Think of a swear word.....

[Beads]

It was probably just going through my mind.

Just back from a run, a good run, I'm nicely tired but I've got plenty of calories in the bank for my baby's birthday today (Shes 15!!!! Where did that go? She's also still in bed!)

But......

Poodling along, great, made up a route in my head and sort of followed it, it was Thursday's 5.75k route in reverse with a bit added on. Coming to the last leg, Garmin says (yes, I succumbed, but only second hand from ebay, obsolete model and I need a serial port to USB port adapter before I can dump data, but it does for now), anyway, back to the story, Garmin says I was so close to 8k, the next milestone (literally), so instead of doing the last 100 yards then walking up the hill, I turned up the hill and did a massive loop which took me all the way home. Garmin said 8.2k!!! Cue cheers, bells, whistles, lots of flag waving etc

Made my brekkie, came up to the computer, map my run only logs it as 7.8k!!!! Cue the swear words!!!

Yeah, I know, 7.8k in 50:44 is pretty good (even if I do say so myself (huffs on fingernails and buffs them on slightly sweaty t-shirt)), but I thought I'd done 8k, outside, for the first time.

Oh well, there's always next week!

[PamJK Graduate]

Oh no! You have my sympathy re technology playing up. MayMyRun keeps missing off the first 5-10 minutes of my run. Grrr.

[ju-ju- Graduate]

High five... I know it's not what you aimed for but wow what an achievement !! I so hope I can get that distance in soon. Hope your 'baby' has a great day! Julia

[Poppy2010 Graduate]

I feel your pain! I ugraded my phone yesterday so now have runkeeper to play with; I went out on my bike last night for 5x50; runkeeper shows I did 5.8k, mapmyride shows 2.49miles, which is under 5k!

I too am just back from a run, Parkrun Chelmsford, and runkeeper shows it s 4.8k! I promise I did not cut any corners! Waiting on my official time now...

[BettyJane Graduate]

I'd be inclined to think Garmin is more accurate. Well done on running for 50+mins.

[dottiemay Graduate]

I think I'd trust the Garmin more as it tracks exactly where you ran - all those little extra steps you took running around obstacles for instance, which mapmyrun won't. That only logs the distance along the straightest line from point A to point B doesn't it?

Anyway, whatever, that was a great run and now you know you can do it! I'm cheering, waving flags, blowing my whistle and ringing my bell for you!!

Enjoy the party!!

[bonnie68 Graduate]

Go with the Garmin !! (do you upload onto the Garmin site? I use that now over map my run as shows loads of geeky stats!!) lots more accurate!

[Malcy Graduate]

I've been tracking myself on both the Nike+ sensor (calibrated properly) and Endomondo's GPS trace on my iPhone. Nike is consistently less than the GPS trace - generally by about 20% of a difference but it can be as much as 50%

So yes, go with the Garmin

I'll be keeping doing this for a while and comparing things like the weather (ie cloud cover) and whether the route is new or repeated. Then produce some stats. If there's a pattern, I'll post the results here.

[greenlegs Graduate]

Easy solution - don't look at mapmyrun! I'd just stick to the garmin.

Running along roads, I'd agree with the comment about it probably being more accurate in that it actually tracks where you went, with all the little kinks and bumps, rather than in straight lines.

So well done on that 8k!

[greenlegs Graduate in reply to greenlegs]

PS Though I know it isn't 100% accurate, as if I wear it indoors, sitting at the computer, it tells me I've moved all over the place - across the road, up the garden etc etc.

Have you tried tracking your route on mapmyrun when you zoom in (I've not used it, so it might not be possible) - I know if I do a route on google earth, if I plot the points without zooming in, it looks like the right route, but it comes up short compared with putting the points in when zoomed in closer.

[greenlegs Graduate in reply to greenlegs]

Just tried it out on my '4k' circuit on google earth. Zoomed out - 3.94k, zoomed in, going carefully round all the corners, 4.11k. An extra 170m! And with a garmin, quite possibly a bit more than that, where I've moved from one side of the track to the other etc.

[Beads Graduate]

Thanks for your support everyone! I know there's a bit of leeway in these things but 400 yards discrepancy seems a bit excessive for crossing over the road a few times (though at one point I doubled back and jogged on the spot for a few seconds so I could get a photo of the 'for sale' note in the window of a green scenic). They seem to have tracked accurately together in the past so I thought they would today. Hey ho, it'll probably give me the extra boot up the backside I need to go and get the relevant cable so I can dump data from the Garmin to the computer (and play with the stats, not that I'm a nerd or anything).

p.s. Correction, yes, I'm a serious number geek, once I can dump data I may disappear for some time into number nirvana, graphs, tables, more numbers, all sorts of goodies!