km's or miles in a marathon

village runner

With all the runners that have garmins do they put their watch in kms or miles for marathons ??

I for one really believe in kms and i was always a mile man. Its the mental thing in the head that in the last 15km when things get hard the kms just keep going by. You might even miss out on one. I feel that the miles are just too slow comeing up. For some reason 37km feels i am clser to home than 23 miles.
Even if the course is in miles i will have my garmin in kms and will have a pace band with my predicted times on my other hand.

What are others views on this ?

Slogger Jogger

Converted myself to kms a few years back once I started doing more marathons out of the country. I find the training goes quicker (obviously its all in the head) and you are working with rounder amounts for target paces e.g. 5 min pace for recover, 4 min for > MP etc. A bit annoying to have to convert my log to miles then for the 1000 mile challenge, but can't complain

One Cold Hand

Changed to km's myself also last year, way to go imo.

Slogger Jogger wrote: »

A bit annoying to have to convert my log to miles then for the 1000 mile challenge, but can't complain

Maybe we can start a 1610 km Challenge?!?

curaldo

Was thinking the same the other day. For me its got to be miles. Theres less of them 26 & 385 yards vs 42.196. Its simple maths!

On another level i do prefer miles as i find it mentally better(easier) for my training. I think when people run they are programed in multiples of 5's. Therefore someone with a km mindset might say to themselves, "i'll go for a handy 5k today" wheres someone with a miles mindset might say," i'll go for a handy 5 mile today". theres a big difference in distance and even more so if you go into 10's or 20's. I mean who goes for a 15k run? You don't, you go for a ten miler. Its the golden measurement of distance. Or i might just be a nostalgic fool!

--amadeus--

Always miles for training. It's how the training plans in the book are written and it's how my mind works - I know the work involved in a 40/50/60 mile week in the way I wouldn't get with 70/80/90kms or whatever. And I know training pace in miles. 8 min/miles is easy, 7:30's for aerobic or whatever. That all comes naturally and would need a lot of re-learning for kms for no real gain.

For the race it is whatever the official markers are set at - my Garmin fritzed in a race once and I was lost without it so I manually lap the timer at the official distance markers. Relying on the Garmin to autolap means you know the speed you are running but not the speed you are racing, which isn't the same thing.

Given a choice though I far prefer to race in kms - you get far faster feedback on your speed and speed adjustments taht way and they go by a whole lot faster

robinph

Miles for me, kilometres are just too short and would keep reaching the next one too quickly.

BeepBeep67

Kms up to half way and miles for the run in.
So at half way you've done 21 and have only 13 to go .

Blueskye

Miles all the way but I like the idea of kms going faster towards the end of a marathon...but no, think I'll stick to the miles.

rainbow kirby

I like the way they did it for DCM - mile markers, but every 5km was marked too. I know I did get a bit of a lift by seeing the 40km sign...

In shorter races though, I prefer when they are marked in km. I find it easier for pacing.

Enduro

Feckin races are one of the last luddite miles users left :mad: KMs all the way for me. I made the mental conversion years ago, and hate going back. Do the miles users also do elevation in feet/yards? (Genuine question).

toomuchdetail

converted to km's last year , all the tri's are in KM's so thats what prompted the change but the bigger advantage for me is for pacing . It seems easier to keep on your pace if your checking it at km's rather than miles.

ike

KM's for me switched over last year, much prefer the way they reel off quicker. Also found it keeps my pacing more focussed as drifting too much off a KM will have a bigger impact

robinph

Enduro wrote: »

Do the miles users also do elevation in feet/yards? (Genuine question).

Not me.

Some things I just cannot get my head round unless they are in certain units.

Height and weight of people has to be imperial, feet and inches, stones and pounds, the US way of just using pounds I cannot figure out.
Size and weight of "stuff" has to be metric.
Distances over a certain point, lets call it 1km for instance, have to be in imperial, everything shorter than that has to be metric.
Liquid that you drink has to be imperial.
Liquid that you put in an engine has to be metric.
etc.

Anyn case where I'd use the imperial unit though I have no clue as to how many of one of those goes into the next sized unit. I know how far a mile is in metric, but not imperial.

ike

KM's for me switched over last year, much prefer the way they reel off quicker. Also found it keeps my pacing more focussed as drifting too much off a KM will have a bigger impact.

...apologies double post bloody mobiles

emerald007

Km's for me, but i find calculating the various distance/pace values (km->m, km pace -> mile pace) conversion in my head while running is a good distraction (none of that ipod music for me!!). the one downside is the rounding error seems to get larger the longer you run, so before the end of the marathon the equation says your finished, but the course says no. is this a software(brain) or hardware(body) issue? There must be a firmware joke in there somewhere?

misty floyd

[running and thinking on threadmill]....."feckin km's:mad:....ok....1km is 5/8ths of a mile....

[daydreaming, starting to get very bored].......

I've done 7km...right, I know 6km is around 4miles but not exactly..........right, take 5km

....I know for sure that that is 3.1miles......that leaves 2km, whats that in miles? ehhhhh about 1 mile?

.......wait 1 mile is 5/8ths of a......mile......no wait, 2 km is 2*8/5 or is it 5/8.....I need to write this down...........ah feck it I'll just run for an hour and plug the distance into mcmillan later"

village runner

robinph wrote: »

Miles for me, kilometres are just too short and would keep reaching the next one too quickly.

That was the whole point of it. I find myself day dreaming in a marathon , also when i stop for water i naturally speed up to reach my goal speed.

Also at the start of a race we all start too quick. Agree ???
I find that when its easier to hit the first km at predicted race speed than the first mile......

eliwallach

Slightly off topic.

When is the first (maybe it's been done ) Kilathon gonna be run in Ireland (26.2 KM). I know that they are run more regularly in the UK.

It equates to ~16.4 miles.

Maybe the Cork to Cobh race in October could be adjusted slightly to become the first (?) Kilathon in ROI.

robinph

Hadn't heard of them before, bu it does sound like an increddibly daft distance fora race.

The marathon distance itself is pretty damn daft in how it came to be the 26 miles 385 yards, but has now been around and used for long enough. But to then take that daft number and and use it for another unit of measurement is really pushing into the realms of crazy.

Not surprised they run them in the UK though.

eliwallach

robinph wrote: »

Not surprised they run them in the UK though.

Slackers...;).

jlang

I train in miles but for a marathon or any race, I run to whatever units the race is marked. Pointless to time miles when there's 42 kilometer markers to pass.

Generally I run in miles, bike in km and swim in metres. Pretty much with robinph on other things - rough measures in traditional units (18 inches, half a mile, 10 pint Thursdays (can be very rough after these), etc.) but metric when accurate measures are required. Car primarily does mpg but my spreadsheet calculates euros/week, cents/mile, miles/year and litres/100km after each fill.

size5

As someone only starting at the running and whom just receieved my Garmin this xmas(seems like ages ago;)) I too debated this.

Decided to set the Garmin to kms as roads sign are kms not other scientific explaniation