Hi all,
Can anyone let me know why it is when I do an open water swim, the distance for the Activity will be one number. But when I save that swim as a Course, the distance for the Course will be invariably quite a lot longer (and usually more accurate) than the distance of the Activity, even though both you'd think would be based on exactly the same data? (I have a 910XT)
eg Yesterday did a swim from one local beach around to another with the distance (based on my typical swim pace) expected to be around the 1.6 or 1.7km mark. The Activity itself showed a time of 32 minutes and a distance of only 1.38kms which seemed short. When I saved the activity as a Course, the Course shows a distance of 1.66kms!? The 1.66kms seems more accurate - but then I don't understand why the Activity distance would be only 1.38kms and so much different than the Course distance when both are taken from the same data file.
This same thing happens on most of my swims, with the Course distance always being the greater of the two.
Is the explanation something to do with the distance on the Activity excluding the parts of the swim where the GPS signal has been lost? - whereas the Course distance joins up the dots so to speak and provides a true total distance? This is somewhat misleading on the Activity file however as the time recorded is the total elapsed time, i.e total time taken regardless of whether the GPS signal is there or not; and therefore the overall swim pace looks slow as you have the total time but not the true total distance covered.
I'm not 100% sure if this is the explanation - but if someone could confirm that would be great and even better if there is anything I can do to provide a more accurate Activity file. Thanks