Trail Note
On Wednesday I bought a new pedometer, one with a stopwatch and distance calculation built-in. The distance thing is a bit of a crapshoot; you tell it how long your stride is and it multiplies that by the number of steps you do. Factor in the fuzziness of determining a “step”… and the error factor gets pretty huge. I’ve used it twice on my regular Pyrmont run now and I’m still getting a distance of around 5K. The ability to stop the clock when I’m waiting at stoplights certainly helps though. I’ve cut about five minutes off my time just from that. It’s still taking me about 45 minutes to do the circuit though, which is a good ten minutes off my last competitive time. Oh well. It’s a hilly course and even when I’m not stopped waiting at lights, sometimes I have to slow down for cars and pedestrians. I’ll get faster. (I saw the hypnotherapist today, in case you’re wondering where this tentative optimism is coming from.)
eileen
December 5, 2005 — 9:18 am
I wouldn’t worry too much about going faster. The best part about running is just getting out there and doing it, who cares how fast you go? I’m the slow and steady type, so maybe that’s just me. It sounds like you’re starting to enjoy running- good for you!
Tricia
December 5, 2005 — 1:39 pm
I’ll second everything that Eileen said.
I’ve read that it’s the amount of time that you’re running that counts, rather than the distance, so a 40 minute 5K hilly run is just as good (better, perhaps?) than a 40 min treadmill run where you cover more distance. With the exception of last summer (when I got extremely specific with training plans), I just run for time rather than trying to measure distance.