New printable pace-band

Sean Fishpool · February 2005

Morning all

we've just made a printable pace wristband for this site, which you can print and wear when you race.

But before we stick it on the homepage, would anyone like to try it out / print it out / see if it makes general sense?

It's right here

All comments welcome!

cheers

Sean, RW

Red Haired Girl · February 2005

If you press printer friendly version at the bottom of the page it just gives you a blank band.

Looks good to me.

Sean Fishpool · February 2005

Oops, that 'time to cross line' was down to a last-minute fix for something else. I've corrected that now.

RHG, the 'printer friendly' version will always start off blank because it reloads the page. On my printer the printer friendly version ends up on two pages, strangely, but the original version is fine on one.

EP, do you have a 'fit to one page' setting on your print dialog box? Otherwise we might need to look at a page without any headers on it perhaps

Nessie · February 2005

Cooooool.

)

Haven't tried printing it yet though - need to wait for lunchtime for that.

Minks · February 2005

Looks good, but how can you know in advance of a race how long it will take you to cross the start line?

[Deleted User] · February 2005

Like it a lot.

Can you program splits into it?

Luiked it so much I tried to Bookmark it immediately, but it doesn't seem to have worked.

Voods · February 2005

Looks good but my wrists are rapidly running out of space what with :

- garmin forerunner
- heart rate monitor
- stop watch
- that lovely bracelet I got at Christmas

and now

- a pace wristband :O(

Maybe I need longer arms

)

Sean Fishpool · February 2005

Minks,

we're wondering whether to keep this feature in. If you've done a particular race before, you'll know whether you'll be over the line in half a minute or two or three minutes (or in the case of London, 5-10 minutes for a lot of people). And forumites would be able to helpfully reply to a question like 'I'm looking to do 2hrs at the Tunbridge Wells Half. How long should I allow to cross the line if I stand in an appropriate start place?'

Chip timing (at eg London) makes this less of an issue, but we wanted to give people the option of factoring it in to their pace plan. I've done time plans for lots of races where I've found myself instantly 'behind schedule' because I didn't factor in enough time to cross the line :-s

Sean Fishpool · February 2005

Voods, look out for the glove-shaped version, coming soon ;-)

JJF, alas it just works on even pacing, if that's what you mean. But you can type your own times onto the band if you use it as a blank template

Minks · February 2005

I can see why it could be useful, Sean, but just think that the time to cross the line is too much of a variable. At last year's FLM I predicted (from what I'd been told on here and by other sources) that from the starter pen I was in, it would take 10-15 minutes to get across the start, and that's what I told my supporters who were planning to follow me round the course. As it turned out it took me less than 3 minutes to cross the start line. If I'd factored 15 minutes into my pace band I'd have been bu**ered (and my supporters missed seeing me at every pre-arranged point as I'd already gone past by the time they got there). I guess if you can choose whether or not to include a start-delay factor when using the pace band it doesn't matter if it's there as you don't have to use it.

Welsh Alex · February 2005

With the start time you could always say guess ten minutes and wait the full ten ...

Depends whether people are using their own watches or the clocks on a race.

Additionally, could you put a column in that could be used to adjust for faster / slower miles ? So that if for example we knew that mile 4 was a minute faster and mile 9 40 secs slower we could incorp. that in to the calcs.

Whatever you decide it is very good/handy as it is.

[Deleted User] · February 2005

god, i love these things.

They gave them out at the LA marathon for different pace times - so useful considering i (like many others, i guess) cant do a single bit of mental arithmatic when the brain goes foggy at about 18 miles..lol

Welsh Alex · February 2005

Possibly you could build a database of race profiles so that we actually select the race we want and it knows what miles are faster / slower by a percentage ?

May be a lot of work.

Sean Fishpool · February 2005

thanks everyone, all appreciated.

Anyone had any joy printing it yet?

Sean Fishpool · February 2005

WA, cool ideas. I meant to say, if anyone out there wants to adapt any of the calculators with new features, we'd be very happy to republish them alongside the originals as alternatives, with credit to you

[Deleted User] · February 2005

printed ok for me - although the bottom of the band was off the page, which didn't matter cos I did a half mara but might have for a full one?

It's awful wide for me (girlie wrists) but I may programme in a pair of scissors and an algorithm and sort that myself :-)

Welsh Alex · February 2005

Thanks Sean,

I have just printed mine out for a marathon and ...

The band goes on to 2 pages, it would be better if the web-page (not the band) did not have the Runners World headline, this moves it all two inches down knocking the band off the bottom of an A4

I have also made it count down by putting my target time in "Time to cross start" and leaving the target at zero.

Welsh Alex · February 2005

I agree with FLR in that a slight reduction in the width would be good.

Perhaps the Miles could be in Bold.

Nessie · February 2005

On 2 pages for me too.

Like Flr, I have girlie wrists.

Might have to have 3 of them, with realistic target, aspiration target, and only-in-my-dreams target, and swap them round depending on how the race goes........

[Deleted User] · February 2005

On 2 pages for me too....but not a problem as there is enough white space at the bottom to make the band (girlie wrists)

I'll never use it though....I distract myself from the running by working out how much time I should take by now/to the next marker/before the next drink station.....

....it takes ages and then I forget the answer and so a half marathon goes by without my brain being allowed to notice that legs are doing 13.1 miles :-)

candy ollier · February 2005

it doesn't do a marathon in kilometres, which is no good for european races with metric markers... so is it possible to set it to do 2k increments instead?

Sean Fishpool · February 2005

Wonderful - thanks everyone, Ok, so if possible:

1. narrower band
2. window without headings, to fit on one page
3. bold miles
4. 2K splits for marathon in kilometres

wishlist
1. manually adjustable faster/slower miles

Splendid. Keep 'em coming if you have any more thoughts. It's up as a 'beta' calc now on our main calculators page

www.runnersworld.co.uk/calculators

and also in the 'quiclinks' menu at the top left of every page

[Deleted User] · February 2005

1k increments for marathons would be better. I know this messes up your system but it is more useful. I found one on the net once, I think it managed to fit the info onto a wrist band by having a smaller font. Or was it in two columns?

If the drop down menu included 20 mile and 30k races, that would be good.

Looks good though!

[Deleted User] · February 2005

I'm sorry if I'm being thick here but . . .

surely if you use your own watch, and you start it when you cross the start line, you don't need to factor in how long it takes to actually get to the start?

or am I missing something . .

otherwise a great idea . . altho as somebody who won't run wearing reading glasses it's of no use whatsoever!!!

I just write some split times (depending on the distance of the race) in large numbers on the back of my number and put the pins in a little lower down so I can read them . .

but I have used these before when my eyes weren't so dim (and nor was I probably) and they're a great idea . .

tallbird · February 2005

I have spotted a problem.

If you chose to do a half marathon in km - it doesn't come back to your target time.

I had a target of 1:47:00, 1/2 marathon, Km, and the calculated total time on the band shows 1:47:49!!

[Deleted User] · February 2005

Tallbird
try putting your time as 1:46:00 and it comes back with a calculated time of 1:46:48.
close enough...

[Deleted User] · February 2005

Great idea - agree with Lizzy B ref 20 mile distance and 1K splits for non GB races!

Any chance of this in the next week before my 20-miler?!

Tall bird is that because the marathon is 21.1km? not the round 21K

tallbird · February 2005

Ok, Ok, I know there are ways round it - but if you are going to do something................

Sean Fishpool · February 2005

Many thanks all.

Okay, the new version has

1. narrower band
2. popup window without headings, to print on one page
3. bold miles
4. 2K splits for marathon in kilometres
5. fixed the funny-time bug (thanks Tallbird)

It's the third link on our main calculators page

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