Gear: DIY Free Pace Band

Ever notice how when you don’t have time things just popping up and grab your attention?

There are a couple websites I check for races, one is MarathonGuide.com. Most (but not all) marathons also have half marathons as well so a couple times a year I check this site to see what is coming up. Well today I discovered something new. Marathon Guide has a free pacing calculator with free pace wristband.

What’s a pacing wristband? Basically this is what it sounds like, a cheapo wristband that you tape to your wrist to make sure you are where you need to be time-wise on a course. Some people use them to push themselves to personal bests. If you are a back-of-the-packer like me, you use it to make sure you stay ahead of the sweeper bus they send along for people who fall below course time minimums. If a race has a four hour or longer half marathon time limit then I don’t worry about it. At this point if it has a 3:30 or longer time limit I’m okay too. The 3 hour time limit sometimes makes me worry about elevation charts and course challenges. For example, I have a race with a three hour time limit coming up so I went to the Marathon Guide pace wristband page and entered my information.

I’m not worried about the marathon distance for the moment so I went to option B and plugged in my half marathon distance (13.1 miles). Then I put the time I’d like to finish in (3 hours), then I made sure to set it for miles. The United States unlike everyone else in the world loves miles. I could do this in kilometers but I would have to start counting on my fingers and toes.

See where it says Please Wait on that bottom button? That’s because I’ve been playing with it. Yours will say Create Pace Band. Click that and you will see:

This is a miniature screen shot I’ve included here so you can see what I’m talking about. The real one will be a full 11″ long (we print it on 8 1/2″ x 11″ computer paper at home) and you can cut to your desired length. I plan to cover mine with clear plastic packing tape so it will be waterproof/sweatproof. And I will likely tape it on me securely because it’s free I can just cut it off and throw it away after the race is over.

So if you have any pace goals for your upcoming races no matter what the distance give this site a try. I wish I’d found it awhile ago!

Tags: Free Half Marathon Pace Bands, Free Pace Wristbands, Half Marathon Wristbands, Running Pace Wristbands, Running Wristbands