The lies our tech tell us...

[sTrongFuse]

Perspective is important, but it can knock the wind out of your sails sometimes.

Last night's run was a fairly gentle 5k involving two laps following a path out to the end of my village, a country path along the perimeter to the other end of the village, and then back to the start. I've done it many times and, it's kind of my "comfort" run when I'm not really feeling it, because it has about half a dozen exit points where if it's not happening I can tell myself "just to the next branch and see how I feel..." It was was an invaluable trick during the early weeks of C25K and I still use it (although I seldom use the exits) from time to time.

Anyway, I am aware that there is a fairly gentle, but constant climb out of the village and along the old railway track followed by an equal downhill stretch back to the starting point.

On completion, I looked at the elevation profile on the Garmin app on my phone, and was presented with the top chart.

This morning, I was looking at it on the web version on my PC and got the bottom chart.

Last night I took a certain justification at feeling a bit "out of puff" at the end of it, today I'm like "Seriously? That's almost flat..."

My legs definitely believe the top chart more than the bottom one, even if they are representing the same run, just using a different scale.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy I ran 5k and in something around my average time, but there's nothing like seeing your efforts reduced to almost a flat line to take some of the sense of achievement away.

Anyway, my legs know what they achieved even if Garmin's website is trying to steal their thunder. From now on, if I have to look, I'm sticking to the mobile version...

Rest day today. See how I feel tomorrow before deciding on whether it's the 4k or 9k run of W6.

[angie31964 Graduate]

Lies, damn lies and statistics 😂 Well done to you. I love tech but I guess we can't always rely on it.

[Realfoodieclub Graduate]

It is still a gain of around 25 meters which is around 82 feet, not exactly flat in my book. 😀. The problem is the bottom graph is squashed between 100 to 200 so even if you gained 100 mtr it wouldn’t look that bad, but it would be a really big hill. I would say it is an elevation that would impact your running.

[sTrongFuse Graduate in reply to Realfoodieclub]

I agree. It is strange that, since starting running, I've become more aware of the contours of the landscape (even when I'm walking).

It's mostly a fairly gentle incline on that run, although it does have very definite uphill and downhill sections.

Mind you, compared to the 89m climb during the first 2k of the Edinburgh Race for Life on Sunday, last night's effort was pretty tame.

[Realfoodieclub Graduate in reply to sTrongFuse]

Wow that was a wicked one to put in at the start of a race 😂. I bet last night felt tame compared to that.

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate]

Well done you... if it is any consolation I run much slower on flat ground...My first park run, a flat track, took me 38 minutes!! I had to practice running on flat or flattish ground before my HM...

I enjoyed the long slow incline over the first 11K of that far more

The main thing is you are enjoying your running and it does teach us so, so much about ourselves too