed is because my Garmin rounds down and RA rounds up.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
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.... Ideally, if it's different everywhere maybe an exact pace could be used. Not sure if that's possible.
Which countries round down in track times or paces? (Just curious)
It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.
FWIW, the first time I ran the mile in high school, I ran 5:00.1 (indoor track, 13 laps to the mile, we only ran 12 laps -- I dunno why). I was ecstatic at running "five-flat" ... 'til Coach broke the news that I actually ran a 5:01.
That's how I learned about this rounding-up garbage.
The Runner Life
Not necessarily... A 3:59.19 mile is still sub-4
therunnerlife.com
Only because electronic timing is accepted out to two decimal places. A 3:59.991 is not a sub-4.
Why is it sideways?
When a race is hand-timed, it is always rounded up: 4:45.52 would be recorded as 4:45.6. FAT times (electronic systems) are not rounded at all, so a 3:59.99 would be sub4, if FAT. Not sure about a 3:59.991--but if you had equipment sensitive enough, I imagine they would just say that was your time.
Not sure what Eric's reasoning is, but I'm not sure if it's something worth worrying about.
FAT times (electronic systems) are not rounded at all, so a 3:59.99 would be sub4, if FAT. Not sure about a 3:59.991--but if you had equipment sensitive enough, I imagine they would just say that was your time. Not sure what Eric's reasoning is, but I'm not sure if it's something worth worrying about.
FAT times (electronic systems) are not rounded at all, so a 3:59.99 would be sub4, if FAT. Not sure about a 3:59.991--but if you had equipment sensitive enough, I imagine they would just say that was your time.
They may not be manually rounded but the machine is doing it internally. The equipment they use for professional meets is far more accurate than the times they report, in terms of the technological ability to time accurately from when the system is started until when it is stopped. The reason they only report 2 decimal digits has to do with limitations in the precision of starting and stopping the equipment.
In other words, the timing equipment could differentiate between a 100m time of 9.881 and 9.883. However, they cannot count on the equipment at the start and finish lines to have the same level of precision (ie, can you tell within 0.001sec when someone's chest crosses the line? No).
The reason they only report 2 decimal digits has to do with limitations in the precision of starting and stopping the equipment. In other words, the timing equipment could differentiate between a 100m time of 9.881 and 9.883. However, they cannot count on the equipment at the start and finish lines to have the same level of precision (ie, can you tell within 0.001sec when someone's chest crosses the line? No).
The reason they only report 2 decimal digits has to do with limitations in the precision of starting and stopping the equipment.
So, basically if you had equipment sensitive enough, they would just tell you your time in 1000ths. (But actually they probably wouldn't because who cares!)
Does the timing equipment always round up--taking 3.991 to 4.00? I don't know the answer to that. [nor, does it matter, not would it be relevant to RA's log functionality.]
So, basically if you had equipment sensitive enough, they would just tell you your time in 1000ths.
The equipment IS sensitive enough, and such times can be recorded. However the thousandths place is not reliable due to inprecision unrelated to the timing ability of the equipment. So it is not used for record purposes. If it were, I'm fairly certain people would care. At least in the sprints.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2005/06/can_we_trust_track_field_records.html
Among other things, inability to control lane length and track dimensions down to the precision of the timing equipment keeps us from using times within the accuracy of the equipment.
The equipment IS sensitive enough, and such times can be recorded. However the thousandths place is not reliable due to inprecision unrelated to the timing ability of the equipment. So it is not used for record purposes. If it were, I'm fairly certain people would care. At least in the sprints. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2005/06/can_we_trust_track_field_records.html Among other things, inability to control lane length and track dimensions down to the precision of the timing equipment keeps us from using times within the accuracy of the equipment.
Yeah, that's what I meant--I was just lazily using a broader definition of "equipment."
Hey: great article, by the way.
Neat article -- but the 1972 swim link didn't work for me. I guess they were referring to this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_1972_Summer_Olympics_-_Men%27s_400_metre_individual_medley
which lists Gunnar Larson at 4:31.98, winning over Tim McKee, also at 4:31.98 -- both with OR after their times in that article -- odd.
The wikipedia article on Gunnar Larson claims that they changed the timing rules to use hundredths rather than thousandths as a result of that event.
Neat article -- but the 1972 swim link didn't work for me. I guess they were referring to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_1972_Summer_Olympics_-_Men%27s_400_metre_individual_medley which lists Gunnar Larson at 4:31.98, winning over Tim McKee, also at 4:31.98 -- both with OR after their times in that article -- odd. The wikipedia article on Gunnar Larson claims that they changed the timing rules to use hundredths rather than thousandths as a result of that event.
I am guessing that this is another case of not being abe to fully trust wikipedia, then. I was an age group swimmer in the '80s and there was a period where thousandths were used in that decade. Unless it took FINA officials over 10 years to make the change based on Gunnar's result, the two would be unrelated.