My next race is a 10K, or 6.2 miles, and I thought that it could be beneficial and at least interesting to plan my splits by every one kilometer instead of per mile. During workouts, on my Garmin watch face I see three pieces of data: accumulated distance on the top, elapsed time in the middle, and my pace at the bottom. When I hit a pre-determined auto-split (usually every mile), the watch briefly switches to a screen showing my time for that split and the total time of the run, before going back to the main data screen. My watch has two settings that measure in meters/kilometers instead of miles.
One is a “Track” setting, meaning it’s optimal to use when running on the track. In this one, the watch measures my distance in meters during the workout and logs it that way, but on my weekly mileage compilation on the home watch face, it automatically adds the workout in the converted mileage. This seemed like the best option since I wouldn’t have to change settings on the watch at a higher level. Two other helpful features in the Track setting are that as you’re running, it adds your accumulated distance 10M at a time on the distance calculator so it’s easy to follow. In other words, if you’re 235 meters into a lap, it shows 235. It also has a more granular pace setting to show your speed. Instead of the per-mile pace always showing as a time ending in 5 or 0 (7:50, 7:45, etc.) it will show times between the 5s and 0s. But, I ran into a problem. The watch’s auto-split options in the Track setting are 1600M, 800M, and 400M. Since none of these are 1000M, this wasn’t going to work for my 10K plan.
The next option was to change the entire watch’s setting to metric. The good news is that when the watch is in metric, it defaults to 1000M or 1K auto-splits, which is perfect for what I’m doing. But, I made this change several days before the race and I’m glad I did so because it doesn’t show the data the same way as the Track setting.
The distance calculator still looks like the one in the imperial setting, or as it’s called in the watch, “Statute.” In other words, unlike the Track setting where 90 meters would show as the whole number 90, when the watch is all-metric, the screen shows .09. Once you get to 500 meters, it shows as .5. When you’ve been using the watch in the Statute setting for years, .5 in my mind means a half mile but of course 500 meters is 304.5 meters short of a half mile.
The pace calculator at the bottom is calculating speed per kilometer. You can imagine that I was pretty excited when I was taking a moderately paced run and the pace showed as 4:45. I can’t run a 4:45 mile right now and I quickly realized that was not my actual pace. 4:45 per kilometer translates to a 7:36 mile. Additionally, the pace setting stays on 5s and 0s (4:45, 4:50, etc.) and doesn’t carry over the more specific pace setting like it does in Track.
All that said, it’s helpful to be able to make the switch. I’m not sure that I’ll be 100% adapted to these differences by race day, but the practice helps. And, I hope this outline helps you if you decide to adjust the settings.
One final note. If you switch from statute to miles and vice versa, it automatically converts the weekly distance total on the watch face for you. It does not change the distance units for previously recorded runs on the calendar. Whatever you used to record the run, it stays that unit.
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