Going the Distance
Today I did make it to the swimming pool after a two week absence and managed 1000m in 15 minutes. It was a struggle mentally to go, I'll be honest. I very much felt lethargic and didn't really feel like swimming. However, last night I had one of those classic mid-night wake ups that may keep me from running for a couple of days: 2am CALF CRAMP! I haven't had one of those in years, and it wasn't fun to get reacquainted. Now my calf feels like there is still a bit of a lump in there and I don't want a recurrence of what happened back in March when my calf decided to force me to take a couple of weeks off.
In more interesting news, I did receive an email from the race director for the Sporting Life 10k in response to my inquired regarding the length of the course. Since so many of my fellow runners seemed to have measured significantly longer distances on their Garmins, and the MapMyRun method also produced a longer course, I emailed the folks at the race to ask about their measurement specifics. Here's the response, for your reading pleasure:
"After every race we receive a fair share of emails from GPS users stating that they ran a course that was long. You can be assured; the Sporting Life10k course is indeed 10k. There are a couple reasons your Garmin would read long:
1) When we measure our course, we always take the shortest line possible, where as runners tend to run in the middle of the road or weave to avoid slower runners
2) Garmins, while an incredibly handy training tool, aren't the most accurate tool around. When it comes to accurately measuring a course, nothing beats a good old fashioned bicycle and a Jones counter. I wish GPS units were as accurate as the Jones counter method since it would save us most of the 10hours it takes to measure a 10k course (don't ask about how long it takes to measure a marathon).
Our course was measured by Chris Fagel (Course Director) and Bernie Conway (IAAF/AIMS Grade A measurer for all of North America, who's list of measured courses includes the marathon course for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics). Our course certification # is ON-2009-020-BDC.
Also, if the course was 900m long, the 28:13 ran by Moses Macharia would have been closer to a 25:50... a world record for a road race 10k by over a minute. Moses ran a great race, but not that great :)
Hope this helps. Please forward to your Garmin wearing friends."
Not sure where he got the "if the course was 900m long" part, but I'll take this reply as authoritative and now begin to question just how accurate my Garmin is when it says I'm running at a good pace on a training run.
As far as forwarding the information to my Garmin wearing friends? Done, and done.
In more interesting news, I did receive an email from the race director for the Sporting Life 10k in response to my inquired regarding the length of the course. Since so many of my fellow runners seemed to have measured significantly longer distances on their Garmins, and the MapMyRun method also produced a longer course, I emailed the folks at the race to ask about their measurement specifics. Here's the response, for your reading pleasure:
"After every race we receive a fair share of emails from GPS users stating that they ran a course that was long. You can be assured; the Sporting Life10k course is indeed 10k. There are a couple reasons your Garmin would read long:
1) When we measure our course, we always take the shortest line possible, where as runners tend to run in the middle of the road or weave to avoid slower runners
2) Garmins, while an incredibly handy training tool, aren't the most accurate tool around. When it comes to accurately measuring a course, nothing beats a good old fashioned bicycle and a Jones counter. I wish GPS units were as accurate as the Jones counter method since it would save us most of the 10hours it takes to measure a 10k course (don't ask about how long it takes to measure a marathon).
Our course was measured by Chris Fagel (Course Director) and Bernie Conway (IAAF/AIMS Grade A measurer for all of North America, who's list of measured courses includes the marathon course for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics). Our course certification # is ON-2009-020-BDC.
Also, if the course was 900m long, the 28:13 ran by Moses Macharia would have been closer to a 25:50... a world record for a road race 10k by over a minute. Moses ran a great race, but not that great :)
Hope this helps. Please forward to your Garmin wearing friends."
Not sure where he got the "if the course was 900m long" part, but I'll take this reply as authoritative and now begin to question just how accurate my Garmin is when it says I'm running at a good pace on a training run.
As far as forwarding the information to my Garmin wearing friends? Done, and done.
Labels: calf cramps, race course measurement, swimming
posted by Vava at
9:46 PM
1 Comments:
Not really what we wanted to hear eh...but he makes a good point!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home