My route and Apple Watch elevation gain

[Jay66UK]

Discussing this with Gran4z on another thread. My run shows an elevation gain of 2m. When I do a Map My Run of my "out and back" route - this is the 5k version, so the (flat) middle K is dropped for the 4k - it tells me the gain is a much more impressive 51m.

Anyone know what the Apple Watch actually measures?

Also, I have gone all this time thinking I had a flat course and I feel cheated! No wonder my runs are hard at the start - its all uphill. And you can see my dreaded Sirens Hill towards the end.

[sallenson Graduate]

I'm never convinced that the tech we have is anything like a proper altimeter.

And I'm not sure what MMR is saying, since the difference between your start and highest position is 27m, not 51. Or if it's just saying the difference between the min point and the max point is 51m then that's not useful either.

Weird.

And who knows what Apple have got in their devices....

Did you not realise that you had an uphill start?

[Jay66UK Graduate in reply to sallenson]

It’s “total gain”, so all of the uphills added together. A measure of difficulty rather than pure geography.

[Jay66UK Graduate in reply to sallenson]

And, nope, oblivious to that slope!

[sallenson Graduate in reply to Jay66UK]

It's early in the morning...

[HoagyM Graduate]

Hi Jay, can’t answer this specific question (and will look forward to the answer!), but thought I’d throw something else into the mix...

I read somewhere that the real-time GPS tracking on the Apple Watch is not as accurate as dedicated devices, but that once a run is ended, there’s all sorts of clever software that runs through the route and fine tunes it, so that the end result is typically as accurate if not better than dedicated devices.

So I am wondering whether that’s the reason I often find discrepancies between what Strava (the Watch app) tells me during the run, and the final results on the website?

Apart from that, the really weird thing that has happened to me twice now is that the final results on the Strava website “forget” a few minutes at the start, so the split pace for the first Km is stupidly fast. Doesn’t affect the actual stats and pb’s etc, just that first split time.

Technology, eh? 🙄😄

[Jay66UK Graduate in reply to HoagyM]

Technology. Expensive technology. 🙃

I have a first generation Apple watch (no built in GPS) so it uses the iPhone 8 as a slave.

My Christmas present to myself will be either a new one or a Garmin/other dedicated running watch. Given my current finances, Christmas is about a year away 🤣🤣🤣

[HoagyM Graduate in reply to Jay66UK]

Have to say, I absolutely love “travelling light”, by running with just the watch. The things I take with me on a run are the watch on my wrist, the house key in my back pocket, and (sometimes) the Bluetooth in-ear headphones... and that’s it 😀

[sallenson Graduate in reply to HoagyM]

It's all a nonsense really... Maybe we should go out and run around bit and leave the gadgets at home....

Doesn't surprise me that Apple devices are a bit poor. They use cheap componentry to boost their margins. Always have and always will.

[HoagyM Graduate in reply to sallenson]

Apple devices “poor”? Blasphemy, wash your mouth out! 😉

[sallenson Graduate in reply to HoagyM]

I did some work for them a few years ago. You would be astonished at what they do...

[HoagyM Graduate in reply to sallenson]

Fair enough, although that’s probably true for anyone who’s worked on the inside at a large tech company - I’ve heard exactly the same from people who worked at Oracle, for example.

[sallenson Graduate in reply to HoagyM]

Or any company at all really.... Come the Revolution!!

[Gran4z Graduate in reply to sallenson]

Good idea, but am addicted to gadgets 😱!! So need to know how far I’ve run, and how long I take to do it. Shan’t worry about elevation or splits, just Strava on my iPhone to give me distance run, (tucked in my running belt) and a simple hand held stopwatch to time myself, and will run around a bit and stop stressing about that illusive, mythical 5K, one day I will just do it and surprise myself 😎.

[MelsieJay Graduate]

Haven’t a clue what you boys are talking about down in the shed with your gadgets. I do get frustrated tho when my iPhone health app tells me I have walked 8 miles and 90 floors and I feel I’ve earned an ice cream and then the husbands garnin watch says is 6.5 miles and a bit of a slope!

[Jay66UK Graduate in reply to MelsieJay]

🤣🤣🤣

[Ang33333 Graduate]

I'm very confused about the measurements I get. Last week I ran up a proper hill. Hardly any climb recorded. Our almost flat railway line has a higher climb!

[Teddly22 Graduate]

I run not far from you Jay and I drive around looking for the flat routes to run and they're are few and far between in these hills. Then I take my phone for Sarah to tell me when to run and when to stop and I use map my run to log my split km and that's it! Leave the technology and trot around for a bit. Flat or hilly, whatever you prefer. Your out there running and that's got to be a good thing! 🏃🏃🏃

[Jay66UK Graduate in reply to Teddly22]

Hello neighbour 😁