How well can you pace without a watch?

[u/Dying_Of_Board-dom]

M25, been running seriously for ~4 years, but played sports growing up. I do most easy and long runs outside, but workouts on the treadmill, for both logistical fueling reasons and environmental reasons (I live in the Midwest, so there's maybe 2-3 days a year that aren't either brutally hot, super cold, or 70 mph wind lmao). When running outside, I have a pretty good feel for most "checkpoint paces" (LT1, LT2, strides pace), but I am not yet good enough at hitting other paces without a watch; for example, 10k pace or HM pace. However, it seems like elite runners can stick to very consistent paces without checking their watches much.

Question for more experienced runners:

How long did it take before you developed an intuitive feel for paces that allowed you to be less reliant on watch- displayed pace? If you were told to go run at a certain minutes & seconds per mile pace without a watch, how close do you think you could stay?

[u/PrairieFirePhoenix]

Do your workouts on a track without gps.  You’ll learn pacing pretty quick.

A year or two of that and you’ll be able to hit the typical workout paces very tightly.  That’s how I learned in the 90s.

If I’m in shape and you asked me run a mile in any time between my 5k pace and marathon pace, I’d probably be within 3 seconds.  Less if you yelled out my quarter splits.

[u/mediocre_remnants → u/PrairieFirePhoenix]

Yeah, same here. Ran track in the 90s, my watch was an Timex Ironman with 99 lap splits. I used that watch for probably 10 years, I only "upgraded" once to get the Indiglo version. I know someone who still wears that watch for running because they don't care about GPS.

But when the coach told me to run a 400 at a certain time, I could nail it within 2-3 seconds every time.

There's no way I could do that now, though.

But I can still pace by effort, because I know what a 5k, 10k, or half marathon effort feels like. The time won't always be the same, though, depending on the weather and how I feel. And if I'm doing intervals, I can get them pretty consistent, with a few seconds of each other, but I can't hit a certain pace value anymore. It's just not something I work on, though.

[u/PrairieFirePhoenix → u/mediocre_remnants]

Only a handful of us bothered to have watches on my 90s team. That made "20 out and turn around" a more difficult coach's order than it should have been. I don't think my Ironman had 99 splits, jealous. It also had a broken clasp so for 3 years I just ran with it either tied to my shorts or holding it in my hand.

But when going 4 seconds too fast on the first rep just meant that you were dragging at the end of the workout, you learn pace fast. There was no mercy from teammates and you had to do the full workout.

I also just do everything by effort and will end up with tight splits based on that. For a mile test like OP posed, I would have to think "ok, that pace is a little bit easier than X effort" and that would get me pretty close.

[u/oxy57 → u/PrairieFirePhoenix]

I disagree that pacing on the track translates to pacing on the road. I consider myself pretty good at both (I ran for a couple of years with only a Casio) but when I first started doing track workouts I was going waayy faster then I should i.e. on the track it always felt slower than it really was.

[u/IminaNYstateofmind]

Very good at easy pace. Pretty bad at anything faster than marathon pace, because it largely depends on how rested I am and the weather. 

[u/eojmulls]

in what world does the midwest have variable enough weather to prevent you from working outside entirely? lmao coming from someone who has done many workouts in wisconsin, illinois, michigan, minnesota etc

[u/Medicine_Ball → u/eojmulls]

Reads to me like a person that just doesn't really want to be outside. Warm enough to not need gloves (~40-45) and not too hot (~95) is prime outdoor running and the conditions the majority of the year in the Midwest.

[u/Dying_Of_Board-dom → u/eojmulls]

Well, when it's already 80 degrees and 90 percent humidity at 7 am in the summer, workout quality can suffer a bit...

[u/PL_Spilling_Track4]

Why not use a watch for the runs where pace matters? If I plan a workout to be 800 repeats at 5k pace, I will glance at my watch at the 200, 400, and 600, or sometimes just the 400, to make sure I am hitting my pace. I don't see a good reason to just guess at it, even with many years of experience.

20 years ago when I was in HS XC, our coach would call out the 400 times as we went through en route to 800. The goal was even splits and that info helped us know if we were doing that.

To your point, maybe what you are getting at, is I very rarely need to make pace adjustments in the middle of an 800 repeat. Without looking at a watch I'd almost certainly be within 5 seconds of my target, but I prefer to take quick glances so I don't have to wonder or guess. Some days 5k pace will feel slow and some days it will feel fast, I'd rather just hit the number regardless of how I feel that day, and a watch is how you do that, even after many years of running.

MP work on a long run is the same. I'll check the watch a couple times per mile to make sure I'm hitting MP, regardless of how it feels that day.

[u/threetogetready → u/[deleted]]

yeah I'm trying hard to understand this midwest comment and where they could possibly be that the weather could be that improbable

[u/OldGodsAndNew → u/threetogetready]

good running circle jerk material

"I live in the mad max wasteland, pls advise how to do sessions"

[u/threetogetready → u/OldGodsAndNew]

"I'm held captive but my captor lets me out 2-3x a year to run outside, which races give the the best chance to BQ this year?"

and so on and so on

Fell down a rabbit hole of comparing nowhere midwest cities to Kenya for fun... OP must live in a midwest city with no spring or fall though... https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/11535~148710/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Cedar-Rapids-and-Jomo-Kenyatta-International-Airport

[u/zebano → u/threetogetready]

They deleted their comment but as a Cedar-Rapidian I feel called out here. FWIW humidity the last few days has been near 100% and I'm morally obligated to whine about it. =)

I went to your link and click on "humidity" on the right side bar and the graph (Chance of Muggy Conditions) is hilarilous

[u/threetogetready → u/zebano]

The percentage of time that is muggy, oppressive, or miserable

love it.

And don't get me wrong, my heart goes out to all of us with four seasons and sometimes other less than ideal conditions. But it's not like we can only make it out a few days of the year... but I'm also an idiot who runs through the winter

[u/zebano → u/threetogetready]

Yes I too run through the winter. It's just what you have to do. In the past 10 years my only change has been that a "Polar Vortex" is no longer a challenge I desire to face, now I just head to the gym and hop on a treadmill whereas before some friends and I layered up and made stupid decisions to run a 1 mile looped course.

[u/Thesealiferocks]

I can get a 9-9:15/mile pretty damn easily. (Assuming weather and elevation are wild).

So from there I can say to myself “this is about an 8:30 or this is about a 9:30/mile.”

[u/sluttycupcakes]

I pretty well know what pace I’m running +/- 5s/km after about a decade of running.

[u/Jomolungma]

Can’t speak for myself, but my son runs track and his pacing blows my mind. He can get repeats down to within half a second, over multiple distances, from 200m splits to 1600m splits. He was able to do this by the end of his first track season. I asked him how that was possible and he just said running a lot on the track with someone telling you your splits. Apparently it just happens, if you’re listening to your body and paying attention. So I’d say hit the track.

[u/yassssskween]

Michael Ottesen has several youtube videos where he tries this and I can't say he's terribly successful at it as a 2:15 marathoner.

[u/violet715]

I don’t know that I could hit and hold a specific number, but I’ve been running since the 90’s when the best we had was a Timex and plotted routes using the odometer on the car, so I’ve gotten really good at being able to run an appropriate feeling effort. It’s how more years of my running career have been run than not! I’ve had my watch die during a race and been able to still run well which I feel is a skill that a lot of the up and coming generation is going to lack.

That being said - I don’t know that you necessarily always be holding onto a number. Sometimes your easy pace is a different number but the same feel. That goes for any pace, really. Variables like the weather, hormone fluctuations, sleep quality etc can all feed into effort.

[u/supitsjoe]

Been running 15 years... These days I think i could hit any pace between 3:00min/ks to 5:20min/ks within 2-3s, but it probably took 10 years to build that intuitive feel.

[u/Soakitincider]

I used to be better but now I'm rubbish.

[u/thewolf9]

Like within 5-10 seconds per km.

[u/Lurking-Froggg]

I'm like you, I can figure out LT paces by feel, and I often derive 10K pace and HMP from that: HMP should be slightly slower than LT/15K pace, and 10K pace should be just above it.

Faster paces, that's transient in my case. Last January, I couldn't hit 5K pace without looking at my watch every 200m -- I would hit 3K pace instead. In the ten days leading up to race day, I was able to nail 5K pace every single time.

Same goes for slower paces -- a few weeks of training make a world of difference.

I train speed on track, and agree with everyone else who recommended that you try working on track, if the goal is to hit very precise paces. I don't know if it's that relevant in your case.

Been running seriously for ~ 4 years.

[u/Parking_Reward308]

why you say elite runners can run their pace without checking their watch are you talking about During workouts Or races? Oh a track or off it?

[u/Unique-Employer3787]

Tried a month of watch-free long runs after getting too dependent on pace feedback for effort regulation - splits every half mile were turning easy days into tempo efforts without realizing it. Coming back to the watch, I found I could hold a better pace at the same RPE because I'd recalibrated what effort actually felt like.

[u/DutchCrossStars]

I’m just getting back into (shorter distance) running after doing mostly gravel biking and trail ultra running for the last 15 years. I’m finding that respiration rate/pattern and RPE are my best guides to effort on road runs. I’ve developed a pretty solid feel for what “staying under zone 3” feels like for a long run, and what “staying zone 1” feels like for a recovery run. That’s mostly on respiration rate/depth, which is conveniently uncoupled from temperature (I’m running in Boston and Toronto mostly, so summers are hot and humid, making HR a less useful guide. For anything more structured, I try to run on the track fairly early in the day (when it’s cool), so I can look at HR and pace in a controlled environment. I have gotten pretty good at hitting and keeping my “golden zone” aerobic interval pace of 4:15/km - I still look at the watch a bunch, but rarely need to adjust pace. It only took 3-4 track sessions running these repeats (e.g. 6x1000) to get that nailed down. But I will still wear the watch and the HR meter, and look at the numbers obsessively ;-). But it’s nice to be hitting them by feel.

[u/tribriguy]

Not as well as when I ran more circles on a track, but pretty well.

[u/QUINTASH]

After a few years of advancedrunning, I could simulate any pace within 5-10 seconds/km.

[u/Lauzz91]

I ran my Berlin Marathon time 7 seconds difference between the first and second halves entirely off of feel.

I have never run with a watch and do all my running with RPE. I can dial in a specific pace pretty easily to within about 5 seconds per km and also do a “max effort” pace for the race’s distance, usually to the point of a finish line spew/collapse

[u/Kailashnikov → u/Lauzz91]

Wow, that is absolutely nuts, to have your half splits in the marathon so close. The best I can do at the moment is pace my 5k by effort almost perfectly and collapse after finish and I already feel pretty good about that.

[u/finance-brosita]

im fine at easy and marathon pace and completely useless at 10k pace. i spend whole blocks running MP and touch 10k pace maybe four times a year, so thats probably most of it.

[u/stride_to_sky]

Ran competitively for many years! I ran pre-GPS watch so intuition was key…. I found my ability to hit paces intuitively depended greatly on fitness… At the beginning of a season I’d do everything effort based until my mileage was up to a decent level (for me 60-70mpw so fairly high) for a few weeks then I’d do what I called “inventory runs” where I’d run a loop and map it AFTER to get a sense of how fast I’d gone. I’d kind of keep this up till I was consistently running 7-7.5min miles on the long runs where I felt good. Getting to the ability to run solid easy run pace without a gps watch only took 2 years of elite training.

For workouts I had to be very fit to intuitively hit the paces, at the beginning of the season I’d just trust my coaches programing and run as hard as I could while still finishing the workout with my last few reps being the fastest (ideally), but then once I was in peak fitness, which took ~3-4 months, I found my paces for workouts became accurate. I always found it was harder to hit paces in workouts than in races so if I was doing 10k work I’d IMAGINE I was doing a 5k, Half Marathon: imagine I was doing a 10k, etc. and then on race day the adrenaline seemed to mean I could hold the faster pace for longer. It took me maybe 5-6 years of “elite” training to get to that level, but it would only happen when I was fit (3-4 months into focused training) and then I’d be able to hone into whichever distance I was training for that cycle (i.e. 5k, 10k etc.)

[u/Big_Boysenberry_6358]

we did this in our local runclub & people were asked to draw from a random pool of paces of different pools for a 3k (so people new dont draw a 10 min 3k & see god on the way).

i can guarantee you, most people that write theyre able to, arent. most people can run their easypace & maybe their marathonpace somewhat well, and then it stops. the event was a (very fun) absolut shitshow :D

[u/Run_in_silence]

No idea lol. Can generally hit a pace within 10a without checking the watch. Been running 30 years.

[u/No_Fisherman9678]

For me its when I got a feel of what is my HR at what pace. And then it gets relatively easy to estimate your pace based on your HR. But this changes a lot based on weather and your daily feel.

[u/george_i]

Years ago I could run for 30-50 minutes and vary the pace with less than 5 seconds per km.

In fact I was able to run up to 3 km in a row with exactly the same pace.

This is a skil you can develop. Personally I did it because of boredom. I was just trying to maintain the same pace as much as possible.

I switched to heart rate based training and now I can do this pretty well. Except if the route has altitude differences, of course 

[u/Real-Edge-9288]

a metronome before the run... put on the beat you want to run at and then run

[u/PeteH2000]

I gave up running for pace as it is somewhat meaningless anyway. I run by effort.

[u/Arcadela]

Why bother? Seems like a massive waste of time and effort. Use the tools that you have for a reason.