Miles vs kilometers

MrCreosote

Was on a thread over on After-hours about imperial vs metric. Thought I'd bring it over here. (Riveting conversation over on A-H by the way!)

I always have trouble with knowing distances I've run or bikes in miles, but could give a good guess with kilometers. And pace I'd always think of mins/km rather than mins/mile. In fact the mins/mile pace are fairly meaningless to me. I mean I know 6 mins/mile is pretty quick, but the difference between 7:30 and 8:00 I'm not sure.
Anybody else like this? Or can you all switch pretty easily?
And seeing as the first marathon was in Greece, should we all be speaking kms anyway?:D

thirtyfoot

Miles to KM is easy. Its when the yanks start using feet and inches in relation to field events. Not that is confusing and drives me mad.

thirstywork

Im a Miles man and always will be.Kilometres are for people gone soft:D
I ran 16k today sounds better than i ran 10miles to their friends haha.

shels4ever

Min/miles all the way for me, 4,5,6 etc pace are major benchmarks in my book... not that i'll ever run a 4 min mile...

Enduro

I've been converting myself over to using KMs. For anything involving maps its much much better. I wish marathons would start marking their courses in Ks. They're one of the last of the imperial hold-outs

thirstywork

that would be alot of marking out for the organisers of a marathon Enduro:pac:
suppose im old school....

RJC

shels4ever wrote: »

Min/miles all the way for me, 4,5,6 etc pace are major benchmarks in my book... not that i'll ever run a 4 min mile...

I agree. Although I have no problem in converting distances - good at sums.

kilometre marathons are a head wrecker for me. I like to run down the last 6 miles of a marathon, not death march the last 10k.

emerald007

KM's is my preference. The mental distraction of doing conversions on long runs is good, until you realise you've slowed down while calculating and now need to speed up.

Gringo78

Was at a 10K race recently where I had convinced my brother to run his first ever race. He assumed (logically I suppose, it being a 10K race) that the markers would be mean kilometers. The markers indicated miles though but it being his first race, and only ever having run on a treadmill, he assumed he was way off pace when it took him 8 min to hit the first marker rather than the 6min he had predicted. Naturally he upped the pace but still couldn't hit the second marker at the time he thought he should be capable of from treadmill running. He had to start walking at the 3rd marker, totally disillusioned with his pace!

I jogged back to the 6 mile marker to meet him and he was a broken man, thinking he still had 4km to run!

TFBubendorfer

I ran a marathon a few years ago that was marked in Ks, and found it easier - the markers appeared in much shorted intervals, and somehow that was helpful.

Btw, Boston is marked in both miles and Ks all the way through. The markers (in both units) are even part of the permanent road markings, but they do have big signs on the road side as well.

Enduro

thirstywork wrote: »

that would be alot of marking out for the organisers of a marathon Enduro:pac:
suppose im old school....

26 vs 42. A similar effort to mark I would have thought. Same order of magnitude. Same accuracy required. But yeah, I do actually think that at this stage its only tradition. After all, every track event (bar the mile?) is metric. Every olympic event is metric (excepting the marathon, which essentially is neither).

shels4ever

Enduro wrote: »

26 vs 42. A similar effort to mark I would have thought. Same order of magnitude. Same accuracy required. But yeah, I do actually think that at this stage its only tradition. After all, every track event (bar the mile?) is metric. Every olympic event is metric (excepting the marathon, which essentially is neither).

but a track is 400m , maybe they should make them 500m now ,

thirtyfoot

shels4ever wrote: »

but a track is 400m , maybe they should make them 500m now ,

Yes, but I assume you know what a track is 400m.

rainbow kirby

Weirdly enough, I tend to use miles for pacing while training, and kilometers for pacing while racing. For example, I know my last training run was at 9.30/mile pace, but for the Great Ireland Run I practically had 5.45/km burnt onto my brain...

I think it tends to depend on the course though, I can switch fairly handily, so if a course is marked in kilometers it tends to be easier to work in km.

Daithi BC

I'm a definite metric enthusiast. I just can't cope with a system that needs me to be able to multiply and divide by numbers like 12, 14 and 16 (not to mention 1760 yards in a mile).

The other thing is that in a race, you get pacing information much more regularly. If you're running a 3:30 marathon and you overdo the first mile, it's 8 minutes until you find out as opposed to 5 minutes if it's marked in kms. I know there are more of them, but I always feel like I'm making better progress when I'm getting through kms rather than miles.

Bambaata

Enduro wrote: »

I've been converting myself over to using KMs. For anything involving maps its much much better. I wish marathons would start marking their courses in Ks. They're one of the last of the imperial hold-outs

Barcelona had km markers and if im not mistaken they were very regular

hunnymonster

European marathons tend to be marked in Kms, UK, USA and Ireland in miles. While the UK and US still use miles for day to day living, Ireland uses kms so I don't see why our marathons haven't caught up.

I have a slight preference for km's, for the ease of sub-division without complicated maths but as most people I talk to, talk in miles (or worse minutes per mile, why not describe pace as mph?*) I can converse pretty easily in both.





*that's a whole other can or worms, I'm waiting for them to metricify time, 100 sec in a minute, 100 minutes in an hour and I might just be able to fit my life into the time allotted :-)

Domer

Just to confuse things even further....

In the US alot of the indoor tracks are measured in relation to a mile... 1609 meters. When Couglan was Chairman of the boards, most of the tracks he ran on were 10 laps to the mile. Even the newer ones still use the mile system. One of the best indoor facilities at the University of Notre Dame has a lap that is 1/5 of a mile. This makes running middle distance races / long distances very difficult for split times. The person calling the splits does as much running as the athletes! I was an 800m runner... 2.5 laps...less a little bit! Very confusing!! 2.5 laps is 880 yards... the old olympic distance before it went metric!!

Domer

TFBubendorfer

hunnymonster wrote: »

...or worse minutes per mile, why not describe pace as mph?

It's minutes per mile because you can measure that easily with a stopwatch. Run a mile and all you have to do is look at your watch at the end. To get your mph you need to be good at maths or have a much fancier device.

The same goes for minutes per K, obviously.

shels4ever

Tingle wrote: »

Yes, but I assume you know what a track is 400m.

Actually no , whats the story?

thirtyfoot

Domer wrote: »

Just to confuse things even further....

In the US alot of the indoor tracks are measured in relation to a mile... 1609 meters. When Couglan was Chairman of the boards, most of the tracks he ran on were 10 laps to the mile. Even the newer ones still use the mile system. One of the best indoor facilities at the University of Notre Dame has a lap that is 1/5 of a mile. This makes running middle distance races / long distances very difficult for split times. The person calling the splits does as much running as the athletes! I was an 800m runner... 2.5 laps...less a little bit! Very confusing!! 2.5 laps is 880 yards... the old olympic distance before it went metric!!

Domer

The yanks, you gotta love em. Isn't the Penn Relays a crazy track too so you are starting the 400 halfway down the home straight?

thirtyfoot

shels4ever wrote: »

Actually no , whats the story?

"I consider it the backbone event. I mean, if it wasn’t important, why would you have a 400-meter track?” - Clyde Hart

It is to accomodate the most important event of all, everything else is a sideshow.

shels4ever

Tingle wrote: »

"I consider it the backbone event. I mean, if it wasn’t important, why would you have a 400-meter track?” - Clyde Hart

It is to accomodate the most important event of all, everything else is a sideshow.

haha clasic...

When you think of it 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m then it all goes a bit mad 1500(should be 1600), 3k (why not 3200) and so on.

Enduro

Well there's a whole other can of worms! Binary based distances. Would suit all the IT geeks, who could rattle out the maths. Might have to have 64 seconds in a minute, 64 minutes in an hour, 32 hours in a day though

MrCreosote

I'd agree that kms are a little more flattering to the old ego on longer runs alright.

Measured my cycle into work- 10miles 275yards 2 foot 14 inches and five ounces exactly! Maybe I'll get into it!

Like the binary option- pasty legged thick-glasses nerds like myself would surely go for it...

ZiggyStardust

Trained always to miles and my first 4 marathons were marked in miles, then went to Berlin last year and was in KM :eek:.
In the end I actually found as TFB has said that it was easier as the Km's were knocked off quicker. Yes there are more of them, but you get the the next Km marker alot quicker and thought it was very motivating. I remember my other martathons waiting and waiting for the next mile mark.
I still however pace at minutes per mile

Clum

hunnymonster wrote: »

European marathons tend to be marked in Kms, UK, USA and Ireland in miles. While the UK and US still use miles for day to day living, Ireland uses kms so I don't see why our marathons haven't caught up.

Probably to suit the amount of runners from the UK and US who take part in our marathons.

I'm all for kms too. As Daithi says you get more regular updates, every 4 minutes rather than 6, or whatever. Easier to monitor pace in both training and racing. It's nothing to do with ego and making the run sound longer.

thirstywork

Enduro wrote: »

26 vs 42. A similar effort to mark I would have thought. Same order of magnitude. Same accuracy required. But yeah, I do actually think that at this stage its only tradition. After all, every track event (bar the mile?) is metric. Every olympic event is metric (excepting the marathon, which essentially is neither).

well its 60% + MORE EFFORT:p

if you where to ask Joe Bloggs int he street how fast he would run a mile or how fast he would run 1 609.344 meters lol....

Seres

hunnymonster wrote: »

I have a slight preference for km's, for the ease of sub-division without complicated maths but as most people I talk to, talk in miles (or worse minutes per mile, why not describe pace as mph?*) I can converse pretty easily in both./quote]

have to say can operate a little better in miles , i suppose cause i operated under the old system when i tranied as a young lass and yes hm i am one of those that you talk about, mins/miles people , the mph might be easy for you been an ultra-marathoner and all but for us ordinary folk min/mile pace works better:)
think its important to be comfortable with kms for racing purposes

baza1976

hunnymonster wrote: »

European marathons tend to be marked in Kms, UK, USA and Ireland in miles. While the UK and US still use miles for day to day living, Ireland uses kms so I don't see why our marathons haven't caught up.

I have a slight preference for km's, for the ease of sub-division without complicated maths but as most people I talk to, talk in miles (or worse minutes per mile, why not describe pace as mph?*) I can converse pretty easily in both.

QUOTE]

brains as well

mrak

There are still plenty of 4, 5-mile and 10-mile races around - it'll be a while before we see a ballycotton 16 I think..

For a marathon I mix units and break it down in my head to 2x10milers and a 10k which would be race distances I am used to and can get my head around.