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Accuracy on a Treadmill

Former Member over 10 years ago

Hey guys,

I love my Garmin 220 but now that winter is here (i live in Calgary Canada) the majority of my runs are on my Precor Treadmill. Problem is, I find it very inaccurate. I'm not sure if it's something I am doing wrong so maybe you guys can help. Yes, i turn off my GPS. It seems that if i wipe the sweat from my brow it screws with my milage and my pace-per-mile. I've had it for about 6 months and have put 100's of miles on it so I would assume it would be more accurate. I really didn't want to get the foot pods.

Anyone else having this problem or have any recommendation for me.

Thanks in advance.

Jason

0 JSRUNNER_ over 10 years ago

I assume your reason for not wanting footpod is the cost?

Are yu certain it is the wiping action that causes the discrepancy - have you tried running for 10 minutes say with a sweatband on and avoiding wiping - does that give you an accurate reading?

0 travis.vitek over 10 years ago

As you probably know, when the GPS is off, the 220 will determine your distance by counting your steps and multiplying the step count by your stride length. Unless you are using a footpod, the 220 determines your cadence by your arm swing. If you do anything to disrupt this, the cadence will be wrong. Additionally, if your stride length is different when running on the treadmill the calculated final distance will be wrong.

Are you basing your assumption on actual distance on the numbers displayed on the teadmill? It is possible that the treadmill is also wrong, which could make the numbers displayed by the 220 seem even less accurate. You should be able to verify the accuracy of the 220 by running a known distance with the GPS off and comparing the distance displayed with the known distance. If you have the patience to run 1mi for testing, you could get a good GPS position fix, start the timer and run .5mi. When you reach the .5mi mark, press Start/Stop, press Lap, turn the GPS off, press Start/Stop, run back, and press Start/Stop when you arrive at your original start position. You'll have an activity file that shows the .5mi using GPS, and it will show a total distance. If the total is not really close to 1mi, then there is an inaccuracy somewhere.

Travis