12 replies to this topic

[chisholm]

After completing my first half last weekend, I need a new focus (and quick... I already feel like I'm floating aimlessly). I was hoping to try some interval training to try and improve my speed since I am ridiculously slow.

My problem is that I don't have a garmin, and being a maths teacher I love my statistics and being able to calculate averages and track improvements. Now I know some of you will jump on here and tell me to stop worrying about that and just run, but crunching all those numbers does help motivate me and is part of the fun as far as I'm concerned.

I'd love to keep track of how long it takes me to run each 400m repeat, for example, as well as how long for warm up and cool down and recovery between repeats etc. I can't remember all those numbers and without the garmin I'm not sure how to keep track of it all.

I'm wondering since lots of CR's have inventive ideas about lots of other things, if anyone has any good ways to keep track of all of that info without having to run with a clipboard or buy a garmin! (As much as I'd love one, the budget doesn't stretch that far).

[blair]

You should be able to pick up a watch which has a lap function relatively cheaply. Then you just press the lap button before and after each rep.

[kathmandu]

Hi Chisholm,

Its easy, i do all my intervals without a garmin.

Measure out how far it is around your oval (or whatever specific track you want to use). Mine in 470m, i used my bike computer to measure it out. Then set up a quick spreadsheet to work out your lap times for the specific pace you are after. ie i know that if im targeting my 10k pace i need to be doing just under 2:15 per lap, and 5k pace is 2:10 per lap.

Start out with a plan, say for example 15mins warm up and cool down and then 5 x 1k reps at 10k pace with 2 min recovery jog.

Then write on your hand an abbreviated version of all of that.....i write
'15 WU/CD
5 x 1k @ 2:14
2m jog'

Then just use your stop watch to keep to the plan. Sometimes i work to heart rate rather than pace, but its still the same concept.

Its easy enough to remember how close you were to the plan. So write it down when you get back to the car or home.

Hope that helps.

[cakeboy]

I use the method which card counters do at blackjack to bring down the house ( BTW "bringing down the house" book is a great read) ....They use a high-low count for cards and I use it for intervals because I'm crap at cards....


This is how it works: if I am doing 400ms intervals on 1.30 pace, and I run the first one in 1.28, then I am minus 2 on the count.

If the next is 1.33, then I'm plus 1. Next interval 1.27: back to minus 2

I try to keep the count at zero (which equals perfect pacing) but this way if I get to the end of say 12 intervals and the count is plus 6, I know I've averaged them at 1.30.5

Like the Psychochook, I measure out 400ms on my bike after measuring the bike at a 400m track to make sure its pretty accurate.

Garmins?? who needs em!.....you just need a stop watch....hope this helps.

cheers Dave

Edited by cakeboy, 24 May 2008 - 11:47 AM.

[Phoenix]

I bought a Garmin from the US fir 25% of the Australian retail price. Before that I had a stop watch with a lap counter.

No way i could remember times every second day.

[SouthAustralian]

cakeboy, on May 24 2008, 11:15 AM, said:

I use the method which card counters do at blackjack to bring down the house ( BTW "bringing down the house" book is a great read) ....They use a high-low count for cards and I use it for intervals because I'm crap at cards....

Thanks Cakey....youre not just a pretty face are you?
Good stuff
Frank

[chisholm]

Thanls everyone for the suggestions. My watch seems to have a button that says 'lap', and I've been playing with it all afternoon but I don't really know how it works. Once I start my watch and press lap, it pauses the time on the screen (but keeps on ticking over seconds in its memory). If I push lap again, it takes the screen back to counting the seconds where it should be. Problem is, once I've finished a run, I don't know how to see those lap times again to enter them in my nerdy spreadsheets.

I really like cakeboy's idea of counting cards and just keeping a cumulative total of how far over or under your goal pace you are. That seems like a method that would work for me. I need to borrow a trundle wheel from school to measure my 400m path (I don't have a bike with a measuring thingy), get some motivation back, and I should be good to go!

Thanks again for the suggestions.

[crowpower]

I'm like you chisholm, I need my running to be statistically oriented to keep motivated.

I've started doing intervals again after several years layoff. This series is the easiest to record because I now have a watch which can record 42 splits. Why it stops at 42 I don't know because to record a marathon properly you need 44 and I didn't want to pay another $50 for a 100-split watch.

Anyway I can start the session at my car and record a few warmup splits over about 3 km and then do some 400s and 200s and also time the recoveries (200m jog for both distances). Then the 3km warmdown back to the car. When I get home I can press the data button and write down all the times.

Depending on the length of the session this uses about 25-35 of those splits.

Must confess I've no idea what a garmin is and have no interest in looking it up. Must have been invented during the 90s when I'd given up buying running magazines. It's a strange word though.

Good luck with your sessions chisholm.

[bruncle]

A garmin is a satellite based running watch, which tells you how fast and how far you've gone to 98% accuracy by the way;)

Cakeboy's suggestion is a good one, and is probably the easiest way to do it unless you have a watch with a proper lap function (chisolm, I think you've got a watch like mine, whose lap function is little more than show. When you press lap, it keeps the displayed time at the time at the last split, which is useless if you want to know what each split was!). The problem is, you lose a lot of data by reducing it to a +1/-2 kind of thing. It's not such a big deal if your splits don't wildly fluctuate though. I really miss my garmin, it made it so much easier.

[Bellthorpe]

Garmin has been around for much longer than wrist mounted GPS devices have been. It's a major brand of GPS manufacturer.

One of their products is a wrist mounted unit, which is aimed at runners, trail walkers, boating people and so on.

[luckyguy]

Hey Chisholm, this is the only time (other than in a race) that I time my performance. All I have ever used, is a wristwatch with stop watch function. On my 1st 1 km interval I press start at the end stop but do not clear the time. I then take my recovery lap and then repeat the process for the next km etc... Each lap is easily calculated by using cakeboys method of using the seconds +/- to work out each interval time. At the end of your workout, you should be left with a net time. Divide this by the number of laps and this will give you your splits. Easy. Who needs a garmin/GPS.

[Mark Heydon]

I must run intervals too hard. My oxygen starved brain has trouble keeping count of laps let alone keeping track of the overs/unders on each of the lap times.

[Bellthorpe]

Probably said partly in jest, but most people do run their intervals too hard ...

You can tell that's the case if you can't sustain the same times for most of the session.