Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Another good 5 miles and Garmin is confused!

Today I brought my gear to work and finally got out around 5 pm to do a quick run before the sun set. I brought the Garmin along, but it was having trouble - first finding satellites, and then, well, the run results were weird.

I felt great even though I went to bed late yesterday. The first mile went pretty quick. As I rounded the bend running toward mile 2, the Garmin was telling me that my mileage was decreasing! It seemed to be telling me how far I was from where I started vs. how far I ran. I kept going, keeping up a brisk pace and taking my traditional 1 min walk each mile. It felt like I was running a bit quicker than normal. Even on the last mile, I was able to run briskly. By the time I got back to the office, I had run for over 52 minutes, and the total distance was showing up as .25 miles. (Sigh!) I knew I had to have run about 5 miles.

When I got home and downloaded the route, the Garmin had the route all messed up. It missed half of where I ran. Fortunately I had my total time, so using MapMyRun I retraced my route to be 5.13 miles. With my time at 52:49, that was an average pace of 10:18! A brisk pace indeed. I will count that as my tempo run! :-)

Heel felt good today - just a little ache now from tonight's run, but overall it seems to be feeling better and recoving quicker than it has in a long time!

3 comments:

Susan said...

Good for you! You triumphed over the "Poor GPS Signal," which is what my Garmin tells me once in a blue moon. When I leave my house for each run, I turn on the Garmin immediately. It often takes it the entire quarter mile warmup route to find signal, but then it usually holds it. So I've never experienced as negative an event as you in Garminland! Hang in there - I don't know what I'd do without my Garmin!

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris..

The Forerunner has an easier time picking up satellites if you turn it on a few minutes before your run and leave it in a stationary position.

For example, I use an Edge; I turn it on while I'm putting on my shoes and the satellites are locked by the time I'm out the door.

The mileage thing is odd; it almost sounds like either the Training Partner or Course feature was enabled.

Good luck with your marathon training!

MarathonChris said...

Thanks, insider. I tried that this morning - I turned it on while I dressed for my run - and it worked perfectly.

I have no idea how to use the other features yet....but I will have time to play with it more.