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Why the animosity towards miles?

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    #62
    Pisco Sour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,029 ✭✭✭Pisco Sour


    walshb wrote: »
    The golf example is brilliant. Even today I don't hear anyone using the word metres in relation to distances. I know there are metre and yard distances on courses, but I never ever hear folks/commentators/players speaking about metres.

    Because you only watch golf on UK/Irish/US television. Watch a golf tournament on Dutch TV and you won't hear any mention of yards.


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    #63
    Pisco Sour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,029 ✭✭✭Pisco Sour


    ecoli wrote: »
    Who said I was. Despite your reference to Oz races in Km you will find that most training talk still comes in terms of mileage:

    http://forum.runnerstribe.com/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=8bb930f19e895c4246d48bbb082af7b3

    Reading an article a while ago on Yuki Kawauchi translated from a Tokyo newspaper and he talked how race panned out and how he only made his move around the 20 mile mark (I suppose the translator could have making the conversions themselves)

    or sources such as the Kenya Standard,Le Monde and Antonio Cabral are just some sources which sprang to mind.

    So the assumption that my perception is derived only from lets run is not quite accurate. Though I take fiddy's point the fact that I am not multilingual does create bit of bias towards english speaking media (and odd bit of French)

    Yvonne Hak provides damning evidence:

    What would an average week of training be like, specifically in terms of key sessions and total mileage?

    Yvonne: An average week for me counts about 70 to 80 kilometres. Key sessions are two or three track sessions and two hill sessions in the woods. Especially the hill sessions are really tough and important for me, it helps me to get stronger and to improve my technique.


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    #64
    RayCun
    Registered Users Posts: 15,704 ✭✭✭✭RayCun


    walshb wrote: »
    I could be wrong but I bet if one was one to ask all the great men what distance they would like to have a WR in for their time, either the 1500 or the mile, most would select the mile.

    The Marathon talk podcasters ask all their interviewees, "if you weren't training for x, and had six months to train for a mile, what time could you run it in?" Mostly English-language interviewees, so naturally most of them work in miles and can have a guess at least. But, quite a few people will say "well, my 1500 time is x, so I guess a mile would be...", and from what I remember most of the people who have run middle distance relatively recently will answer like that. They don't have mile PBs, they have 1500m PBs.


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    #65
    ecoli
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,762 ✭✭✭✭ecoli


    Pisco Sour wrote: »
    Yvonne Hak provides damning evidence:

    What would an average week of training be like, specifically in terms of key sessions and total mileage?

    Yvonne: An average week for me counts about 70 to 80 kilometres. Key sessions are two or three track sessions and two hill sessions in the woods. Especially the hill sessions are really tough and important for me, it helps me to get stronger and to improve my technique.


    One article from an article you wrote is hardly damning and conclusive evidence:rolleyes: however I did take the point that my language limitations have probably sheltered me somewhat from non English speaking media I am just going from personal knowledge of talking to athletes around the world and making an observation


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    #66
    walshb
    Registered Users Posts: 54,595 ✭✭✭✭walshb


    Pisco Sour wrote: »
    Because you only watch golf on UK/Irish/US television. Watch a golf tournament on Dutch TV and you won't hear any mention of yards.

    Oh, quick, point me to that channel!


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    #67
    Pisco Sour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,029 ✭✭✭Pisco Sour


    ecoli wrote: »
    One article from an article you wrote is hardly damning and conclusive evidence:rolleyes: however I did take the point that my language limitations have probably sheltered me somewhat from non English speaking media I am just going from personal knowledge of talking to athletes around the world and making an observation

    Ah damn, I see I forgot to add that smiley. Was a tongue in cheek post.

    But yes, most of the non-English speaking world use Kilometres. Yvonne Hak's response to a question mentioning "mileage" is merely an example of this. :)


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    #68
    couerdelion
    Registered Users Posts: 2,910 ✭✭✭couerdelion


    The gym has all it's treadmills reading out in km's hence why I use mins per km in my logs. I also use km's on my gps to measure and for all of my cycling and I swim in metres not yards too.

    If anyone should still be using imperial it's me as I'm English and lived there for 30+ years.


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    #69
    robinph
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,066 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    couerdelion wrote: »
    If anyone should still be using imperial it's me as I'm English and lived there for 30+ years.

    But these quaint ye olde worlde English people don't know how far an inch, foot or yard is. Those measurements are just not used in everyday life, except for when describing how tall someone is, or the car only made it through the gap with inches to spare, or the shop is 100yards down the road. They couldn't actually tell you how many of each unit is in the other. They are just used as descriptive words not actual accurate measurements.

    I do know my marathons measured in miles or kilometers though, and I do know how many meters to a mile. Speed has to be in miles, distance travelled in a car has to be in miles, distance that you throw a ball has to be in meters. Liquids that you drink with up to 7ish% alcohol have to be in imperial, liquids with alcohol content greater than that is in metric. Food is in metric (although until I had medical reasons for needing to know food weights I didn't really care as long as my plate was full).

    Unless you are Nasa and get your measurement units mixed up, which they did a couple of years ago, then it really doesn't matter. The imperial units are all far better words for using for describing how far, fast or big something is. The metric ones are easier for counting with. But it's perfectly possible to get along using a mix of both and changing whenever the situation requires it.


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    #70
    murpho999
    Registered Users Posts: 28,391 ✭✭✭✭murpho999


    Pisco Sour wrote: »
    Because you only watch golf on UK/Irish/US television. Watch a golf tournament on Dutch TV and you won't hear any mention of yards.

    Lived in Holland ....golf was never on the TV.:p

    Anyhow, I don't understand why Irish people can't just learn both.

    I mean it's not a difficult system. Surely though today's schoolgoers will only use and understand metric?

    Also, silly reason but the republican in me views miles etc as imperial overhang and using metric distinguishes Ireland from Britain (Came from living in Holland and trying to convince people I was Irish not British)


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    #71
    couerdelion
    Registered Users Posts: 2,910 ✭✭✭couerdelion


    robinph wrote: »
    But these quaint ye olde worlde English people don't know how far an inch, foot or yard is. Those measurements are just not used in everyday life, except for when describing how tall someone is, or the car only made it through the gap with inches to spare, or the shop is 100yards down the road. They couldn't actually tell you how many of each unit is in the other. They are just used as descriptive words not actual accurate measurements.

    Anyone in the UK >40 will usually use imperial measurements and yards, feet and inches and know how far they all are and how many of each is in what. The problems come when you introduce miles. I couldn't tell you how many feet in a mile or inches in a mile but could work out metre and centimetre in a kilometre as I'm sure all here could do. Anyone under 30 (to generalise) is just using the words as measurement descriptions like you describe.

    Shirt collars and trousers sizes are in inches still too so we'll never fully move one way or the other.


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    #72
    rom
    Registered Users Posts: 5,135 ✭✭✭rom


    couerdelion wrote: »
    but could work out metre and centimetre in a kilometre

    5 points for gryffindor :P


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    #73
    maryishairy
    Registered Users Posts: 90 ✭✭maryishairy


    Since I took up running, I've gone for X mile runs & I've run at X:XX min/mile pace. So do all my running buddies.

    The only person I've ever heard telling me that they went for a X KM run is my brother......and he's not a runner:).

    Miles it has been and miles it will be for as long as I run.


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    #74
    hardCopy
    Registered Users Posts: 5,969 ✭✭✭hardCopy


    couerdelion wrote: »
    The gym has all it's treadmills reading out in km's hence why I use mins per km in my logs. I also use km's on my gps to measure and for all of my cycling and I swim in metres not yards too.

    If anyone should still be using imperial it's me as I'm English and lived there for 30+ years.

    The treadmills read out in KM's in Ireland. I had a horrific treadmill session once in a hotel in Liverpool where nearly fell off the treadmill trying to run my regular KM pace against a display counting in Miles. It was my first session in months so I put it down to lack of fitness. Went out on the road later in the week and copped what had happened.


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    #75
    Krusty_Clown
    Registered Users Posts: 19,495 ✭✭✭✭Krusty_Clown


    Pisco Sour wrote: »
    Yvonne Hak provides damning evidence:

    What would an average week of training be like, specifically in terms of key sessions and total mileage?

    Yvonne: An average week for me counts about 70 to 80 kilometres. Key sessions are two or three track sessions and two hill sessions in the woods. Especially the hill sessions are really tough and important for me, it helps me to get stronger and to improve my technique.
    From a recent interview with Ava Hutchinson:
    Q: What would an average week of training be like, specifically in terms of key sessions and total mileage?
    Ava: When in marathon training I’d normally run somewhere between 100-110 miles a week.
    Ava is (I believe) from a country where the measurement system is based on metric units (as clearly is the interviewer). :)


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    #76
    foxyboxer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,528 ✭✭✭foxyboxer


    More people have 'climbed' Everest than have run a sub 4 minute mile.


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    #77
    Gambas
    Registered Users Posts: 846 ✭✭✭Gambas


    As a novice it never crossed my mind to use miles when the most common races are all in kms. I didn't realise miles were common until I read this thread.

    The other even better reason is, as someone sagely put it to me - km's are a higher resolution than miles. This allows for better correction of pace.


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    #78
    just-joe
    Registered Users Posts: 679 ✭✭✭just-joe


    It's way easier to run in kilometres they're so much shorter and you can rack them up way quicker!


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    #79
    ecoli
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,762 ✭✭✭✭ecoli


    just-joe wrote: »
    It's way easier to run in kilometres they're so much shorter and you can rack them up way quicker!

    But there are more of them also. do you wanna here you have just over 3 miles to go or another 5k in a race ;)


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    #80
    Pisco Sour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,029 ✭✭✭Pisco Sour


    foxyboxer wrote: »
    More people have 'climbed' Everest than have run a sub 4 minute mile.

    :)


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    #81
    Pisco Sour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,029 ✭✭✭Pisco Sour


    Krusty_Clown wrote: »
    From a recent interview with Ava Hutchinson:

    Ava is (I believe) from a country where the measurement system is based on metric units (as clearly is the interviewer). :)

    Moderately impressive detective work.


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    #82
    Gambas
    Registered Users Posts: 846 ✭✭✭Gambas


    I wonder if gaining membership of the Kilometre High Club considered any less of an achievement?


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