New toys!!!!

[Beads]

Following on from the palaver last week I now have new toys to play with!

First, those LED tent pegs are absolutely FANTASTIC! They really show up well, so much so that they're able to drive the dog potty when shone on the floor in front of him.

Second: I got my Garmin, pink!!!!! (That's what you were waiting for me to tell you.) Unfortunately it didn't have enough charge to turn on and by the time I thought about taking it off charge I was ready for bed so it wasn't sorted for Saturday morning's parkrun.

Saturday morning, got up, went to parkrun, came home, showered then we went out and got our new car! Not new new, just new to us. Lots of excitement!

Most of the excitement over with, I was going to get the lurch (17 yo son) up out of bed (a harder job than you'd think) and go on a bike ride this morning, but the weather man said it was going to be a grotty wet day and I thought I will run in the rain but not cycle, so I strapped on my new PINK garmin (did I say it was PINK?!?!) and went for a gentle trot locally. I'm impressed with the looks of the thing and the ease of use but not by its tracking ability. The first half of the run went OK, it's seems to have tracked me running where I actually ran but then just past the 3k mark it suddenly jumps me from the footpath into the field behind the pub, ignores me turning left, running up the road, turning right and along another footpath and takes me through (over?) a terrace of houses and across another field! Now I know I'm good (and modest) but I'm not Superman and I can't clear a house in a single bound! Then going up the road and past Tesco it put me in the middle of the village green about 50 yards to my left, before sort of getting back on track when I hit the main road again.

Also it timed me for 40.21 minutes but my moving time was only 38:58, I know I paused before crossing the road but I only had to wait for one car each time, a matter of a few seconds.

So is this 'normal' or do I have a dodgy unit? Will it learn to track me better? Can I edit my route in Garmin Connect so I've got a proper record? (Have imported it into MapMyRun to do the corrections.) Do I need to adjust settings somewhere so it does things properly? Or is it just a location problem, is South London so far out in the sticks that the satellites don't cover the area?

If you want to see where I leapt a tall building in a single bound, it's here.... connect.garmin.com/activity...

[Oldgirl Graduate]

I had a similar problem with my Garmin for a while were it had me running on water!!!!!!! My granchildren think I'm a super grandma but I'm not walking or running on water super!!!!

I had to upload updates to sort mine out. Hope this helps.

[Malcy Graduate]

Hi

It's down to the "limits of accuracy" of the public GPS system. Military systems are much more accurate, but we don't get to use them in case we use the system against the 'goodies'. Our system is good enough, but not 100%.

If you do the same run a few times, you'll be able to take an average distance and work with that. You'll probably find that the calorie readout will fluctuate as well. Same strategy - take an average.

My approach was to work out the average from day 2 onwards. This 'moving average' will fluctuate in the early days but will settle down to be the same every day. No matter how many more readings you take, the average will be the same. that's when you know you have an accurate value.

Hope that helps

[Beads Graduate]

Actually I'm getting into this now: maximum speed: 82.9mph, wow!!!!!

But can I change the picture of a green watch for a pink one? (Mine's pink, have I told you that already?)

[mrqwest Graduate]

Beads, sometimes the watch has trouble locking onto satellites in certain areas and can get a little 'lost' whilst tracking. There's still a particular small area here that when I run though, it tracks me jumping houses... it's only when the watch doesn't receive the signal for a period of time, and then just joins the dots between signals.

Also, checked your route, I was planning a route only on Friday right through that area! Is it nice round there? I spotted some scary looking hills and some roads with no pavements which kinda put me off but really looking forward to giving that a go soon.

[Beads Graduate in reply to mrqwest]

Give it a go. The hills are sort of doable, though saying that I've not done Keston Ave yet, but why would I when The Glade takes me to the same point. You won't want to run up or DOWN Waterhouse Lane, be warned!

Rydons Lane is about the only road that doesn't have a pavement or footpath, it's only a single track road so the cars are generally going slowly and give you plenty of time to nip into one of the driveways.

If you're heading over this way then Happy Valley is a lovely run, over 1k with a gentle rise (or drop, but i tend to head upwards, then it's not so steep getting out) with no traffic other than dog walkers etc, no roads. The only drawback is the steep bit getting into and out of it. If you go in at the Coulsdon end and out at the Caterham end there's the track running behind tesco which gives you another 1k or so of off road running. Very peaceful on a morning run (you definitely know about the road coming back along Coulsdon Road).

[mrqwest Graduate in reply to Beads]

Thanks Beads. There's nothing wrong with hills, and there's also nothing wrong with walking up the beasty looking ones either. Looking at Waterhouse lane on google maps though, it kinda looks tame. I'll take your word for it though!

I've been to Happy Valley a few times previously with the family for a walk and it looks lovely for a run

I think I might roll it all into a longer run in a few weeks time, and see how it pans out.

Thanks for the tips