Forums >Gears and Wears>"In GPS We Trust"
It's the Heart Rate part that I pay attention to.
Well played but I've put myself on a strict diet of only one mikey rant per week. Plus at least heart rate is based on effort.
Runners run
You'd be better off learning how to read that highly sensitive instrument known as your body and figuring out what marathon effort actually is. You do this by paying less attention to the gizmo on your wrist and more time during training and tune-up races learning what it feels like to train and race. The funniest thing about this phenomenon is that very frequently there are stories on this very board of people who forgot their gps in the car, or the battery died as soon as they turned it on or whatever and so they were left to run the race "freestyle" and they wound up running a big 10k pr or some such. It happens all the time. And yet nobody makes the connection that maybe they've become a little too dependent on the digital security blanket strapped to their wrist and that maybe there is something to this idea that maybe racing is an effort not a pace.
The funniest thing about this phenomenon is that very frequently there are stories on this very board of people who forgot their gps in the car, or the battery died as soon as they turned it on or whatever and so they were left to run the race "freestyle" and they wound up running a big 10k pr or some such. It happens all the time. And yet nobody makes the connection that maybe they've become a little too dependent on the digital security blanket strapped to their wrist and that maybe there is something to this idea that maybe racing is an effort not a pace.
To be fair, though, you've run many thousands of miles and have competed in innumerable races in your running life. I submit you may have a far better rapport with your highly sensitive instrument (TMI!) than the great unwashed. Use of a GPS as a tool is not mutually exclusive with development of a similar rapport.
Disclaimer: I used my Garmin to make sure I wasn't going stupid-fast in the first 15-20mi of my marathon. I do not use it to assess/adjust pace in a 5k, 10k or HM -- I run by feel.
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I take umbrage! I wash every.single.day!
Use of a GPS as a tool is not mutually exclusive with development of a similar rapport.
Yes, this was covered in Part 1, Paragraph 4 of the mikey rant on Page 4.
To be fair, though, you've run many thousands of miles and have competed in innumerable races in your running life. I submit you may have a far better rapport with your highly sensitive instrument (TMI!) than the great unwashed. Use of a GPS as a tool is not mutually exclusive with development of a similar rapport. Disclaimer: I used my Garmin to make sure I wasn't going stupid-fast in the first 15-20mi of my marathon. I do not use it to assess/adjust pace in a 5k, 10k or HM -- I run by feel.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that that POS has kept me from enjoying and self-learning at 5k-HM.
"If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus
very frequently there are stories on this very board of people who forgot their gps in the car, or the battery died as soon as they turned it on or whatever and so they were left to run the race "freestyle" and they wound up running a big 10k pr or some such. ... There are clearly people who have not only figured out what racing effort is but have also become good at building the correct pacing plan to run a max effort, using a gps as one of several tools to execute it.
very frequently there are stories on this very board of people who forgot their gps in the car, or the battery died as soon as they turned it on or whatever and so they were left to run the race "freestyle" and they wound up running a big 10k pr or some such.
... There are clearly people who have not only figured out what racing effort is but have also become good at building the correct pacing plan to run a max effort, using a gps as one of several tools to execute it.
I don't literally mean you as in pr100,
You mean you as in bhearn, right?
For whatever reason, I do better in races with my GPS. Get too much mental drift in the short races and had years of running feeling like I could just keep running. Couldn't overcome it. The Garmin helped. I can do much better now, but in any case, needed the instantaneous data for a while to encourage me.
Mile markers can be so off that I like the Garmin, too, with realization that it will be somewhat off (usually a predictable amount on road courses).
On the other end, I have several friends who greatly improved their half and marathon performances after getting a GPS because they used to go way too fast.
I think it can be misused as a tool, and over relied upon. However, I don't think it is something that should be looked down upon. It can be quite helpful in learning yourself, and in helping you execute.
Exactly!
We're conflating two things a bit here - the idea of trying to run a particular pace, and the mechanisms you use to determine that pace (e.g. the gps).
Putting aside the measurement aspect - the more important question is determining how to run. By feel, or pick a pace and try and stick with it.
I'm happy with the idea of picking a pace and trying to stick with it. How do I decide what pace to pick? Well, when I start thinking about marathon (normally a few months out from the event) I take a guess at what might be reasonable based on what I can currently do in training or shorter races, and what a reasonable improvement might be with decent training. If there's a good reason to modify that target (based on the same kind of considerations) as I go through training then I'll change it. At the moment I suspect that I'm capable of something a little faster than my target (assuming the injury isn't a problem in a couple of weeks time), but there's a good reason for being slightly conservative - 3:15 gives me London "good for your age" qualification for next year. In any case anything faster than 3:21 will be another PR, so something worthwhile.
I find it tricky to know how to pace a marathon just by feel - it's feels very easy at the start, it's so tempting to go too fast . I'm sure the ability to accurately judge the pace you're capable of on the day is a useful skill, but it's one I feel I don't have. If people feel that they do have that ability then all power to them - I certainly wouldn't suggest that they're doing the wrong thing for them... but by the same token I don't think I'm doing the wrong thing for me - at least not now, maybe I'll form a different opinion with more experience.
Imminent Catastrophe
Is it "impure" to look at your watch when you pass a mile marker? Just wondering, because GPS is basically the same thing except it works where there aren't mile markers.
"Able to function despite imminent catastrophe"
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Should you look at your watch as you approach a marker and then speed up or slow down in order to hit your "split"?
The process is the goal.
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I find it tricky to know how to pace a marathon just by feel
I find it tricky to know how to pace a marathon, period.
Not at it at all.
It depends. What kind of watch are we talking about? Does it have a leather or--better yet--hemp band?
Lazy idiot
I'm hardly the poster child for model training, but I'd say without question that the best way for me to run is by feel.
I can pick a pace, but if I'm not trained for the pace over a given distance, it doesn't matter how much I want to stick with it. I think way too often, people I know who are relatively new-ish to running (read: don't have tens of thousands of miles under their soles) pick a pace for a distance and try to train to that pace. I can speak from experience that I know how difficult and frustrating that is if you target a pace that's too aggressive. And conversely, I can speak from experience that I know how "rewarding" that can be if you target a pace that's too conservative and have the guts to forego the pace-based race plan.
How do you know how fast you should run on race day? You run. A crapload. All those easy miles will give you the base for some great workouts, and in the workouts your body will let you know what you can do. And then, when you're a week or so out from race day, maybe do you say, "I think I can run a 3:30 marathon based on my training, I'll stick with 8:00 miles till the wheels fall off or the finish line". But if you feel up to it, maybe you just say "I'm gonna go out at a pace that feels too easy at first, settle into a nice rhythm, and assess things at a certain point to see what feels appropriate given the distance and the world on this given day." And maybe you're feeling great and decide to go for it. Or maybe you're feeling wiped and try to hold on or you crash. But whatever happens... happens, and you learn from it. And you take your experience, put it in the bank for next time.
I suck at running marathons. I suck at running 5ks. I suck at running half marathons. (meaning... I have no idea how to "properly" race them) But I learn every time out there. Sometimes the lessons are painful. Sometimes they're freaking glorious. But they always point toward another race down the road, and someday I'm confident it'll all come together.
As AP was trying to troll out of me earlier: I "could" run the first mile of a marathon at sub 6:00 pace, but then I'd be done (nearly literally). I'd also be a moron. And I can say from experience that even a GPS may not be able to save you from being a moron. Last spring I felt I was in shape to run a half marathon at 7:45 pace. I had my Garmin on, and ran the first mile in 7:20, uphill. Yeah, there was walking involved later. It hurt, physically and emotionally, to know that I was a moron. But I didn't make the same mistake the next time I ran a half. I ran the first few miles well within what my training said was possible. And when I determined at mile 8 that I was better trained than the pace I'd been running, I pulled into the left lane, dropped that sucker into 4th gear, and hit the gas. Sometimes you catch a good day.
Tick tock
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I have some feeling for running a 5K, b/c I've run more of them than longer races. But I don't know how to judge a marathon by feel -- because the introductory part goes on for 13 miles or something. By the time I'm really starting to feel tired, I think it will be way too late to significantly correct pace.
I haven't run very many marathons -- but they're expensive to run (in energy, in time, in lost training, and in money). So I guess I lack the feel for them, due to lack of experience.
In the last one I raced, just recently, my pacing technique was primarily that I picked a guy I knew targeting the same time, who is more experienced and generally faster than me, and I chased him -- except I let him go a bit through the first half. I made that decision based on two factors - my watch suggested he was going below our target pace, and I felt like I was working as hard as I wanted to work for the first half.
So I guess that was some "by feel" input I was using, but I was also using "by watch" input.
If it were a lot easier to race marathons, I can imagine repeating that experience, with varying judgment calls, and maybe getting more of a sense of the feeling. But it would be a lot of effort to build up the varying experiences, and I don't know that I want to sacrifice so much time and effort.
With a 5K I don't mind experimenting different tactics/feelings, because it only sacrifices a day, or a few days.
MTA:
Also, I have deliberately gone out fast on a marathon, for the experience. It was fun to run part of Quint's breakthrough marathon with him, but the overwhelming exhaustion that followed (through the majority of the race) is not an experience I really want to repeat any time soon.
I found it much more painful to experiment with going out fast on a marathon, than I've found it on a 5K -- although it is also true that I've never overrun the first mile of a 5K that much. But I have certainly overrun the first half mile of a 5K, and while it makes the next mile exhausting, it does not require running exhausted for hours.
It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.