"In GPS We Trust" (Read 2287 times)

... Mikey, no comment? No gloat?

Sorry, I've been distracted by real life lately....Ha!  See, Garmins just hold you back!  Told you so.

In all seriousness though, it sounds like you had more than one confounding factor there and the other thing is that there are just plain day-to-day differences in racing.

But I've never really seen a value in having some external display of my pace that often and it's one of those things I've never been able to explain on here.

It's one thing to check the watch or the timing clock at mile markers to confirm how fast I think I'm running, but for the other 99% of the race I find it much more productive to focus on how hard I'm working and on trying to stay "smooth and fast."  Funny thing is I'm usually really, really close to how fast I think I'm running.

For me, racing has always been an effort.  It's really hard to get just right and it requires paying a lot of attention to all the signals my body is sending and having a garmin just distracts from that.  Whenever people talk about using a Garmin to pace themselves I'm always thinking "but what do you do with that information?" If you'r running at the right effort what difference does it make what the Garmin says?  And if you're not, what difference does it make what the Garmin says?  You can only do what you can do.

This is true for me even in long races.  I remember after my PR marathon being physically wiped for sure but even more mentally exhausted.  The mental focus it took to put out that exact effort without going over the red line over 26.2 mi was immense.  I definitely don't think I could have done it if even a tiny corner of my consciousness had been diverted to the Garmin or if any doubt had crept in because of some mile split was not what it should have been.

For me, racing has always been an effort.  It's really hard to get just right and it requires paying a lot of attention to all the signals my body is sending and having a garmin just distracts from that.  Whenever people talk about using a Garmin to pace themselves I'm always thinking "but what do you do with that information?" If you'r running at the right effort what difference does it make what the Garmin says?  And if you're not, what difference does it make what the Garmin says?  You can only do what you can do.

I guess what I'm trying to do by using the Garmin is avoid a lot of that effort. To do that effectively, I have to have a really good idea, from training or recent races, what I should be capable of in the current race. Then as long as I run to that level by Garmin, until I'm close enough to the finish to give it my all, then I don't have to do all that subjective weighing. The difference between what I planned on and what I turn out to be capable of on race day generally shows up in the last mile.

The weaknesses of this approach come when (1) you don't have a really good idea what you should be capable of, either because of fitness uncertainty or because of course variability and conditions, or (2) you don't have a good idea of the accuracy of what the Garmin is telling you, generally because you are unsure about whether the mile markers are accurate. (2) is what bit me most on Sunday.

I can see that running your way is a very different thing, without the above weaknesses, and though it takes more effort, it could potentially be more rewarding as well. I'm afraid, though, that I would always be second guessing myself. Did I *really* run that last mile at the right effort? Am I being a wuss, or am I being foolhardy? By Garmin, ideally, I know.

This is true for me even in long races.  I remember after my PR marathon being physically wiped for sure but even more mentally exhausted.  The mental focus it took to put out that exact effort without going over the red line over 26.2 mi was immense.  I definitely don't think I could have done it if even a tiny corner of my consciousness had been diverted to the Garmin or if any doubt had crept in because of some mile split was not what it should have been.

Whereas for my marathon PR, the only mentally taxing part was M22-24, when I was uncertain I would make my goal. Otherwise, and maybe this is selective memory, but it was just clicking off the miles according to my paceband.

I mean, if I have a plan to run pace X, and I see by Garmin that I ran the last mile at pace X, then by definition I ran that mile at the correct effort. I say "ideally" because of vagaries of Garmin error and mile marker placement.

I thought the "ideally" was a reference to the fact that it is impossible to construct an ideal race plan. If you execute your race pacing plan, you can't say that you ran at the perfect effort or whether your were a wuss or foolhardy, all you can say is that you executed your race pacing plan. (Which may be enough.)

My last couple races, I found that as I grew tired, I grew less sharp and focused.  I slipped off the pace that I knew I should have been able to run without even really realizing it.  My Garmin was the first clue to that.  The second clue was that people started passing me.  Putting these clues together, I woke up and pushed harder.  In these few cases, the pace on the Garmin, although imprecise and inaccurate, simply refocused me.

Yeah this is one of those things where we're never going to understand each other.  It's like a right brain left brain thing only different.

Yeah this is one of those things where we're never going to understand each other.  It's like a right brain left brain thing only different.

Oh, I think I understand you. And I think I will run my next short race sans Garmin, as an experiment if nothing else.