Speed appears to vary enormously

[Graleystives]

I am a previously non exercising late 50 something who graduated in June. I now run three or four times a week for 30 to 35 minutes but because I am slow, I don’t get close to 5k.

Having read the various posts on here, I have decided to concentrate on stamina instead and increase my minimum distance by 0.1 km every couple or runs. Hopefully I will then get to 5k even if it takes close to an hour.

One thing I have noticed though, is that I feel that I always run at roughly the same pace although some feel slightly easier thAn others. However, my Runkeeper shows that my average pace since graduating has varied from 10 minutes a Km to 17 minutes a km. ( I run on fairly rough terrain in a field) There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to my speed and I don’t feel my perception of a run ties in with the average pace.

Does anyone else have such a wildly varying Pace?

Thanks.

[Magellan Graduate]

Your phone sends a signal to the GPS, and your position is recorded. Your pace is calculated based on how fast you get from a place to another place. So far, so reasonable.

If you run in a straight line for the whole time, then regardless of how frequently your phone sends the signal, you will get a very accurate figure from Runkeeper. If you run in a circuit of any sort or a route with bends and corners, it will 'lose' distance. If it records where you are just before and just after you turn a corner, then the corner itself will be cut by the app. For instance, if you run 400m on an oval 400m track, you might find that only six positions are taken, and your Runkeeper may work out straight lines between those points and decide that you only ran 360m.

My guess is that the slow paces are what you get when the nearest phone mast is getting a lot of traffic, and the faster paces are more accurate because they're the runs when your position is updated most frequently.

[Graleystives Graduate in reply to Magellan]

That is interesting and makes sense. I run round a field and so do a lot of corners. If I convert steps to distance it always suggests that I have run a lot further. When I briefly ran on the road, my speed and distance recorded did improve.

Many thanks for your response.

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate]

You run how you run....and you let your legs find their own happy pace...which may vary from run to run, terrain and weather .

But...by forgetting 5K and taking some long slow runs,..then that is a great idea....because, it is the longer slower, relaxed runs, which are the ones that build up stamina and strength. Weirdly, the runs evolve and speed and distance follow.

[Graleystives Graduate in reply to Oldfloss]

Thank you . This is very good advice. I need to make sure I follow it and pluck up courage to get out in different ply and not be so self conscious about being seen.

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate in reply to Graleystives]

Folk are too wrapped up in their lives to notice...especially now ! X

[UnfitNoMore Graduate]

I like to run to perceived effort rather than pace or heart rate. There’s some correlation between how it feels and HR, but not so much between them and pace. This makes a lot of sense to me, I don’t turn up at every start line feeing the same, which the same sleep, same nutrition, or same energy levels, so with all that varying, why wouldn’t pace vary too? Fields will add to this of course, grass can be very hard, all the way to very soft... rain and the water table make a huge difference to grass, and the softer it is the more energy it takes to run on it... muddy grass is very good for strength building though.

[Graleystives Graduate in reply to UnfitNoMore]

Thank you for your reply. It’s certainly been muddy of late!