I found myself a new 5Km route from near home that has about the same elevation rise as Keswick Parkrun. Well, it is a bit harder, as it does the rise and fall about 3 times to make it's elevation rise of 22m roughly like the one up and down of 53m at the parkrun (if that makes sense). It is all on tarmac, whereas the parkrun is a stony path, and I do have to pause for traffic as it's narrow. There is a bar, and a spa/gym, at the far end, but at least today, I was not tempted by either 😈.
I think I could extend it to 7 or even 10Km in the long run 😳.
So today's time of 31:35 compares quite well with 31:20 for the parkrun last Saturday.
I am really trying now to beat that 30 minute mark, so having a proper 5Km course will help a lot.
The only problem with it is it runs through my village, and I get all the 'Ooo who's that young man running?' type comments. The laugh is on me though.
Hope your day is this good.
❤
Written by
theoldfellow
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Thats excellent. Is your park run 5k? Most seem to be about 4.9
I think they’re all supposed to be “accurately measured” 5ks, measured just outside the shortest running line option, Flick. Our gps devices and apps all tend to average and measure things differently, though, so we get a variety of distances shown... (I’ve learned Strava always seems to be mean and to take a bit off, so I add about 0.4k to runs to allow for that!) 😊❤️
Yes, mine only seems to take a gps reading every 15s or so (zoom in on your route and you can see the points). So it will not be accurate for all twists/turns ups/downs and in wooded areas mine seems to be less accurate also. Pretty good overall but it’s not going to be as accurate as the measuring wheel they use when the course is marked out.
Well done on the run. What sort of warm up are you doing before parkrun? My times tumbled once I started doing 1-1.5km easy and some strides and finishing this about 5-10 mins before the start.
I park about 10 minutes from the run and then jog in to the start for stretches and stuff. So probably not quite 1km.
For my local morning runs I am 'religious' about warm ups as the local church is exactly 2.5 minutes walk from home, and I am the key holder who opens it every day. ☺
Yes, the intervals between readings can be amusing. It’s not happened with my Garmin yet, but using the Runkeeper app on my phone it once auto paused because it thought I wasn’t moving when I was running as fast as I could round a tight bend! 😂 Because I go out and back during my long runs, it also tends to result in a massive drop in the pace reading for the turnaround point.
Ours often reads as 5.03 K and when I look on garmin connect it has me running down the road rather than on the prom! It’s funny how garmin gives me and UpTheStanley different routes on the same run.
Which model do you have? It does depend which GPS method you are set to. I would love to see what happens if I set mine to the Russian/Glomass satellite setting, but it eats battery so I have it on the next most accurate setting. Over 15 months it has lost satellite aboutvtwice and robbed me of a couple of KMs.
Yes, settings. You need to be clear of trees or tall buildings when you connect too, or it sometimes can’t pick up a signal very well, but gonads can help with that. Also check that your particular watch has it. x
Sound like my Forerunner 35 too, Eileen. When I do sprint repeats on the same section of a track it shows me doing different loops, none of which go along the track. And when I run our local disused railway line, which has some road bits between sections, it sometimes shows me going down a different road entirely!
I think they are pretty good overall on distance, though. My accurately measured 10k race at Tatton had it matching each of their 1k markers completely.
I think it's worth reminding ourselves that GPS only guarantees 10 metre precision unless you have the Military Option, who we don't. In fact it doesn't even guarantee that if there is a tree overhead or (in my case) a mountain close by.
My understanding is that the receiver in the watch picks up the signal from 4 satellites, so it needs to see 4!
I use my Garmin 235 for my own record, and let the Parkrun people record their own. Keswick seems to come in between 4.95 and 5.03 in Garmin-speak. The difficulty is the start which is a cramped and frenzied affair, actually hitting the button while avoiding the puddle and the pinch-point ( and the person stopping to retie their shoe,) JUST at the start marker is almost impossible. Then I frequently forget to stop it the watch too.
So the Parkrun official time also includes all that messing about, which I think probably costs me 20 seconds.
I’ve only done one parkrun but that was my experience too. I have the Fenix 5s and have found it oretty accurate with routes where I oretty much know the distance. Of course, it also depends if you cut the bends!
I find headphones helpful in blocking out comments like ‘get those knees up’ etc 😡 Sounds like you are really pushing yourself - good luck in getting your sub 30 🏃♂️🏃♂️🏃♂️
Sounds good TOF - I've found having a regular 5k route really helpful in improving my performance to sub-30 mins and then to achieving that at parkrun (though that is always slower for reasons stated above - latest PBs 27.59 and 28.50 respectively)
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