Garmin watch accuracy on track

You are running on a track. No need for the GPS.

Yes GPS has issues even on a very straight course, with turns throws it off

If you actually look at your run in the Garmin Training Center, you will see that it only updates your position every 4-5 seconds, and then calculates the distance between all of those points. Good luck trying to accurately map out a track with 4.5 second intervals of straight lines. If you happen to get 3.2 km exactly for a 3200m race, it was obviously a fluke, check out the map of the 8 laps around the track to see how poorly it lined up with the turns.

You have Garminitis

It is a serious and compulsive disease,

There is a one step program to cure yourself

1. TURN THE GARMIN OFF

I know a guy who puts it on his hat and it gets much more accurate results. You can try it and see if it works better for you.

If the garmin was on your right arm, it could very well run longer.

As for my forerunner 310:

-one track, for 300m intervals I kept recording between 272m and 293m. Then again, the lap function wasn't the greatest on that one

-on another track (10000 Time Trial), I ended up recording a distance of 10.4k. surprisingly, no lap was under 400m (I used the auto-lap function based on position) and varied between 408m and 439m

I do think Garmins will run slightly long on a track because you are moving very linear, but they can run notoriously short once you are switching back on the trails. As for it being on the track: Next time you do a 2 mile TT, record the laps based on position. if there is not a lap under 400m, the track might be a bit long.

I've been suspicious of my Garmin ever since I ran two certified races and it's come up a bit short each time. It was only a few seconds per mile short, which is still pretty incredibly accurate when you think about what it's trying to do, but not accurate enough for most distance runners.

I'm not sure if it's because it really is inaccurate or whether I actually just ran a bit farther because I didn't run the tangents.

Regardless, I try to just use a it as a guide when I'm running, not the be all and end all. Not convinced it's totally accurate, but it's a useful tool.

if you are curious as to if a race was the correct distance, measure it with google maps or the usatf tool. you can draw perfectly straight lines to get all the tangents.

i've found that my garmin 305 is very accurate for road races and almost always gets the same distance as i map out online. certified doesnt mean correct distance. you cant trust the race organizers for that as they could misplace the start or finish or mess up the route even after being certified.

reed wrote:

if you are curious as to if a race was the correct distance, measure it with google maps or the usatf tool. you can draw perfectly straight lines to get all the tangents.

i've found that my garmin 305 is very accurate for road races and almost always gets the same distance as i map out online. certified doesnt mean correct distance. you cant trust the race organizers for that as they could misplace the start or finish or mess up the route even after being certified.

Meh, they were both NYRR races and for both of them my Garmin was consistently short a few seconds per mile. Different routes too, so it really is two separate data points. Leaning towards thinking that the GPS is a tad off, particularly because there's no way I ran all the tangents (I might have mis-written this earlier) since the race was so crowded.

Good idea about measuring the race with google maps -- that actually never occurred to me before -- I'll give it a try. But I also trust the NYRR.

myself, I've never actually used a Garmin on a certified race course, but that is a different case from using it on the track. Its purpose is to give you a guide as to how the running has been going. it is usually good to within 1-2 seconds per 400m, but there are some really bad off days

(Garmin connect: one run I was on, the first 3k were plotted 800m southwest of where I actually was, but finally switched on it. Also was very sketchy until I had to take a washroom break. after that, it basically caught the exact path that I ran on the way back.)

You don't even realize the mistakes it makes until you plug in the results to Garmin Connect

GPS is susceptible to multipath errors, that is, having the direct signal from one or more satellites blocked and receiving a reflected signal. For runners this is particularly an issue in urban environments with tall buildings. On the track it may be a factor when, for instance, you're running by metal bleachers and would show up if you plotted the run on a map.

Bet they built the track using the IAAF SCPF.

More and more track are being built to conform to the long distance running rules since track is dying as a sport while charity jogging is growing by leaps and bounds. By 2016 you'll never see anyone doing 'track workouts' on your local high school track.

Any chance you were in lane 2 or 3 during the race? Especially on the turns? I know that wouldn't make it 2.1 miles, I use a garmin when I'm running and find it is very accurate on the track.

I also use the older 305 and find it reasonably accurate. Just yesterday I did a 1600m tempo run on the track and it registered .99 of a mile.If it says a certified course, I would trust the RD more than my Garmin, but it depends on the race organizers. Here on L.I., they are pretty reliable. (David Katz being one of them).Realize that the GPS satellites are 12,500 miles above the earth. For perspective, the Space Station is only 270 miles. Don't rely on your GPS so much.

I wore my Garmin for some track intervals the other day and when I looked at the elevation map it showed that my local track has a serious hill on the backstretch. Wonder why I didn't feel like I was running up and dowhnill? GPS is cool!

My garmin 410 is accurate to within a couple hundredths over a marked out 3 mile lake loop I run, but on the track it adds about 5% to reality. great training tool on routes without too many turns or trees

Love garmins for long runs on straight open trail

My Garmin read 26.25 in the last mary' I ran. Got into it with the race director, and now I'm banned. Anyway, the lesson is, not all courses or tracks are accurate.

Ny 305 measures a mile in around 1.04. On the track, i only use it as a watch. but i also know to subtract out .04 per mile on the track for overall mileage for the run.

I rarely use auto lap and if i do i set it to 1.01 to take into account the shortness factor.

To the guy who got into with the RD, if the course was certified then you can't argue your garmin distance. it's usually difficult to run the actual certified distance in a race.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the time my Garmin told me I had just run a 3:53 mile in the middle of my 5 mile easy run. Like I said, great tools, not necessarily 100% accurate 100% of the time, which is fine.