I ran my first marathon in 2016 and immediately fell in love with the event. Since then I have been running a regular marathon and I am almost always one of the best gamin watches on my wrist.
I have been following PRS in most of the marathon run in recent years, and find that with the right data screen showing, my watch has greatly helped to speed up the event.
I am running the London marathon later this week and hoping to run a new PR. There are data screens below that I assist in that effort on my gamin Fenix 8, as well as with some other data screen I found useful in previous events.
My main race screen
I have four statistics on my main race screen, and one of them is not a heart rate. When I use heart rate to judge my effort in training, I remind me of how hard I am working on the day of the race.
Major data for me are lap speed and lap time. To avoid GPS errors, I take a manual lap in the marathon to pass an official 5K marker every time to remove me at the speed of my goal, and I know the speed and overall lap time of the lap required for 5K to hit my goal.
I use lap speed to keep myself roughly on track during 5K blocks and then check the lap time when I mark it.
Then I also show the overall time of my run, which is a good overall indicator, when I am passing markers like halfway, and my last state rolling speed.
Rolling pace is a free connectic app that I use to show my speed to walk the final 500 meters (you can customize the distance for it), which gives me another guidance to stay at speed during 5K laps.
Race pacer is also useful
You can set a time and distance target on your germining watch before starting a run, and it will then show how far or ahead you are over the time of the marathon at the time of your goal.
As long as you keep in mind that you are unlikely to run exactly 26.2 miles due to GPS errors and weaving around people, and keep in mind how far your watch is from the real distance you have covered, it’s a simple and effective tool to help you stay on track during your marathon.
What will happen if GPS goes wrong?
Two screens can be used above when GPS is cured, but if the statistics of speed and distance from your watch are completely wrong due to GPS errors, then there is another screen that I have used in the past.
It is called Peter’s Race Paper, and it is another connection app that you can download. This app allows you to ‘correct’ the distance covered in your run when you kill the lap button and go beyond an official marker.
For example, if the GPS accuracy has become terrible and your watch shows at a distance of 3.3 miles. When you pass three-mile markers, hit the lap and your run will be correct for three miles, as well as adjust your speed data.
You can use Peter’s race pacer to show how far or ahead of your goal during the run, and adapt to its layout extensively. You have to do this in the connectic app instead of your watch, so make sure it is prematurely set.
It is particularly useful for the race in the centers of the city where skyscrapers can compromise GPS accuracy, although it is less than a problem with new watches that use dual-band GPS tracking.
Pespro is great for mountainous routes
Paespro is the underlying pacing tool of gardene and is very useful for some marathons such as Boston, which has a hill profile, as you can make a pacing plan that takes up the amount or downhill in every mile or kilometer partition.
For this you have to load the course of your race into a gamin connect – you can usually find the path on your root manufacturer of straws or gamin and use that file. London Marathon Marg is available on StrawFor example.
Then you set your overall goals, as well as deciding whether you also want to run the partition, a negative division – where you run the second half or race faster than before – or a positive division – you run the first half rapidly.
Then you set how hard you want to run the hills, and a complete pacing plan is made for you, which will bring you to your goal, while how fast you increase each mile.
Then you set how hard you want to run the hills, and a complete pacing plan is made for you, which will bring you to your goal, while how fast you increase each mile.
So for Boston you can be told well that for a slow mile on heartbreak hill to run some fast miles in the race.
I will not use myself in the London Marathon or Chicago marathon, as flat routes means that you can run in a simple pacing plan, but Pespro is a clever tool that helps your goal to hit the marathon courses and it can help you speed up a negative division – the best way to run a marathon in my experience.
