Add my 1/8 mile speed and my 1/4 mile speed together than devide that by two?? So I run 77+96=173 than devide that by two is 86.5 I suck *** at math so would this be right?
Or do you have to know your speed at every foot or something crazy like that..

 

g-tech

 

Well, if you had a plot of your speed vs distance, you could then find the area under the curve and divide by the distance. Or, if you had some data points of speed vs distance at various points along the track, you could fit a function through those points, integrate the function over the distance, and then divide by the total distance.

Well, you asked...

 

why would you want to add your 1/8 and your 1/4 to get an average 1/4. If youve only done one 1/4 run, your average is the total time it took you to do 1/4. Youd need more data to get an average (at least 2 sets).

 

joy....statistics...glad i never have to take those courses again

 

Not stats Chris... calculus.

 

Average speed, for the 1/4 (or any distance, doesn't matter) is Vf - Vo / 2 (final velocity - initial velocity. You only need calculus for calculating instantanious velocities.

 

I was just about to post that equation. Good ol physics.

 

No... That would be the average of your starting and ending speed, not your average speed. That would be the solution to the integral of velocity over distance if and only if you have constant acceleration, which we don't. Besides, Vf-Vo/2 is calculus, it's calculating an integral for a specialized circumstance.