I hope someone can help me with this. When I’m running with my friend we both use strava. We both started it at exactly the same time, ran together the same distance chatting as we ran and stopped it at the same time.
So here’s the conundrum.... our distances are different by 0.42 miles and our average pace is different by 1.23 mins. This has happened many times now.
We both updated the app before our run yesterday.
How is this possible?
P.s the tap dancing is going great. I love it!!
Is the data source the same? Does one of you have a watch? Android or iOS?
We both use iPhone but I wear an I watch too. The strava is started on my phone.
Probably down to Strava picking up GPS data from your watch. Might be interesting to run a known route with and without your watch to see the difference. Nearly 0.5 mile is a massive discrepancy
Myself and my daughter had this problem too, both of us running alongside each other, counting down at the start, so we would start our Garmin watches at the same time, and at the end too. And our pace and distance varies greatly too.
We think it’s probably that she usually ran on the outside of the pavements, and maybe picked up on different satellites???
I’ve even found that when I’m running along the Tarka Trail Strava thinks I run part of the way IN the river. I don’t stress too much about it all now and just run.
My husband and I can run exactly the same route together using identical Garmin watches and when you look at the map I cross the road and run on the other side, or I can even run on water!
I have heard that using a watch and a phone can affect the GPS signal
I’ll try using just one.
Could be different generations of iPhone... or maybe one has hit the dreaded turning down as battery life ebbs away? Maybe one of you is picking up some “assisted” gps somewhere? Or maybe one of your phones had locked on gps better when you bit hit start. The difference does seem rather large though.
Yes could be we both have different generation iPhones.
I’ve stopped using my phone app (I used MapMyRun) alongside my Garmin as I had a crazy discrepancy between the two a couple of weeks ago. MMR seemed to skip a whole kilometre somewhere along the way, which threw the stats way off.
So now I stick to Garmin alone as I’m sure they were confusing each other - maybe that’s what’s happening with your iPhone/Strava. It would be interesting to see if your friend’s ‘Garmin only’ stats were correct.
I’ll try using just one next run.
No idea! I have a Garmin watch (which doesn’t agree with my partner’s Garmin watch running beside me!) which informs Strava via Garmin Connect. Strava doesn’t agree with Garmin, which is where it must have got its data from in the first place as I don’t run with the phone it’s downloaded to!
It’s all a mystery. Each week Parkrun is a riot where I end up with 3 slightly different times; over only 3 miles, there’s not much room for them to deviate!
Jolly lucky I’m not a professional athlete, so a minute here, a few seconds there and 0.2 of a mile divergence really doesn’t make a lot of difference to me! Often by the time I’ve got to the end there is so much sweat in my eyes that I can’t see the data anyway! 😂🏃♀️🏃♀️😊
All sounds like a great reason not to over-stress about stats! However, do post if you figure it out, because that’s a big discrepancy and I’d be really interested to know who’s “right”. Do you have different phone companies and could that matter? I thought the gps would be independent, but now...??? 😳🤪
Yes we do have different phone networks. We are going to test it tomorrow. No watches, and swap phones to see what happens. I will let you all know.
Great plan. Scientific investigation in action! Will look forward to the results.
How much can I trust FitBit/Strava's tracking?
Why wasn't PE at school structured like this?!? 
We seem to have joined the Magic Plan 
An in-between-the-Magic-Plan run with the dog 🦮🏃🏼♀️
