The most effective operating watches can do much more than monitor your exercises. Come race day your Garmin watch can assist you keep on monitor and hit your goal time, with quite a lot of options out there that will help you efficiently tempo a marathon.
I’ve run the London Marathon six occasions and used a number of completely different approaches when organising my look ahead to the race, all of which have been designed to maintain me on monitor for my goal time. That’s tougher than in different marathons I’ve run as a result of the GPS sign goes AWOL operating by means of Canary Wharf and the tunnels on the course.
The only option to monitor your race is together with your regular information screens, however I’d counsel including lap tempo to them, quite than present tempo. Present tempo is especially prone to GPS bother and can bounce round so much, whereas lap tempo is your common tempo for the present mile or kilometer cut up you’re operating and is a extra secure quantity that will help you tempo your run.
Even with lap tempo the GPS issues you encounter within the second half of the London Marathon when operating underneath excessive buildings and thru tunnels can throw your watch off. I take handbook splits when passing the mile/kilometer markers to get an correct quantity for every to ensure I’m hitting my goal tempo.
A extra superior setting is to make use of the space and time goal setting on the watch. In your run web page maintain the menu button, choose coaching, fast exercise (or set a goal relying on which mannequin you’re utilizing) after which distance and time. Choose marathon distance and put in your goal time and also you’ll get two new information screens. One reveals how far behind or forward of your objective tempo you’re, and one other provides a predicted end time plus your common tempo and distance remaining.
The expected time is useful so long as you have in mind the space your watch has measured in contrast with the precise distance you’ve got left to run, with GPS inaccuracies included. Examine the space on the watch towards a marker while you go it and add any discrepancy in time to the anticipated time on the watch.
One other Garmin software you need to use is PacePro, which will provide you with a goal time for every mile or kilometer of your race based mostly on the elevation profile of the course, your general objective and race technique, as in whether or not you wish to run even splits, or a adverse cut up the place you run the second half of the marathon sooner than the primary.
I’d advise towards this although. PacePro is good however will probably be rendered close to ineffective by GPS inaccuracy and is most helpful on hilly programs just like the Boston Marathon the place your tempo per cut up will rise and fall with the hills. PacePro can assist you stick to focus on tempo within the first half of the London Marathon, which has good GPS accuracy with few tall buildings, however when you hit Canary Wharf inaccurate tempo readings will throw it off.
Essentially the most difficult and most correct choice you need to use is a ConnectIQ app that permits you to appropriate the space readings on the watch. I’ve used one known as Peter’s (Race) Pacer to do that (Peter’s (Hello-Viz) Pacer is an easier app that does the identical factor). If you go a marker on the course, hit the lap button and it rounds the space measured by the watch up or all the way down to be precise.
So in case your watch reads 5.12km on the 5K marker, hit the lap button and it’ll appropriate to five.00km, after which modify the typical tempo and different stats on the watch. You may also set a goal time with Peter’s Race Pacer and it’ll let you know how far forward or behind you’re.
I’m hoping Garmin will finally make this a local characteristic on its watches—as it’s on the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival watch—as a result of Peter’s (Race) Pacer isn’t essentially the most engaging information display screen, but it surely has labored effectively for me prior to now when GPS readings have gone wonky. Simply ensure you strive the app out in a coaching run to get used to the information being proven.
