Does your smart watch tell you your running speed?

[KihoBebiluPute]

I would like to keep a closer eye on my speed during running. My pace is extremely slow at the moment and that's fine as I haven't even finished c25k yet but I am on track to finish that in mid December and my next project will be to work on improving my speed and endurance. So I want to ask for a Smartwatch on my Christmas wishlist which will help me. At the moment I just run with my phone in a pocket and a running app is in the background recording my route and speed but I don't get any info while I run - just a bunch of stats once it's all over. When I start doing speed-improvement training i would like something visually telling me whether I am at or under a target pace on the go and I don't want to risk damage to my phone by having it out during the run.

If it could tell me my heart rate too that would be ace.

None of my nearest and dearest are likely to budget more than £30-£40 for a Christmas gift so no need to recommend the latest top of the market gadget for hundreds of pounds - I am hoping there are low-budget versions available.

My Garmin 35 does all that, but it's about £80-90 - would two of them club together? It's pretty idiot proof, and you can set it to display your pace (or speed) whilst you're running (plus two other features, I have distance and time elapsed) and it's got a virtual pacer function (but I've never used it!)

I think the 25 as similar, and is a little cheaper.

Or if you don't mind second hand, there are usually oodles going very cheap on eBay (people flog them when they upgrade).

Oh that's a good idea - I have no need of the latest model and would be perfectly happy with a second-hand one that is a couple of years old so long as it works.

Map My Run tells your speed after each km

AuntieStella is spot on - just get the cheapest possible Garmin. Even the most basic ones are better than just about anything else!

I'd go for a second hand one in your case. If you have a CEX nearby they sell things like that and they come with a guarantee (6 months I think). Would save you from worrying if it broke or stopped working after a couple of weeks.

I have a Garmin (more expensive than your looking at) so would also recommend some type of Garmin.

I don't understand - running apps like Strava can be set to give you audio notifications as you run, with current pace etc?

Yes, but you have to run them off something, @MsMartini. And watches are much more accurate, accessible and easy to carry than phones.

Yes. But the OP runs with her phone, she just doesn't want to have it out? I use Strava with my phone in a flipbelt, and the audio cues set to every 0.5k come through my headphones.

Running watches may well more be accurate/better but if budget is an issue, I just meant it might be worth trying switching notifications on, and see if that does the job.

I know but you’re a proper runner when you get a garmin! 😉

For sure

Garmins are the best but I got bored of mine. I might reinstate it as I have slowed down a lot over lockdown and maybe seeing my pace would buck me up.

I have Runkeeper on my phone but it's FAR easier to have a watch you can glance at.

Headphones?!

Phone?!

*shakes head, sighs, remembers pre-Garmin days

Garmin Forerunner 30 would be a great entry level watch. It's £130 on the garmin website but I would keep an eye on amazon (and running shop) black friday deals. Could you ask your nearest & dearest to group together for one?

ooh, just found it for £99.99 at Argos.

MapMyRun is free and gives audio updates of distance, total time, average per km and current split time at regular intervals which is perfect for me.

Yes as PP replied - I have apps on my phone that will tell me my speed but I don't want to have my phone out while I run and want real-time knowledge of how fast I am running. I know that my normal pace when doing a gentle jog (c25k app keeps reminding me to "not go too fast and tire myself out") then I go at between 9 and 10 kph. I want to improve on that gradually to circa 12kph as that seems to be the minimum pace that my local running group aims for (with some subgroups going faster) and I don't want to attempt to join them until I can keep up a respectable pace with the slowest-pace group!

The audio notifications on Strava sound useful in the long run but my plan for increasing my speed was to start using a similar pattern to the early weeks of c25k but doing "gentle jog" during the "walk" sections and running faster for initially 30 seconds at a time, but gradually increasing those faster bursts until I can do the whole run faster. So an average speed over the last 0.5km would be useful once I have built up my abilities for long enough to sustain a faster pace over 0.5km but that seems quite a long way off.

From everything you've said, it seems the basic Garmin is what you need. At the simplest level, it tells you on the screen how fast you're going, and then pops up every mile (or km if you'd rather) to tell you what you ran that mile in. You can also program it to do intervals, c25k style, with faster and slower bits.

Tbh though, just keeping running at this stage will increase your speed. You only really need to start on the speedwork when you can comfortably and regularly run more than 5k.
From my own experience, when I first finished c25k it took me about 31 minutes. I got that down to 25 minutes with no specific training, just running longer and more regularly. A bit of speedwork here and there then got my 5k down to 23 minutes; and it then took proper training (400m reps, that sort of thing) to get down to a 20min 5k. All with my trusty Garmin 220!

My fitbit charge tells me my speed on a run. I really like it but wouldn't recommend it for running as the display is hard to see in bright light when you are running along.

I quite like the sound of the Garmin.

That sounds like a really fast minimum pace for the slowest group of the running club???12kph is a 25minute 5k.

I agree @nbee84 that's quite fast, if you can run a 31min 5k you'd be welcome in most running clubs I know - the only exception would be the local athletics club that trains by squads with paid coaches.

I was using runkeeper last week for a virtual race and found the GPS and speed data horribly inacurate. To complete 10k on runkeeper, my watch recorded an additional 600m compared to the app. The pacing was off by half a minute per km. My watch agrees closely with the official distances and timings at races.

Phones rely on the GPS via the phone network which has much more margin for inaccuracy than the direct signal to a watch.

According to Strava, I once ran a km in 3 minutes while crossing some unpleasant junctions at a spot where the signal regularly used to "bounce" between masts

Getting a decent second hand watch sounds like a good strategy.

Are you sure that's the minimum pace for your local running club, OP?

Sorry if that sounds patronising, as I'm sure you've checked it out, but all running clubs I've ever encountered (which is a fair few over the years) have beginner groups starting much more steadily than that.
My first claim club, for example, have a 5 miles in an hour group, and another club I sometimes train with have a 5k to 10k improvers group. Might be worth messaging the club, just to see what their current groups are, for after lockdown? You may well be pleasantly surprised

As pps have said, most running clubs are very inclusive. And you'll be moving up through the groups in no time!

It's possible that the running club I have looked at is a lot more hardcore than average - their facebook group showcases some seriously scary-looking events that are way more demanding than the 5k/10k/half-marathon sorts of things that seem accessible to an amateur. But I do seem to be way slower than other runners around the local park, always being overtaken. I will see if I can find other running groups that are more accessible though.

Different forums seem to favour talking about speeds in either kph or mph or the concept of "pace" in minutes-per-mile or minutes-per-km and I don't feel I have a good grip on what numbers for these various measures equate to "fast", "slow", "ridiculously & embarrassingly slow" etc.

Different forums seem to favour talking about speeds in either kph or mph or the concept of "pace" in minutes-per-mile or minutes-per-km and I don't feel I have a good grip on what numbers for these various measures equate to "fast", "slow", "ridiculously & embarrassingly slow" etc

So... as a quick rule of thumb, most seasoned runners talk about pace in minutes per mile.
If you imagine a 1hr 10k, or a 30 min 5k, is around a 10 minute mile, then. That'll be your slower end for a running club.

My running club is pretty big and has pros at the top end (ie people who win all the local and some regional races) and fun runners at the other end.
Our sessions cater for everything from the fast groups (6-7 min mile pace for 9 or 10 miles) to the medium groups (8 to 9 min miles) to the slowest groups (on some nights 10 min miles for 6 miles or so, but also special 5-10k groups that are slower and shorter).

Then there's track sessions, hill sessions and the rest, where people go at their own pace and nobody gets left behind.

Hope that's useful..but your new watch will be very helpful in figuring out pace!

My Garmin Forerunner 25 does pace etc and could probably be found quite cheaply now as others upgrade. It has GPS and wrist based HRM.
My daily wear Garmin vivosport also has GPS, lap pace etc and is a lot smaller than the Foreunner and is £90 on John Lewis