To Wear, Or Not To Wear...

Tester46

Hi, I'm a total newbie, the Cork City Marathon 2014 will be my first marathon and my first race of any kind since I ran the 100m in national school in the 80s!!! I've been doing most of my training wearing my iPhone on my arm in an armband thingy with MapMyRun. That way I get my mileage, average pace and split pace. It's very useful for keeping me on track with my training.

Can I wear it during the Cork Marathon? Is there any etiquette or rules on wearing a watch/phone? Good/bad idea?

Thanks!

Krusty_Clown

There's no etiquette rules in relation to wearing a watch or phone, however, many races will have a ban on wearing headphones (or at the very least will discourage this practise). Here's a section from Cork's FAQ:

Can I use headphones during the race?
We operate under Athletics Ireland guidelines. They haven't banned headphones yet, so we don't officially ban headphones.

However, we do strongly advise against wearing them. If you chose to wear headphones during the race, please take extra care and be aware of others around you and especially of the possibility of unauthorised traffic (in particular, bikes) on the course. We also have some official traffic on the course (emergency services, stewards, camera crew, etc.), so please do take care.

So it's not banned, but discouraged for safety reasons. For your first marathon, I'd suggest wearing the phone, but leaving the headphones at home. The encouragement you get from the crowd will be worth a few minutes off your time!

Tester46

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

There's no etiquette rules in relation to wearing a watch or phone, however, many races will have a ban on wearing headphones (or at the very least will discourage this practise). Here's a section from Cork's FAQ:


So it's not banned, but discouraged for safety reasons. For your first marathon, I'd suggest wearing the phone, but leaving the headphones at home. The encouragement you get from the crowd will be worth a few minutes off your time!

Thanks. I never wear headphones or listen to music anyway, I just have the nice American lady on MapMyRun shout my stats at me through the speakers!!!

Timmaay

Tester46 wrote: »

Thanks. I never wear headphones or listen to music anyway, I just have the nice American lady on MapMyRun shout my stats at me through the speakers!!!

In general I find ignorance is bliss , give me a basic stopwatch, and once I know the mile/km split that I know is achievable and I'm happy, other than that as Krusty says, use the crowd and atmosphere to give you valuable mental support.

Cona

Also, remember after 20 miles, even the smallest thing can begin to irratate you like something rubbing you the wrong way or a gel bouncing in your pocket. If that armband starts to come loose due to sweat or whatever else, it is going to drive you nuts... and possibly get flung off a wall!

carlton36

Cona wrote: »

Also, remember after 20 miles, even the smallest thing can begin to irratate you like something rubbing you the wrong way or a gel bouncing in your pocket. If that armband starts to come loose due to sweat or whatever else, it is going to drive you nuts... and possibly get flung off a wall!

Or more likely, it feels so tight that your arm goes numb