Which is right?

[pinkangel16]

Firstly Happy New Year to you all - hope everyone had a great festive period.

One of my gifts was a rather lovely Lady Garmin :-). She's had 2 outings so far, the last one this morning. I've also continued to use mapmyrun too. Taking a look they both show differences (I would expect a slightly different time cos I start mapmyrun just before Lady Garmin and stop it just after).

Today Lady Garmin showed time: 38.33, distance: 5.34k, calories: 385, 7.13/km (not sure what that is).

Mapmyrun showed time: 38.22, distance: 5.45k, calories: 483, 8.5kmph

I will continue to use both for now - not sure when it will be appropriate to ditch mapmyrun on my phone..

Hope you've all had good runs so far xx

[Tomas Graduate]

Couple of points....:

1. The difference in distance is typical when you compare a phone-based distance to one captured by a "proper" GPS. Your phone is a bit of a jack of all trades, whereas your Gamin is a master of one. Having said that, the difference is only 2%, so they're really quite close to each other.

2. Calculating calorie consumption based on just age, height, weight, distance and time is an inaccurate science at best. So there's bound to be differences between different systems. Also, Garmin shows the calorie burn from exercise excluding the calories you would have burnt anyway as part of your metabolism. Some systems (don't know if mapmyrun is in that category) show total number of calories, including metabolism, so they're always going to be higher.

Happy New Year, and congrats with the new shiny gadget

[pinkangel16 Graduate in reply to Tomas]

Thanks Tomas.

Actually that's just what Mr Pink has just said! The Garmin is the Rolls Royce whereas mapmyrun on my phone is the Ford Fiesta!

And that's interesting re the calorie business - I didn't have a clue. I try not to get too hung up on that sort of thing, but of course it's nice to see on paper that there has been some calorie burning!

Thanks again, hny xx

[Miles_Yonder Graduate]

Hi PA. Further to the great reply by Tomas, the "7.13/km" given by Lady Garmin, is how fast you ran that particular KM.

When I got Miss Garmin, I used to use Endomondo on my phone for a while too but after a whole I reverted to just using Miss Garmin.

[Hidden]

Haha ! You are cleverer than me, I have only managed to log one run properly with my Garmin and I've had it for months ! It takes AGES to find the satellites so I lose patience and go without it or delete the runs by accident due to not having my glasses on...or it doesn't sync properly....My New Years resolution is to get to grips with it. A good run for you by the looks of it. I think the 7.13/km is your average speed for the run..

[pinkangel16 Graduate in reply to Hidden]

Good luck henpen! I watched some videos on utube to help me (also helped by mr pink - purchaser of said gift and generally able to get to the bottom of most things.. he is though a non-runner..).

Being as you've gone to the trouble and expense of aquiring one, hope you're able to get to grips.

xx

[AdamB Graduate in reply to Hidden]

Henpen, I have a Garmin brick (GPS62S which I use for cycling and hill walking as well). It's not exactly the same as the running watches but has a very similar set of internals. I had similar problems with it finding satellites at first. A trick I learnt was to turn the Garmin on as soon as I decided I was going out. I then leave it on the hall windowsill whilst I set about hunting down the trainers, house keys, woolly hat and all the other gubbins I seem to need. By the time I've located everything and got changed my Garmin has usually located it's position.

[AndyD Graduate]

I have been testing my new Gordon Garmin against RunKeeper and they were very similar. Gordon showed I had run 0.1k further on a 5k run. Not too bothered as I will be moving fully to Garmin to log my runs soon.

[pinkangel16 Graduate in reply to AndyD]

Grace, meet Gordon :-).

I'm certainly sure I'll soon have complete confidence in Grace - so far she's done good - and us very pretty

[misswobble Graduate]

I love my garmin. Have you input your weight and age etc into it. If you do so you will get an accurate calorie burn

[pinkangel16 Graduate in reply to misswobble]

Hiya. Yeah I input that info and updated mapmyrun (I'd lost some weight since setting that up :-)) - I'm quite certain the garmin will now become a constant companion.

[misswobble Graduate]

I love the virtual pacer and use it all the time. You input your target pace before setting off. I get the pace time from myasics training plan. You'll get the hang of things. I watched the video about its features

[Atalaya Graduate]

Gordon and Grace....meet Gertrude (my new violet coloured Forerunner 10). I also find that mapmyrun and Garmin are slightly different with mapmyrun reporting slightly higher distances and calories burned.

I set up Garmin Connect last night and also bought the iPad app and I'm absolutely loving looking at all the stats and the colour coded maps it gives etc. I'm such a geek.

[pinkangel16 Graduate in reply to Atalaya]

And if ever there was a good escuse to be geeky hey.. I love it too!

[Runon Graduate]

Happy New Year Pink Angel - Using one gps system to check on another is the beginning of nuttiness - I know this from personal experience - Just between you and me (everyone else please stop reading) I have on occasion used two seperate sat nav systems in my car each suggesting different routes and seriously thought of getting a third to settle the matter! Geography and directions are not my strong point!

I read that accuracy of time and position in gps thingies is down to all sorts of factors including urban interference, amplification and the device antenna - so fair to assume the watch will give a truer result. I got a gps watch this Christmas (Sir Thomas) and love it - now I leave the phone behind and use a tiny iPod Shuffle the size of a 2p piece and I can run without phone calls and txts and beeps and gongs! :))

[pinkangel16 Graduate in reply to Runon]

I'm certainly erring on the side of the Garmin - it's designed specifically for the purpose and is pretty much tried and tested.

I havr a forerunner 405 which I understand is a good un

[Runon Graduate in reply to pinkangel16]

It certainly looks like a goodun - it's amazing to think you can wear a little thing on your wrist that communicates with satellites travelling at over 9000 mph - feel I should be running faster to keep up ;))

[Hidden]

I've heard the phone app don't track all the time, they kind of join up points. That's probably why they are not so accurate. Mine sometimes gives me an elevation of, say, 18 MTs when I run under a bridge, I think it thinks I'm ON the bridge! Sometimes what it tells me when I'm running is updated when the I upload the run. For me they are accurate enough at my level.

On finding satellites, Runkeeper will not locate one from my front door, but will lock on in about 2 seconds if I go in the back garden - weird! No I don't have a massive house...

[pinkangel16 Graduate in reply to Hidden]

Hehe.. Neither do I!

[AndyD Graduate]

Whilst it is interesting to compare 2 run recording systems, it's really not going to change our PB's! I am personally finding the Garmin Connect site brilliant, with so much detail.

I may keep RunKeeper on my phone as I like the audio updates during my run. I also like the audio interval prompts that I get. I know that most GPS watches do intervals, but I can't hear the beeps with my music playing.