I have a confession to make: when I have to stop at a red light while out on a road run, I sneakily also stop my sportswatch. The fact that this doesn’t actually change my workout or make me cross the road any faster is irrelevant. All that matters is that the run looks fast when I finish it and review the stats, dammit! (And don’t even try telling me that you don’t do the same…!)
Girl Runs Wild 
haha I totally do this! 🙂
😀
I absolutely do the same! I have just started trying strava on my phone, it’s a faff to get out and stop so I risk death running across the road so I don’t need to stop!
Haha – I love it. Another extremely sensible strategy to make sure that the run is/looks fast. It really is all that matters…!
I never used to do it and would just let my watch run but last month when I was tracking my km’s I wanted an accurate reading so now I pause it. Funny how we are.
Of course it’s easy to argue that the reading would be most accurate if we don’t stop the watch, as the little rest will certainly have a minor impact on our run regardless, and after all, it was part of what we did! I still find it pretty amusing (and have every intention to keep doing it of course! 🙂 ).
Oh it is yes 🙂 and so will I once I start running again.
My friend stops her garmin for the shortest of stops and then we compare times at the end for fun. If I stop mine, I always forget to re-start it and then totally mess up my stats.
Oh, and does stopping her watch make any real difference to the stats? I’m guessing not, but it’s still fun to keep kidding myself!
Oh i do the same thing! Hey those lights could add some serious “time” to your run!
I couldn’t agree more! The devil is in the detail, after all!
I just got a Garmin for Christmas and I haven’t had to stop it yet (no stoplights or street crosses on the path I run), but I know I will once I start running on roads!
Yes, yes, come to the dark side… 😉 Enjoy your runs and be safe on the roads!
I don’t have a garmin or anything like that, normally I just look to see what the time is when I start and what it is when I finish. I never deduct stopping time though because I think that no one is going to deduct those times during a race so I may as well deal with it in training. Oh I sound like such a knob! I should probably stop taking these things so seriously!
The idea of running without a sportswatch leaves me both mystified and twitching in equal measures. I love having my watch and the information that it gives me, as well as the fact that it accurately logs all my runs. However, at the same time, I think it’s important to not get too dependent on them, and on easy runs I usually use it only to track the run and never even look at it. Having said all that, I think that your approach of not deducting any time is far more sensible and logical than that of a speed addict like me!
I totally do this too! Gotta keep my stats where they should be, haha!
😀 Sounds like there’s a whole bunch of us irrational and obsessive runners out there! Happy running, and you keep stopping that watch! 😉
Ha! Love it!!
I take it you are a fellow offender? 😉
Ummmm…obviously!
Haha. I’ve done this in the past. I now have a Garmin 620 and it comes default to auto-pause whenever you stop. A cool feature if you want to deduct the lights etc, but I ended up turning it off because I’m basically a little old school and figure that if I stop in a race to use the porta-loo or to re-tie a shoelace, the race director isn’t going to deduct the minutes off my chip time. If you leave your Garmin running, the stop at a light also tells you one valuable piece of data – your recovery rate.
I completely agree that it’s more sensible to keep the clock ticking – after all, it then gives you data on what you’ve actually done! And as you point out, it’s not like the time is stopped for you during a race either. But the stats, the stats! 😉
Haha! Yes, the stats, the stats! In the end, I’m sure it doesn’t matter either way!