Fast Running Blog

Hey all,

I'm new to this board, but I have to say you all are very knowledgable, friendly, and have been a great help.

I was curious what you all use to measure your distance and pace. Do you all run with a Garmin or something, or is it done old school (knowing your running distance and using a stop watch).

If you do use some sort of device, do you have any suggestions on an affordable model that does the job?

Sincerely,
Chris

For years I just estimated based on what I thought my pace was and the total time of the run.  That was ok for me because I was always being coached by somebody else so I let them worry about how far I should be running.  Right now I am using a Garmin 405, it's a little more accurate than the estimation thing that I used to do but a little pricey.  I got the 405 because it was the same price as the 305 on rei's website but most people seem to prefer the 305, I love my 405 though.

If you can't afford that though, just use your stopwatch to get your total time, and then map your course out on the blogs course tool to get your total distance.  Then divide and you have your avg pace.  It's a little bit harder this way, but it's still pretty fun to map out your course.

As has been said, you can get by with making a rough estimate or mapping it out online. I've done that a lot in the past. I recently got a Garmin 205 and have loved having it. Aside from helping me measure my pace and distance overall, it often helps me push myself, because I often run alone. As far as models go, the 205 is the least expensive of the three (205, 305, 405), and it does everything and more that I need it to. The 305 is the same except it has a heart-rate monitor and bike sensor, which are not something I wanted to pay extra for.

My preferred methods are :

- wheel
- calibrate your sense of pace on something measured, then run the same effort for time
- Course Tool

Less preferred:

 - Garmin

For an easy run any of them would be good. If you are 10% off on the length of your easy run it is not that big of a deal. 10% off on the length of a tempo run or an interval is not that big of a deal either except then you might be getting the wrong perception of your fitness. So for those, I like to have them measured mechanically - calibrated wheel or Jones Counter. If that is not possible, then always do them in the same place from the same mark to the same mark. Then you know that if last month you took 15:00 to run from bush A to bush B, but now you are doing it in 14:30 with the same effort, you have done something right, and if you slowed down to 15:30 then you have done something wrong.

First I just measured with the car and then timed runs with a watch and got an average pace.  Then I started measuring runs with an online course tool and once again using a watch and taking an average pace.  I recently got a Garmin 205.  It is not as fancy as the newer versions but is much less expensive and works well for my purposes.  If I really want a precisely measured distance then I go to a track with a watch, or run a race on a usatf certified course and try to get the tangents right.  I live out in the country and a lot of runs end up meandering here and there on rural roads and drives so the Garmin is nice to give me a ballpark mileage since some of my routes are really difficult to map on a course tool.

If exact distance is needed, go to a track, I agree with April. Or get a wheel.

From there on, Garmin, Polar, Google Earth or even Course tool are a good 'base' to measure. They are not exact, and all have a degree of error, but they do give a good rough idea of distance.

I bought a Polar heart rate monitor that came with a foot pod.  It has been fun and quite accurate once I learned how to properly calibrate and mount it on my shoe. (Done improperly and the accuracy suffers) If you calibrate it over a longer distance like 8 miles or so and calibrate it on the surface that you usually run on, you'll find it to be quite accurate (within .01 miles).  Where accuracy suffers is when you run at a drastically different pace than what you calibrated for, but even then it gives you a very good idea (the variance may be .05 miles at the end of each mile which is fine if you merely want an idea of your pace and distance while training).  I like technological toys and enjoy seeing my heart rate, pace, distance, calories burned etc while I'm running with my ipod..... haha.

Whenever I hear Sasha start dissin' the Garmins, I always think of Rocky training in the cabin and then pulling the tire up the hill through the snow.  Now thanks to Ben, I have an Ivan Drago!!  I'm pretty drago-ish myself, but Rocky does win in the end. 

Kind of ironic that "Rocky" is actually Russian.  Anyway. . .

Sasha doesn't need cool gadgets because he isn't a man, he is a machine!  That is why it is easy to underestimate him because while he gives the appearance of being like Rocky, he is actually more of a machine than Ivan Drago... because he IS a computer.  Sasha doesn't like Garmin or heart rate monitors because he is more accurate than they are!

Sasha doesn't need a Garmin because he has a $10 Walmart watch and he does 90% of his running on a course that has accurate markers every 100 meters.

I'm really pathetic, because I use my garmin on the very same stretch of trail as Sasha logs into his human computer.  I have a hard enough time remembering which leg comes next.   

I tried a Suunto t3 footpod. To make thing interesting I had it display the immediate pace, around 7:30. For a while it was reasonably accurate. Then I did one quick movement with my foot midair, and it showed that I had accelerated to sub-5:00. I was still going 7:30 and would have needed 10-20 steps to get to sub-5:00. So I imagine you can really confuse a footpod device with frequent micro-surges, or if your form varies a lot from step to step. The problem with an accelerometer-based device is that the direct measurement is the change of velocity per second (acceleration), not the actual velocity. The velocity is heuristically guessed from acceleration patterns. Heuristics in computers means "we will guess, and we hope we are right more often than we are wrong, and we hope nobody dies when we are wrong"

". . . The velocity is heuristically guessed" 

Sasha, you are not helping your case that you are human; Is the "Suunto t3 footpod" some sort of space vehicle?!

I kid because I am so out of my league.

Back on point, I actually love the Garmin because I like to run all over the place while having a decent idea, albeit a little off, of how far I run.  If cost is an issue then the course tool (as others have mentioned) and a stopwatch is a great option. 

I use a Garmin Forerunner 405 and love it. Being a mathematician and data geek I love all the numbers the Garmin saves from each run.

Before the Forerunner 405 I actually carried the hand-held Garmin GPS unit I use while hiking.

The reason Sasha can handle running on the same course with the same markers every day without getting bored AND know his pace, distance and heart rate.... is BECAUSE he isn't human.    Perhaps he isn't a machine, but if he isn't a machine, then he is DEFINITELY an alien.  If you have doubts about this, go and watch the movie "Men in Black" and you will be just as convinced as I am.  Come to think of it, all of his random "pit stops" or "virtual bathrooms", as he calls them, are probably him going off the path to talk to the mother ship.  I think I'm onto something, guys.

aha!!  I'm going to watch those VPB's more closely.  Er,  maybe not.  nevermind. 

Back on topic. . . Garmins are great!

/imagining Sasha at his computer with face in his hands shaking his head.

I don't have a Garmin.  I rely heavily on the Course Tool on here.  Once you use that for awhile you can develop a pretty accurate 'feel' for time, pace and distance, but I'd still use either a Garmin or the Course Tool where possible.  At my best (which usually corresponds to how much running I'm doing) I can usually estimate to within a half mile or less of how long I've been running but that takes time and I still map it out to be safe.  It is unrealistic for those of us who are human to get a wheel measurement for every run we do.  That's why we have things like the Course Tool and Garmins, especially for trail type runs or runs on curvy courses.  I lost my watch (I hate wearing one anyway) so right now I use my desk clock and just subtract the 5 minutes it takes to get from my room to running and back and then use the course tool to find the distance.  You will also find that once you know a specific run is a certain length you'll use it over again or use parts of it that you know the length of over again.  Soon you'll have this "bank" or smorgasbord of runs and run segments and you'll be piecing them together in new ways but still knowing the distance and hardly even need to use the Course Tool.  If you want to be obsessive like me you can write them down or save them using the course tool.  Sorry for the random word salad but I just woke up from my Sunday Nap and am not exactly coherent...

When I originally started training I used a car to measure a course and then also knowing my pace could roughly estimate a course.  However, I also love to run trails and it gets pretty hard to get a car (even with my Jeep) to the top of a mountain - so switched to a Garmin.  Once you know roughly how long a course is, you can also just run the course, or use a stopwatch/watch to get an idea of your time. 

I have had good results with Google Earth and MapMyRun.com also.