Stillwell trails and a mystery solved

My Stillwell Loop x 2

Today's run (Stillwell Woods): 4.2 miles

The Garmin power loss mystery was solved this morning when I uploaded my week's runs to Garmin Connect. The duration of Thursday's treadmill run was recorded at sixteen hours and forty-one minutes. I had forgotten to turn off the timer after my run, and it dutifully recorded time until it ran out of juice. I was happy to see that it was my lack of attention, and not an issue with my battery, that caused the power drain.

The Garmin was back to full power this morning when I headed over to Stillwell Woods. It was freezing cold at the start and I expected the dirt paths to be rock hard. Surprisingly, the ground had plenty of give. As I traveled further, I even encountered some muddy sections. My hip did not bother me like yesterday, but I could still feel some soreness.

I followed my usual loop, a route that I favor for two reasons: I don't get lost while on it and it doesn't subject me to the extreme inclines that exist further to the east. I was careful not to push too hard and further aggravate my hip, so I locked into a comfortable pace and enjoyed the scenery as I ran.

I saw a few groups of high school-age runners moving rapidly along the trail and figured they were training for cross country. There were some mountain bikers as well, and one rode behind me for a while, but didn't pass. Knowing he was there made me nervous. I moved far to the right, hoping that he'd take the hint. At that moment, the rider turned onto a connecting path and my problem was solved.

I ended up covering my route twice and even added a little extra distance to make sure I made my targeted distance of four miles. So far my hip is still behaving and I'm hoping the residual soreness will go away. It was nice to be back in the woods and I look forward to more trail running as winter turns to spring. You can run the trails all year round, but it's far better when the paths are clear.

Today's fifty step run

No power, no problem, today

I originally thought the theme of today's post would be about my discovery that my Garmin was out of battery and that would force me to run outside without capturing any data. But that wasn't the way it played out. Instead, I ended up stopping my run almost as soon as it started. Nothing to do with technology this time.

I was actually looking forward to running free of big brother NAVSTAR as I geared up for the cold morning temperatures (29°). I'll admit that I wimped out and put on my Garmin 60 to use as a stopwatch, but I didn't connect the foot pod or the HRM. So technically I was running free. However, between elapsed time and Gmaps, I could still calculate pace and distance. And you know I would have.

After running fifty steps from my house on my way around the neighborhood, I realized that my hip soreness had not gone away. In fact it was fairly painful and I worried that continuing my run might only exacerbate the problem. I decided that getting in a routine run was not worth the possibility of further injury so I stopped, turned around, and headed home.

I iced the spot for about 30 minutes and then continued my day that included lunch with a good friend. I considered doing an afternoon run if my hip felt better (it does) but decided instead to give it additional rest until tomorrow. I may go for a trail run at Stillwell on Saturday. In the past, the dirt surface has provided a good, softer alternative to pavement. It's a good surface to run on when dealing with an injury. Of course, if the temperatures are still below freezing tomorrow, the dirt may be just as hard as pavement.

Searching for NAVSTAR and my next running shoes

Today's run (street): 3.1 miles

Wait time: 8 minutes

We had a late night last night and I didn't get up until 6:15 AM. That threw me off this morning's very tight schedule. By the time I went outside, my window for running was only 40 minutes. It was sunny and bright and I was glad to see that the roads were clear and runnable. This was somewhat surprising, since the temperatures were hovering around the freezing mark.

When I started the Garmin it looked like it would acquire a signal right away. Despite the clear skies, it took almost eight minutes before it finally locked in all the NAVSTAR satellites. This narrowed my running window down to 32 minutes. I'd watched the progress bar go almost to full, only to pull back to the middle. I had considered heading back inside to run on the treadmill, but I ended up waiting it out.

I set off on a rapid pace to help ensure that I'd make my minimum distance of three miles. A slight wind made the first half mile a little chilly, but it disappeared at the first turn. I felt fairly strong and figured I could maintain a low 9:00 pace without much trouble. I chose a set of roads that I expected would get me around the neighborhood and back in three miles and I ended up covering 3.14. It was an invigorating run and I made it back home a with a few minutes to spare.

While we were out this afternoon, I had the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity about two pairs of running shoes that I've wanted to try. I put on a pair of Brooks Pure Drifts that were one-half size up from the ones I'd tested for Brooks. My biggest criticism of the pre-production Drifts was the tightness on my toes on the lateral side. The toe box on the production shoes felt roomier, but I felt some ridging from the mid-sole on that side.

The other pair I tried was the new Saucony Virrata, a zero drop trainer with a surprising amount of cushioning. The shoe reminded me of the original Kinvara, but with even better response on toe-off. The shoes fit perfectly and I wanted to them on the spot. I decided to wait it out a little longer as my Kinvaras still have some life left in them.

Brooks Pure Drift production model

Saucony Virrata with zero drop mid-sole

My verdict on the two was that I'd run in the new Pure Drifts if I had them, but I would still want to compare them further with the NB Minimus, the newest Hattori and, just for fun, the INOV-8 Road X-Treme. The Virrata is another story. It's not a question of if I'd buy them, only when I'll do it. I'm hoping that the Kinvaras will last me another 100-150 miles. But if the stability of those shoes changes sooner, I'll be going Virrata shopping that day.

Garmin FR210 behaving badly

Get back to work!

Today's run (treadmill): 25 minutes

After two years of stellar service, my Garmin FR210 has started to exhibit some bad behavior. I bought this watch because it provided basic GPS metrics, elevation data and wireless syncing with my heart rate monitor. Like all GPS systems, the distance accuracy wasn't 100%, but after a while I understood the margin of error and mentally corrected for it. There are things I still don't like about the watch, such as the weird way it connects to a PC for data uploads, but overall it has been a great resource and a good value.

The bad behavior started on January 1st, with my first run of the year. I was a couple of miles into the Hangover Fun Run at Eisenhower Park, when I looked at the watch only to see that it wasn't recording time or distance. I decided to let it go and just use the event clock to record my time. I figured that I must have neglected to fully push the start button and was paying the price for that inattention.

Since then, I've run five more times. On three of those runs I've noticed that the timer stopped recording after I'd initially started it. It doesn't happen every time, but it forces me to pay careful attention to the watch on every run. I don't know why this would suddenly happen. I checked the FR210 forum on Garmin Connect but haven't seen anyone else with the same complaint.

It would be a shame to have to replace this watch because I've come to rely on it to capture all my metrics, including a map of where I'd run. I still have my FR60 that works fine, but it lacks GPS so I'd need to return to using the foot pad. If I did that, I'd lose the mapping but would gain cadence, something I miss since switching from the 60 to the 210. I could always use an app on my smartphone to do the mapping since I carry the phone on every run. It's worth thinking about. But I'd rather have the FR210 working as it should.

Rethinking GPS versus foot pod

Today's run (treadmill): 2.5 miles

My first method of capturing running data was with the Nike+ chip that fit into a concave spot located under my shoe's sock liner. The accuracy of the this system was surprisingly high, but the software was buggy and the wristband that displayed metrics like pace, time and distance had serious corrosion issues. After going through three of these wristbands in less than a year, I got my money back and bought a Garmin FR50.


FR60



The Garmin 50 (and after that the FR60) uses a foot pod that works in a similar way to that Nike+ chip and I got used to tracking my distance and pace that way. The foot pod needed to be calibrated each time I switched running shoes (in my case, frequently) but the accuracy was very high. I started running with the Saucony Hattoris that have no laces to hold a foot pod, and made the switch to the Garmin FR210 GPS watch thinking I'd be upgrading my experience.

As it turned out, after almost two years, I've discovered I've given up more than I've gained by switching to GPS. The accuracy of GPS (~ 3%) is far worse than with the foot pod (~ 1%). The foot pod also captures cadence, an important metric, but the FR210 does not.



FR210



I had an amusing experience on the treadmill with the FR210 this morning. I wore the watch to capture my heart rate but, even indoors, it had locked in on satellite. When I finished my run I saw that the watch had recorded my distance at .14 miles. I've been considering using the FR60 again with the foot pod for treadmill runs. But for outdoor runs, I have to say the one big advantage of using the GPS watch is that there's no fussing with calibration or switching foot pods. Nothing's perfect, but at least I have a choice.

The performance thing I'm actually going to do

There's nothing like the feel of hard plastic against your chest

Yesterday's run (treadmill): 25 minutes

Today's run (street ): 2.5 miles

If I were running the Dirty Sock 10K this Sunday, I'd probably have pushed much harder on this morning's run than I did. Training for a race involves a different approach to daily running, where every workout counts. The Cow Harbor 10K is coming up, but I have over four weeks to get my conditioning right. This morning I moved at my default speed,which gets me around my route about 10% slower than 10K race pace.

In terms of performance, I have a long list of things "I'm going to do." More interval sessions. More core workouts. Increase leg lift when running. Strength training. Like I said it's a long list. While I'm good at getting out every day to do my runs, I'm much less apt to do the things that will move the needle on performance.

One easy thing that may make a difference is going back to running with a heart rate monitor. I'm reluctant to look at my Garmin during a training run because I don't like seeing how slow I'm running. That undercuts my enjoyment of the experience and I'd rather be disappointed at the end. But I have no issues looking at my heart rate while I run and that correlates well with performance. 

I'll make it project for this weekend to put a new battery into the HRM and sync it with my FR210. I don't love wearing the thing, but I will. Perhaps that's the reason I stopped using it in the first place.

Track challenges, real and virtual

Today's run (track intervals): 1 mile warm up, 8x 200's, 1 mile cool down

Since it's a long weekend, I thought I'd forgo my usual Saturday distance run in favor of intervals. I'm running the New Hyde Park 8K next weekend and felt that I needed to put in some speed work before winding down my training. It's been months since I've been to the track, so I was looking forward to a change of scenery.

I started my workout at around 8:00 AM with a mile warm up that I completed in 8:53. The humidity was high and the sun was already hot by the time I'd started. I followed my warm up with 8 x 200's, averaging 6:26/mile and I finished with a mile cool down that I ran at around 8:50. About halfway through that last mile I realized my Garmin wasn't recording properly, so my time so the cool down is an estimate.

The toughest run on the web

As tough as that workout was, I found an even bigger challenge on a different track with QWOP - a video game that you can play online. In this game, the user is challenged to move a track runner 100 meters by controlling only his thighs and calves. It's deceptively difficult, so far the best I've done is 17.4 meters. Before you judge that as lacking, try it yourself!

The key to capturing cadence

Cadence catcher

Today's run (street): 2.5 miles

I finally got outside this morning, for the first time since Sunday's race. The treadmill runs I did yesterday and Wednesday were fine, but I think I run differently on the machine, compared to the road. I wonder if it has something to do with stride length. Outdoors, I never think of how far I extend my legs when I come down, although I do focus on landing on my mid-foot. On the treadmill, a too-long stride is usually announced by the sound of the kick plate at the front of the tread. That feedback surely influences the way I run.

The shorter stride on the treadmill is not necessarily a bad thing, because it probably forces me to increase my cadence to keep up with the tread belt. Mid-foot running supposedly optimizes stride length, and cadence is used like a gas pedal to regulate speed.

This morning I pushed a little harder than I had during the past two workouts because I've recovered from my 13.1 mile run last weekend. I tried to use arm movement to maintain a brisk cadence, but in the end, my overall pace turned out to be just about average. I do wish my Garmin FR210 captured cadence so I could compare it to my speed over a run. Unfortunately, the GPS watch lacks that capability. I suppose I could always count steps. That, or go back to my FR60 that uses a foot pod to capture that metric.

The declining accuracy of my Garmin FR210

I'd add 3% just to be safe

Today's run (street): 2.53 miles (Gmaps measured)

I'm not sure why, but my Garmin FR 210 has been under-performing lately. It was especially bad this morning. I generally run the same route every day at 4:00 AM and, after careful measurement, I know that the distance is exactly 2.53 miles. The Garmin's margin of error is generally -3%, which means that it under-counts to that degree fairly consistently. Since it is consistant, I accept that variance and correct for it in my pace calculation.

It's no mystery why this happens. Looking at my run captured in Garmin Connect, I can see that the watch will vectorize corners and straighten out curves. This is due to the capture time between GPS signals (approximately one sample per second). If the signal was captured continuously, the course would be displayed accurately, with no corners cut, etc. When it's cloudy, the signal can get interrupted. When that happens, the watch interpolates the distance between signals as a straight line. Enough of those and your accuracy really suffers.

Lately my FR210 has been under-reporting by about 5% and this morning it came in at -7%. It was cloudy, but clear enough to see some stars. My run could only be described as slow, and with the under-counted distance, my watch recorded my pace as glacial. Correcting for the true distance, it was still the slowest 4:00 AM run in memory.

I'm puzzled as to why my Garmin's GPS has become less accurate of late. Perhaps it's just going through a bad spell. The GPS accuracy tends to be better when I run a mostly straight course like at Bethpage. I'll see how it does tomorrow.

Test at Bethpage: Gatorade G Series FIT Perform 02

Today's run (Bethpage State Park): 7.35 miles

Nice bottle, but no thanks

I had a mid morning appointment today and that forced me to get out for my run before 7:00 AM. My plan was to get to Bethpage and run the bike trail, covering at least seven miles. I'd rested on Friday because I wasn't feeling great, and I hoped that would give me a performance boost today.

I brought along a bottle of sport drink with a very long name: Gatorade G Series FIT Perform 02. It's an electrolyte mix that's meant to be consumed during a workout. I was testing this mix to see if it's something I should carry during my half marathon. I've learned that satisfaction with performance supplements, like gels and drinks, varies greatly from person to person.

Almost from the start, I could tell that I wouldn't be burning up the trail today. I had none of the energy I usually expect for these long, early morning runs. I thought it would be a good test of the G Series mix, and a good gauge of my ability to cover 7+ miles when starting with an energy deficit. As I started my Garmin, it chirped and showed "Low Battery." Like my watch, I hoped I had enough power to get through today's run.

Considering my low energy, the first couple of miles went by fairly quickly. The temperature was hovering around 30 degrees, but the winds were strong, especially on the way back. I reached the point where I expected to hear a chirp signaling three miles and when I looked at the Garmin the screen was blank. Later, when I recharged the watch, I saw that the battery had given out after 2.61 miles.

Along the way I sipped from the G2 mix, hoping that it would restore my depleted energy levels. The "melon-pear" flavor tasted neither like melon nor pear. In fact it didn't taste like much of anything. Since I didn't have an easy way of knowing how far I'd run or how much time I'd been running, I decided to turn back at a place I could locate on Gmaps so I could measure total distance later.

There were many runners on the trail this morning, mostly running in pairs or in groups. I would have felt lonely except that they were all running faster than me. I wouldn't have been able to keep up with any of them today. I suspect it was the early hour, when competitive club runners go out for long distances before they start their day.

I wasn't hurting, exactly, but I never felt strong as ran along. I started taking sips of the G2 more frequently as I got closer to the end. The last 1.5 miles of the Bethpage bike trail has the most pronounced hills and I needed a boost, even if it turned out to be more psychological than real. As I approached the final long hill, I decided I'd just pace it fast enough so that I could call it running. At that moment, a group of sleek, fit, compression-clad men and women ran by on my left, chatting away as if this hill was a bump. How humiliating.

After I finished my run, I saw that the G2 mix contained nothing to help my energy stores. The whole 16 oz. bottle contained only 5g of carbs  and 4g of sugar. I'd consumed about half the bottle, so all I got was 110mg of sodium and 30mg of potassium. And it also made me a little queasy. So this mix will not be accompanying me on my half marathon in May.

I accomplished a good part of my weekend distance goal this morning. I need to cover almost 6 miles tomorrow to make my "weekend 13". It's not an unreasonable target, but I hope to feel more energized on Sunday.

News flash - GPS watches aren't accurate



Graphic from 12/19 NY Times article
Photo credit: Martin Strauss, via Garmin and Microsoft

 Today's run (street): 2.5 miles
There was an article in Tuesday's New York Times about the accuracy (or should I say, inaccuracy?) of GPS watches. The writer made the same point that I've been making for years, that GPS technology does not provide exact measurement. The same can be said for smartphone GPS apps that show lots of metrics and graphics, but also under-count distance. The thing is, if your distance is off, so is everything else, including pace.

I'm a bit of a belt and suspenders guy when it comes to tracking my runs. I use a Garmin FR210 GPS watch to capture my run metrics and route. But later, I usually measure where I had run using Gmaps to get the most accurate distance. This way I can calculate my true pace. Why use the Garmin if I know it's inaccurate? Good question. But just try taking my Garmin away from me...

This morning I got back outside for my early run and was rewarded with dry roads and mild temperatures. There was wind coming from the north that, when traveling head-on, made things chilly. Most of my route went either south or east so it wasn't a problem. I managed an average pace, though my PE (perceived effort) was higher than that result. Then again, when you get your performance information from a GPS watch, you never know what to believe!

Garmins only work when you bother to turn them on

Today's run (street): 2.5 miles

With only a couple of days left on my taper, I went out this morning with the goal of bettering yesterday's performance. I was pleased with how I ran on Tuesday so I maintained a slightly longer stride this morning. I listened to my internal metronome at 2/2 time, in hopes of keeping my SPM in the mid to high 80's.
When I was approaching what I'd guess was the 3/4 mark of my first mile, I heard my Garmin chirp. I saw that the watch was going into power reserve mode. Apparently, I never hit the start button when I began to run. I was annoyed, but I decided to run without tracking my time rather than start tracking it at that point. Still, I had a pretty good idea of how long I'd run because I began my run right at 4:00 AM.
Despite having no measurement tool, I pushed my pace using my effort level as a guide to my performance. Given my distance that I measured using Gmaps, I ran approximately the same as yesterday, which is to say, well. Tomorrow will be my final run before my workout and I plan to take that easy. No need to invite injury this late in the game.

Garmin 210 - trouble keeping track on the track

A shot of the track from this morning

Today's workout (track): 8 x 400's plus 3 mile run

Since I'm racing again next Sunday, I wanted to get in a little speed work before I taper my training next week. This morning I headed over to the local high school track to run some intervals. There were a handful of runners and walkers already on the track when I arrived but the lanes were fairly clear. I brought a stopwatch as well as my Garmin and I ended up using the FR 210 to record my runs and used the stopwatch to time my rest periods between intervals.

I didn't run the intervals hard. My goal was to do mile-equivalents a little faster than my 5K race PR and I managed to average 8:06 across eight quarter miles. I hoped that would recruit enough fast twitch fibers to give me some speed when I ran the following three miles (5K actually) and it did. I averaged 8:45 for that run.

A clear margin of error

The Garmin did not do a good job capturing my route. The picture above is a grab from Google Earth using the imported KMZ file. I stayed primarily in a middle lane but the GPS interpreted that much differently. Even though the 210 is always a little off I still like it a lot. It's great to be able to run without swapping the foot pod every time I change shoes. Especially in the case of the Hattori's that don't even have a place to attach a foot pod.

I'm really happy with today's workout. While I'm still not speedy, I've proven to myself that I can run sub-9:00 paces when I need to. The Hattori's were interesting to use on the track and they responded well when I took off in a sprint to begin each interval. I haven't decided what I'll do for tomorrow's Memorial Day workout but I am hoping to fold in a bike ride or two before I return to the office.

Is cadence the key?

Not quite stepping lively

Today's run (treadmill): 2.51 miles

I had lunch yesterday with a friend, TC, who's just been granted entry to the NY Marathon after being accepted as a charity runner by the Boomer Esiason Foundation (Cystic Fibrosis). TC is about to start serious training and he asked me to help him set up his Garmin FR60 on Garmin Connect. Although TC has been using this watch for months, he's never uploaded his runs. I had no idea that the FR60 could hold 90 workouts but that's what was uploaded. It was interesting to see his runs displayed on Connect. I couldn't help but compare his typical pacing and cadence to mine. It wasn't much comparison though. He seems to average 90 SPM while I'm happy when I exceed 84.

I thought about cadence this morning as I ran on the treadmill. I'm past thinking that any one thing (core exercise, LSD, tempos, Chia) will produce measurable improvement. However, it seems logical that an increase in cadence would align with an increase in running speed. As I worked my way up from my easy start, I was curious to know if my cadence would increase as I moved my pace from 9:50 to 8:50 over my run. After the run I realized that the FR 210 doesn't capture cadence data off the foot pod so I'll never know how I did for SPM today. I guess I'll need to revert to the FR60 for treadmill runs in the future.

The FR 210 and foot pod: challenges and results

Today's run (treadmill): 2.5 miles

Foot pod, meet FR 210

I planned for rain this morning and set up my gear for an indoor run. It would be my first time back on the treadmill in almost a month and a return to using the Garmin FR60 watch for tracking performance. I attached the foot pod to my Mirages (I'm already spoiled by the pod-free FR 210) and reached into the drawer for my FR60. It then occurred to me that the 210 also syncs with the foot pod so I chose that watch instead. After a couple of cycles through the menu, the 210 was paired with the sensor.

I started my run at a moderate pace, which is my method of choice for tolerating the treadmill. Start it easy and end it hard. I had a scare at the beginning that my knee would act up but after a moment of pain it was fine and three hours later it's still fine.

I hit start on the 210 and glanced down after a minute to verify that it was capturing my pace. It wasn't until I'd reached the six minute mark that I looked again at the watch to see that, while it was displaying pace, it wasn't recording time. I don't know why that happened but I hit start again and this time noted that the stopwatch was running.

I used the time display on treadmill and the average pace captured by the Garmin to calculate my actual distance (the treadmill does not do that accurately). It was a pretty good workout and I didn't find the treadmill as tedious as I usually do. Perhaps all that biking this weekend helped my running. If that's the case I'm thrilled to find a cross-training workout that's both fun and beneficial.

Garmin FR210 - your mileage may vary

Example of 210 cutting corners, under counting distance

Today's run (street): 3.92 miles

As expected, the rain started last night and continued into the morning. At 7:00 AM I was considering doing an extended elliptical session rather than suffering a soaking run. By 7:30 the rain had slowed to a drizzle and I went outside in hopes of running 30-40 minutes before the next deluge. Yesterday's Stillwell workout was rough, in the best of ways, but I felt no residual effects of it this morning.

It didn't take too long to acquire a signal on the Garmin and I took off after a couple of minutes of dynamic stretching. I still had some pain in my left knee but it wasn't too bad. At this point it's an irritant more than an injury and it usually goes away after a few minutes.  I felt that I was moving fairly well at the beginning but according to the Garmin I was running slightly over 10 min/mile. By now I know the difference between a 9:30 and 10 minute pace and I also know that the Garmin, at best, under-counts my speed by 3%. I didn't worry too much about my pace but I began to pick things up by mile 2.

After verifying my true distance on Gmaps I saw that the Garmin had under-recorded my run by 6.8%. An examination of my route recorded on the 210, using Garmin Training Center, showed the many variances from my actual route that added up to that margin of error. I'm guessing the heavy cloud cover may have interfered with the GPS sampling frequency. I was hoping that this watch would provide a closer margin than -3%, which seems to be the average variance. I'll just expect to have an even greater variance on cloudy days.

Blogger troubles and Garmin struggles



The lost post is still lost. Note today's date

 Yesterday's run (street): 2.5 miles
Today's run (street) 2.3 miles

It looks like yesterday's post may be gone forever. According to the status reports from Blogger, I should have seen my last post restored when the system was brought back up. This has not been the case. It's frustrating and a little scary. You assume that Google would have been competent enough to back up its servers or cache recently posted content before taking down the system for "maintenance."  I may reconstitute Thursday's post using both my original draft and a prematurely published version. Or maybe I'll just let it go and call it the Great Lost Post. Although I should say it wasn't all that great.

Editor's note: Missing 5/12 post has been restored by Google

My post: "Garmin 210 -- Upload troubles but consistent inaccuracy" referred to an unsuccessful attempt to upload run data from the Garmin 210 to Garmin Connect. I'm hoping to resolve that issue this weekend. Wednesday and Thursday the Garmin under-counted my runs by about 3.5%. This was a disappointment, but not entirely unexpected, since my prior experience with GPS tracking on my iPhone showed substantial inaccuracies. I want to see what the Garmin recorded in terms of route vectors compared to my actual path so I can better understand where the 210 came up short.

This morning I went out for a run and I followed a different route from Wednesday and Thursday's. This time the error was only 2.2%. I had discussed the accuracy issues with FS who suggested that this morning's route may have had less curves and turns which would explain the higher accuracy. I believe she has a point. I'm really hoping I can get the Garmin to actually connect to Garmin Connect so I can upload and analyze my runs. Tomorrow morning KWL and I are  planning to do a mountain bike ride and follow it with a 5K or 4 mile run. It will be the first time trying the 210 in the woods. Should be interesting.

Garmin 210 -- upload troubles but consistent inaccuracy

Today's run (street): 2.5 miles

Yesterday's run, as recorded by the Garmin 210, came up short when compared to route mapping on both Gmaps and Google Earth. The variance in distance was about -2.5%. That seems close when viewed reciprocally (being 97.5% accurate) but I commonly saw less than +/-1% variance with a calibrated foot pod. I tried to upload my run to Garmin Connect so I could view the GPX and KMZ files that would show the recorded vectors against a Google map and, perhaps, reveal where the GPS capture cut corners. Unfortunately that attempt didn't work within the time I had to try it so I'll fight that battle this weekend.

I went out today and followed the same route as Wednesday, using yesterday's distance as a benchmark. Both runs felt about the same but I ran about 39 seconds longer this morning. The Garmin recorded the route .01 miles less than yesterday's distance so at least the 210 is consistent in its inaccuracy. I'm disappointed with Garmin for having such poor documentation related to uploading runs and I'm also disappointed to discover that the GPS is under-recording my distance. But I do like the watch and I'm certain that I'll get it all figured out eventually.

First run with the Garmin 210

Now it's just me, the road and 10 satellites

Today's run (street): 2.5 miles

Last night UPS delivered my new Garmin 210 and I was excited by the prospect of doing my morning run free of the foot pod and calibration concerns. The foot pod wasn't necessary but after the watches' first use I do question the overall accuracy. I bought the watch online this weekend -- the basic 210 without the foot pod/HRM bundle. I got a great price and free delivery two days later. I un-boxed the watch and plugged it in to charge the lithium battery. Setup took seconds and the watch automatically acquired the date and time via satellite signal.

This morning I was excited to try the watch. My only experiences with GPS tracking were with various GPS apps on my iPhone (bad) the QStarz Sports Recorder (worse). I stepped outside and activated the satellite receiver and the 210 grabbed its connection in seconds. My iPhone usually takes minutes to get a GPS signal. I hit the start button and off I went. My knee is still bothering me but after getting the "okay" to run from the doctor yesterday I accepted the mild pain. Three minutes into the run the pain disappeared and I was able to focus on my form. I think my stride was a little unbalanced at first but I managed to pick up my pace without a problem.

I passed mile one a short distance after my known benchmark but it was close enough to think the GPS's accuracy was in the ballpark. I covered the first mile in 9:27, mile 2 at 9:01 and the last half mile at an 8:50 pace. Those were my calculations based on careful retracing of my route on Gmaps. The 210 recorded my distance .07 miles (2.8%) less than that. I'll be curious to see if the accuracy varies consistently. I'm hoping that an examination of the GPX file overlay on Google Earth will show where the 210's GPS cut corners to end up short. Unless of course, it's actually Gmaps that's off...