[RunningFilter] Converting trail miles to road miles
June 15, 2013 7:23 PM Subscribe
What's a rough rule of thumb for converting trail miles to road miles, taking into account elevation change? More details below the fold.
Because of where I live, almost all the miles I run have substantial elevation change (e.g. 600' down to the river, 600' back up to the top of the hill, in about 8k).
Also a lot of them are trail miles.
Today I and a bunch of friends ran a trail race which had about 1400' of vertical ascent (and descent) in 10k. We were trying to work out what a rough road equivalent would be. It was about 66% climbing, by trail distance, ie the descents were steeper than the ascents. It was mostly on downhill mountain biking trails, so not exactly gentle.
In case time matters, three of the team put in times around 1:30, I managed about 2:00 and the fifth about 2:10. We are TOTALLY casual runner but just curious what the conversion factors would be.
Because of where I live, almost all the miles I run have substantial elevation change (e.g. 600' down to the river, 600' back up to the top of the hill, in about 8k).
Also a lot of them are trail miles.
Today I and a bunch of friends ran a trail race which had about 1400' of vertical ascent (and descent) in 10k. We were trying to work out what a rough road equivalent would be. It was about 66% climbing, by trail distance, ie the descents were steeper than the ascents. It was mostly on downhill mountain biking trails, so not exactly gentle.
In case time matters, three of the team put in times around 1:30, I managed about 2:00 and the fifth about 2:10. We are TOTALLY casual runner but just curious what the conversion factors would be.
Best answer: Some people use time to estimate equivalencies-- so if you can normally do 15K in 2 hours, but today 10K took 2 hours, it's similar to 15K in terms of effort expended.
posted by matcha action at 8:41 PM on June 15, 2013
posted by matcha action at 8:41 PM on June 15, 2013
Response by poster: Ah, using time makes total sense. I try to keep a constant effort. I've no idea of my regular 10k time as I always run trails/hills, but one of the 1:30 guys runs 10k in 45' so it looks like it was a rough equivalent of 20k, which is also what it felt like.
posted by unSane at 4:59 AM on June 16, 2013
posted by unSane at 4:59 AM on June 16, 2013
From the "for whatever it's worth" files: I do the same thing, just go by time. It's not 100% accurate and you kind of have to feel things out for yourself, but it's a good general measure of relative effort.
posted by ph00dz at 11:57 AM on June 16, 2013
posted by ph00dz at 11:57 AM on June 16, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by visual mechanic at 8:11 PM on June 15, 2013 [1 favorite]