we simply didn't care about every little detail. for example, if we had to run to a certain park to do intervals, we just run there. the time it took us to run from the school to the park was approximately 8 minutes. was it a mile? a little more? a little less? who honestly cares. when we ran intervals at the park, it was estimated as well. was it 800m? 874m? 946m? doesn't matter. after running intervals enough times, you get a feel for the distance and you just aim for consistent times.
How did runners measure distance before GPS watches
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There are known courses. I used to strings and map out the routes. You will be surprised how accurate it was.
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Trump #1 wrote:
There are known courses. I used to strings and map out the routes. You will be surprised how accurate it was.
I meant use strings on an actual map.
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Odometer in the car
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted. Reason provided: forgot to quote10 -
I used to use Map Quest, making estimate adjustments for course re-routes (like taking a parallel, less busy road). Google Maps let you move the route a little, and that was a help once it came on the scene. And then there are always those known routes - the "ten mile loop" or "three miles around the park" - I would take advantage of those.
My husband told me, while we were dating, that from his house, around a park path, and back was 2.5 miles and I (new runner) believed him. One day I discovered that the park path itself was almost 2 miles, and the total distance over 3. I give that mis-measurement a lot of credit for improving my running. I was running like 17% farther than I thought I was!
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I could tell how fast I was running within 5 seconds per mile (confirmed many times on the track). Similar to how we all managed to figure out where we were going by car with no GPS.
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kartelite wrote:
Whether racing or doing a workout or easy run, I always had a very good sense of my pace. If my coach told me to run 4:50 mile repeats on a flat section of a course or trail he had wheeled off (he was really into that and would measure full cross country courses as part of a big project he undertook), I would never be more than 5 seconds off, usually within like 2-3. I even used to test myself running laps at different target paces and checking my time at the end of the lap, especially with progression runs. 2 laps @ 100 seconds, 2 laps @ 95 seconds, etc. Obviously things like hills could add in some uncertainty, but it was good enough for government work. And I’d run a lot of the same routes repeatedly. I also know that at my easy pace it was about 205 breath cycles per mile (three steps breathing in, three steps breathing out) and I would often count as it’s not like I had much else to do while I ran.
This. Same for me.
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I remember going to the Boston Marathon and the marathon did not have official mile markers. random runners would try to guess where the mile markers should be and mark them.
others used stores or other markers to know how far along they were.
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MB132451 wrote:
Yes I know this may be viewed as a dumb question to an extent but I am curious to hear what people have to say.
I understand that- track exist, some trails/paths are marked, some roads in the country intersect every mile/ certain distance apart, and road signs can give distances. Also understand you could wheel a specific route to figure out the distance. I guess you could also measure a route using a cars odometer
how did you or people you know do it back in the day?
In Michigan roads are a 1 mile square. For example out and back is 2 miles. Around the "block" was 4 miles...ect. Then we'd look at our Timex 2nd hand and start on the 12 !
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Rural roads in the US are for the most part laid out in a 1 mile grid. Road to Road =1 mile.
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