PR Question (Read 1491 times)

Scout7


    I don't get it. If you're not competitive, then why do you care how fast you are, or how much you've improved? I also don't get the idea of never wanting to sign up for a race.
    Slo


      I don't get it. If you're not competitive, then why do you care how fast you are, or how much you've improved? I also don't get the idea of never wanting to sign up for a race.
      I don't get the idea of wanting to use my phone to text either. I don't see why someone has to be competeitive in order to care about improvement or how fast they are or are not.
      MrH


        I don't get the idea of wanting to use my phone to text either.
        It works better than the toaster oven?

        The process is the goal.

        Men heap together the mistakes of their lives, and create a monster they call Destiny.

          I'll try this one more time and apologize if I repeat what I posted earlier. I truly regret mentioning logging at all as it is just an annoyance that I can work around. I was really just curious as to the mindset involved. Everyone seems to be focused on the logging end and that's cool, but not really where I was going. I should have just asked outright if there is a perception in the running community that a PR can only be set in a race, and why. But I will throw a few responses back to those who responded.
          PRs being focused on races probably evolved from races having accurate time / distance stats. It is only recently that we all starting running with GPS data loggers and wearing jet packs to commute. Before, races are where you knew there was an accurate time and accurate distance. There's no "rule" that only a race time can be your PR..
          My thoughts exactly. It would make sense in the context of older mapping technologies etc. But now, not so much.
          There has to be a way of sorting out which runs ought to count for PR's and which won't. Otherwise every single distance you ever ran would be listed under your PR's: 2.3 miles, 2.4 miles, 3.4 miles, 3.6 miles... etc. even if you did not give your best effort. Since most of us call giving our best effort "racing", the log automatically chooses only races to count as PR's.
          Agreed, that would be an issue but it speaks to logging more than anything else. And, technically, the fastest you've ever run 2.3 miles would be your 2.3 mile PR. The question is whether you really need to see that in a log.
          One question, anutherfinemess -- on your PR's, are they all-out efforts? Because regardless of venue, a PR should really be the fastest you've ever run a given distance, going all-out. And my example notwithstanding, you're almost always gonna run faster in a race than in any solo run. Racing is the best way to see how fast you really are, regardless of you perform against the field.
          To answer your question, no. They were not "all out". They were simply faster than I had ever them before. But now you are offering yet another definition of PR. That's not a criticism either. It just demonstrates that your parameter of a "all out" run may not be there for others. Let me ask you this... Have you ever run the perfect race? Have you ever run a race where you can honestly say, looking back, that you could not have shaved even a second or two somewhere in there? Because unless all of your races are like that then the reality is that your PR is not the best effort you are capable of, but rather your best performance on that day in those conditions on that course. It also happens to be your best performance at the distance. Would I run faster in a race than I do on my own? Absolutely. There is no question in my mind that this is true. It's why I don't race.
          I don't get it. If you're not competitive, then why do you care how fast you are, or how much you've improved? I also don't get the idea of never wanting to sign up for a race.
          I am extremely competitive. Too competitive. I care very much about how much I improve, and how fast I am is merely one way of measuring that. Because I choose to compete with myself rather than compete with you changes nothing. MTA: I will ask again what I asked before. If I took a poll and asked everyone here how much you can bench press, or how many push ups you can do in one minute, or how high you can jump, whatever.... at some point you would almost certainly have an answer to one of those questions. You would say "I can bench 225" or "I benched 300 2 years ago but I couldn't do that now" or "I can do fifty push ups in one minute". Those are all PRs of yours. In your mind you know exactly what your PR is because it is your best performance. But how many of those were set in competitions?
          And who am I anyway?
          Just another fat jogger, evidently.
          Slo


            It works better than the toaster oven?
            Big grin


            Lazy idiot

              I am extremely competitive. Too competitive. I care very much about how much I improve, and how fast I am is merely one way of measuring that. Because I choose to compete with myself rather than compete with you changes nothing.
              I think Scout and others may be leading toward a point that would state something like, "you can use those around you to run faster than you might alone". It's not racing to beat other people, it's racing to compete with yourself. And yes... it's really all semantics.

              Tick tock

              Scout7


                So why don't you want to run a race? My opinion: I don't care one iota what you call a PR. If someone says "My PR is xxTight lippedx for X distance", I assume that person ran that fast for that distance. Doesn't matter where or when you ran it. I also do not think there is a prejudice in the running community against PRs run in training. The sole reason I think people associate PRs to races is that, for the longest time, it was an easy way to compare against another runner, because the course was a known entity. That's it. As for the site, the reason has been stated: there had to be a way to winnow down the list, and choosing "Race" makes it easy for development and input purposes. That's all. As for my other question, I associate competition with improvement. If you have no desire to be better, you're not really competitive. I was making the assumption that you were not into competition, based on your previous statements.


                an amazing likeness

                  and the GPS "distances" can be off quite a bit depending on a number of factors. Wear it on the track and find out how accurate it is or isn't
                  Oh Noooo, don't start that again.... http://www.runningahead.com/forums/topic/246f275e5a6a4ddcb3b2ec7b7c9145bd/0

                  Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.

                  jEfFgObLuE


                  I've got a fever...

                    To answer your question, no. They were not "all out". They were simply faster than I had ever them before. But now you are offering yet another definition of PR.
                    I am offering the conventional definition of a PR, as it is understood by most runners. If I go out and jog 2.3 miles (a distance that I quite possibly have never run by itself) at an easy pace, I guess by your definition , I've run a PR for 2.3 miles. But if I go tell another runner "hey, I ran a PR for 2.3miles", there would be the implicit assumption by that runner that I was running hard/all-out. They might wonder why the weird distance, but you say PR to most any runner, they'll assume you were running hard. And no, no one hardly ever runs the perfect race. On some days, you push as hard you you can, but you feel like crap, had a lousy week, it was too hot, etc., and you run an unsatisfying time. But it was probably the best you could run that day under the circumstances.

                    On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office.  But you will wish that you'd spent more time running.  Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.


                    Why is it sideways?

                      I dunno man, for a guy that doesn't care what other people think and who only competes with himself, you sure have put a lot of thought into what other people think about their running. Interpret your running how you like. For those of us who do not PR in random workouts and whose PRs represent one triumph that stands out over a lifetime of struggle, failure, half-successes, and heartbreaking injuries most of your questions are pretty moot.
                      Chris UK


                        Yet, if I go out tomorrow and run a 5k in 27:00 the only way that I can log that in a way so that I see 27:00 as my personal record is to log it as a race. Why? Last year it didn't really bother me to do this but I am taking a much more mindful approach to my running this year and would like to be able to log a run by the type it was so that I can generate reports properly rather than taking various runs and putting them under a mythical race category.
                        I have posted details on how you can do this above.
                        I truly regret mentioning logging at all as it is just an annoyance that I can work around.
                        My apologies for allowing a solution to get in the way of a good argument - over and out.

                        2013

                        3000 miles

                        Sub 19:00 for 5K  05-03-13 Clee Prom 5K - 19:00:66 that was bloody close!

                        Sub-40:00 for 10K 17-03-13 Gainsborough 10K - 39:43

                        Sub 88:00 for HM

                         

                          I dunno man, for a guy that doesn't care what other people think and who only competes with himself, you sure have put a lot of thought into what other people think about their running. Interpret your running how you like. For those of us who do not PR in random workouts and whose PRs represent one triumph that stands out over a lifetime of struggle, failure, half-successes, and heartbreaking injuries most of your questions are pretty moot.
                          POD. (I'm an easy grader after my return from the basement.)

                          Runners run


                          Why is it sideways?

                            Jealous.
                              MTA: I will ask again what I asked before. If I took a poll and asked everyone here how much you can bench press, or how many push ups you can do in one minute, or how high you can jump, whatever.... at some point you would almost certainly have an answer to one of those questions. You would say "I can bench 225" or "I benched 300 2 years ago but I couldn't do that now" or "I can do fifty push ups in one minute". Those are all PRs of yours. In your mind you know exactly what your PR is because it is your best performance. But how many of those were set in competitions?
                              FINE. I'll tell you how much I can bench. In college, the last time I tried, I could bench 250. Now, not nearly as much. I don't know how many pushups I can do--I do 35 before every run but rarely more than that--maybe 50, 55 if I maxed out? I once banged out 59 in a contest with a co-worker at my last job to settle an arguement but I stopped as soon as he gave up so maybe I could have done a couple more if he hadn't caved at 58. My PR for my Norden Sturgess loop is 56:13. This was not set in competition but on a random, ho-hum, 8+ mile training run. It is not listed in my RunningAhead training log, and I'm okay with that. Whatever you consider your 5K PR is fine with us. Eric just wrote the log the way it is for convenience, since 99% of people set their PRs in races and only really keep track of their PR's for the standard race distances that they race more than once or twice.

                              Runners run

                              xor


                                I made it to the 3rd round of the spelling bee in 5th grade. I got booted for missing 'agriculture'. So my spelling bee PR is 2.