[ecoli]

Originally Posted by cwgatling

Miles all the way here. Certain things are better in imperial: miles, pints...
Bear in mind the race series has 5 miler, 10 miler.

One sentence that just sums up my feeling perfectly

[rainbow kirby]

Force of habit really - I got my Garmin 3 days before a marathon where the course was marked at each km and every 5 miles so it made sense to have it in km right from the start, and just never really went back. I tend to be able to switch fairly easily though so that's not really an issue.

[pconn062]

Miles make champions! 'Nuff said!

[Kurt Godel]

Originally Posted by ecoli

Good point. But can you name any athlete at the Championships who has used km in an interview regarding their training

I'd imagine that if you heard any non-english speakers interviewed, they would talk of training in term of kilometers. It's the english-speaking world (GB, Ireland, US, Aus & NZ) that talks in terms of miles. This might explain why Tri guys talk in km's (cycling being a continental sport).

[Pisco Sour]

One auld chap in my club keeps banging on about the 400 and 800 as the "quarter" and the "half". I cringe every time!

It's not even mathematically correct anyway!

[gerard65]

Can't rewire my brain to think in KM's, tried a few months ago but found I kept doing the calculations to convert to miles. When I'm driving I still calculate to speed limits back to miles. Silly, I know, but 8min/miles means more to me than 5min/km's.
It's not easy to change 47 years of learned thinking. Look what happened to the Ulster Bank's systems when they tried to install a patch, that might happen to my brain.

[Krusty_Clown]

Originally Posted by Kurt Godel

This might explain why continental Tri guys talk in km's (cycling being a continental sport).

Fixed your post. Isn't the Ironman (pinnacle of all things triathlon) measured in 70.3 and 140.6? I'm making that shift to metric, but still like the terms 'miles' and 'mileage'. They're synonymous with training distance. I'm pretty sure that the word 'kilometerage' is not in anyone's regular vocabulary.

But I would walk eight hundred and four kilometers and six hundred and seventy two metres,
And I would walk eight hundred and four kilometers and six hundred and seventy two metres more.
Song would never have gotten to number 1 (maybe metric isn't all bad).

[walshb]

Originally Posted by ecoli

I thought this used to just be a Triathlon thing but it seems to be creeping up more and more. What gives?

Personally I have grown up training off miles along with most people I know who run. Everything from weekly mileage, pace, training segements (non track based reps or tempos)

Would never dream of changing either, maybe I am just set in my old ways (despite being of the younger demographic around here)

I agree. I can easily switch between metric and imperial. Like it or not we were brought up on imperial in this country, and even though metric is taking over it is not that easy to simply forget or block out imperial. I still use imperial for height and weight.

I hate it when I hear a news bulletin say for a missing person and the person is described as 70 Kgs and 1 metre 80. I can visualise this, but far more people will visualise it if it's reported in stones and lbs and feet and inches.

[Pisco Sour]

Originally Posted by Krusty_Clown

Fixed your post. Isn't the Ironman (pinnacle of all things triathlon)

Don't mention the war! I'd personally see the Olympic Games as the pinnacle of all things triathlon, and so would plenty of others.

[Krusty_Clown]

Originally Posted by walshb

I agree. I can easily switch between metric and imperial. Like it or not we were brought up on imperial in this country, and even though metric is taking over it is not that easy to simply forget or block out imperial. I still use imperial for height and weight.

I hate it when I hear a news bulletin say for a missing person and the person is described as 70 Kgs and 1 metre 80. I can visualise this, but far more people will visualise it if it's reported in stones and lbs and feet and inches.

If someone offered you 10 gallons of petrol for sixty Irish punts, would you know if you were getting a good deal or not? We do move on eventually. It just takes time.

[walshb]

Originally Posted by Krusty_Clown

If someone offered you 10 gallons of petrol for sixty Irish punts, would you know if you were getting a good deal or not? We do move on eventually. It just takes time.

Well, I am quite well versed in imperial. But, let's be real. General terms it is feet, inches, miles, stones etc; just like metric is centimetres, metres, kilometres, kilogrammes. Not many (general joe soap) people go deeper into either system of measure. So, mentioning say gallons or quarts is when people will get stuck, just like mentioning, milligrammes and decigrammes etc will get tough.

A gallon is roughly 4.5 litres or 8 pints. That is without me checking.

[hardCopy]

Metres and KMs for me. They're everywhere. Road distance signs, speed limits etc. When I'm on the bike I can relate my speed and distance to what I can cover in a car, likewise, when I run I can compare it with a bike distance. ( I also love when I see a distance marker on a motorway of less than 42KM, "Sure I could run the rest of the way")

The first thing I trained for was a Sprint Tri so I have the concept of 5K as a distance fairly hard-coded in my head at this stage.

Height and weight I still find difficult when it comes to my own weight. For food though I'd always weigh stuff in grams/ml etc, have no idea how much an ounce of flour would look like.

I look forward to the rebirth of metric time.

Like Krusty, I would never use the word Kilometrage, so even if I say mileage, I'm still thinking in KM.

Litres are better than pints any day!

[Micilin Muc]

KM splits come quicker than mile splits, allowing you to keep a closer eye on pace. I also don't like doing 0.06-mile intervals!

[walshb]

Originally Posted by Micilin Muc

KM splits come quicker than mile splits, allowing you to keep a closer eye on pace. I also don't like doing 0.06-mile intervals!

.06 or .6 mile intervals?

[corny]

If i was describing directions to a person i'd say go down that road 100 metres and not yards but greater distances i'd always use imperial. Little idiosyncrasy.

Which ever you measure it you still run the same distance