A difference of 0.48 can bring such joy

A few weeks ago I was speaking with one of the new group that have completed the C25K and she asked how long after completing did we get to the 5K distance. After telling her she looked disappointed and said they were still a long way off the distance and they were way over that time now. This did surprise me as when I had seen them running, they looked to be about the same pace as our group at that stage.

Yesterday I met her in the park while out with the little ones as they were flying around on their bikes. I asked after her running and she was very despondent as she was still not running the fully 5K. She took out her phone and showed me the route she took. I pointed out that the distance shows 3.5 miles and told her that was way over 5K. She disagreed and pulled up the calculator, typed in a few numbers then showed me 3.99 on the display.

I asked he how she calculated it and she said 3.5 x 1.14. I said that I am sure the rate should be 1.6 times the distance in miles and googled it to make sure.

Her response was "I am going to kill him!", Eh? He partner had assured her that was the conversion rate. I said that I think that may be the euro to pound rate not miles to Km. She did seem ecstatic about the news though know she has passed the 5K mark.

I am hoping she does not kill him as being locked up in a prison cell my hamper her running a bit.

[GTFC Graduate]

👀🤣🤣🙈🙈 what a story this is. Bless her heart. She'll feel good now though that she's been running further than 5k!!

[MissUnderstanding Administrator]

Oh no! I often tutor maths and science-it’s so common for conversions to go wrong with very comedy results. Once a pupil calculated top speed of a blue whale as the equivalent of about 800mph. That’s one fast whale.

Your poor friend!!! At least she’s now discovered she’s been running further than she thought rather than less! I’d like to have been a fly on the wall in the house when she told her partner about the mistake!

[Cmoi Graduate in reply to MissUnderstanding]

Reminds me of the student whose dessert recipe included the instruction "Do stiffs under grill." You'll be pleased to know the finished stiffs were served with vanilla ice-cream. 💀🍨

[MissUnderstanding Administrator in reply to Cmoi]

Oh dear!!!!

[Instructor57 Graduate]

🤣 .... Brilliant

[CBDB Ambassador]

🤣🤣🤣 I do wonder which app will be the first to display both metric and imperial.

Even just switching between them (ca 4 or more clicks) annoys me, and even worse is when I accidentally leave Runkeeper in the ‘wrong’ measure, and the audio guidance on the run then tells me the stats in a measure that I don’t have a feel for.

Great story!

[Cmoi Graduate]

Oops! But why didn't she just type "3.5 miles in km" directly into Google? That gives the result instantly, much easier than faffing with calculators or [insert your choice of adjective] partners.

[Hidden in reply to Cmoi]

I do wonder at times how some people make the most simple task so complicated.

Although having said that, if I ask Amazon Alexa a question, she general comes back with something completely random. My husband then asks the same question (maybe phrased slightly differently) and her reply is spot on. I think she hates me!!

[Cmoi Graduate in reply to Hidden]

My (university) students were doing a quiz in class. One asked his phone "What was Hillary Clinton's first job?" Phone replied: "Hillary Clinton is not in your address book."

[Hidden in reply to Cmoi]

I asked Alexa "What's the weather like today?" , she replied, "I cant find any photos of wedding cake in your album."

[Yesletsgo Administrator in reply to Hidden]

Our Google Home hub flirts with my husband, sings to him and tells him he's wonderful. She doesn't act like that with me. Blinking patriarchy 😂

[SueAppleRun Graduate]

Oh she must be so happy she stopped to speak to you, 😃

[Hidden in reply to SueAppleRun]

It did seem to cheer her up.

[OldManRunning Graduate]

Hilarious 😂 😂 😂 I always use, divide by 8 multiply by 5 but I'm very old school 😂 😂

[Cmoi Graduate in reply to OldManRunning]

You and me both!

[MissUnderstanding Administrator in reply to OldManRunning]

I often distract myself during my runs converting between kms and miles so I can picture how far I’ve run. That only works in miles in my brain!

[Mothmoss Graduate]

😂

[Frenc Graduate]

This really made me chuckle!!! Anyway, off to run a few Euros 🤣.