Treadmill calibrated distance not sent to Strava

Anyway, for anyone interested in helping arrive at a solution, here's the work-around. It's a step-by-step guide to fixing the FITs for upload to Strava. As I mentioned earlier, I did this on PC with MS Excel and the conversion tools linked below, you may be able to use other methods, it takes about 5 minutes, but I'd suggest not using the Garmin's FITCSVTool.

1. Save FIT file from your watch to PC, don't export from Garmin connect as those files seem to just show splits or sumaries of the run.
2. Convert FIT to CSV (I used GOTOES utilities for Strava FIT to CSV)
3. Open converted CSV in excel
4. Add a column in an unused part of the spreadsheet and give it a title of 'corrected distance' or something like that
5. In the first cell of the new column give it a sum equal to the value of the distance cell multiplied by the correction factor, which is the value of the final distance in the last cell divided by the real distance of the run you got from the treadmill  (e.g. for my 10k run which was reported as 12135.07 metres, the formula was =SUM(H2*10000/12134.07)

6. Copy that formula to all the other cells in the corrected distance column, this can be done in a single step by selecting the next cell down, scrolling down to the last cell, holding down shift and select the last cell, then paste the formular in. 

7. Convert the formulas into values (select all the cells in the corrected column and copy then paste special back into the same cells selecting 'values' as the paste option).

8. Delete the distance column and move the 'corrected distance' column to where the distance column was and rename it 'distance'

9. Convert the CVS file to a tcx file (I used GOTOES tool CSV to TCX)

11. Choose tcx from the file type, gpx returns a zero distance for treadmill runs. I left all the other values as default.

12. Upload the activity to Strava

Distance, pace, HR etc. all seem to display correctly.
Credit to fulmar2, one of the Strava admins for the second tool, I can't find who to credit for the first tool.

Seems like a long-winded process but really just takes 5-10 minutes, less after you've done it once.

Hopefully Garmin will get a fix out as doing this could get annoying!

Hi Chris, that link states that some third party platforms pull data using the API and for some third party apps Garmin uses the API to send data. Can you confirm which is the case for Strava? and if any communication has taken place between Garmin and Strava on this issue? Or are you saying that it's purely the responsibility of users to mediate between the two?

I am pushing Strava for a fix at the same time as pushing for a fix here but I don't think it should be down to me. For information, Strava have confirmed that no processing is done to the raw data of the FITs and the raw data is described as the second by second data entries. The treadmill calibration distance isn't considered raw data but an instruction to process the data which Strava doesn't do.

There is no communication with Strava that we push to Strava. All third parties pull your .FIT file with your permission being given and then they interrupt it and present your metrics the way they see fit on their APPS and website.

Hi Chris, thanks for the response. 

After having thoroughly investigated this issue, there needs to be some more clarity given beyond saying the issue is not something that can be resolved. As has been proven elsewhere in this thread, this issue lies with how Garmin is recording the FIT file, not with Strava. I will outline why this is the case below.

In an example FIT file that was dowloaded from Strava after it was initially uploaded from Garmin the file mirrors the file that I get if I download the FIT file from the Connect app. We have now confirmed that the FIT files are identical between the two services.

Taking a look at this fit file, we see in the session section of the file that the corrected total_distance is indeed being sent to Strava, as well as un updated enhanced_average_speed to match this new total_distance (this will be important later).

The issue, now, appears to be that Strava ignores this total_distance in lieu of calculating the total distance from either the lap and/or record section of the file, which can be used to determine the distance by simply adding up the laps section total_distance values. It is true that they could be using the modified session section total_distance to display this value correctly in the Strava app, but doing so would make the rest of the run data meaningless. All the other FIT file record data (heart rate, speed, temperature) is based off of the ORIGINAL total_distance so simply using this new total distance invalidates that data.

This issue can be witnessed within Garmins very own Connect app when viewing a modified treadmill Activity:

Notice how the total distance does not match up with the sum of each distance split (6.13 != 6.34). Garmin itself is struggling with the same problem that Strava would be if it switched to using the total_distance as the source of truth, laps and records become completely meaningless! None of the measured record data is useful to anyone unless some modification is done to it.

Solution:
As has already been discussed in this thread, the solution to the problem is quite simple and should be possible given what Garmin is already doing in correcting the total_distance. If we take the modified total_distance and divide it by the original distance recorded in the app, we should receive the difference factor x between the the two values. It should then be as simple as multiplying the relevant record and lap fields by this factor x to receive some estimated values that match up with the total_distance. Garmin is already re-calculating the enhanced_average_speed value in the session section so it must be possible to perform arithmetic operations as a part of this distance correction. Obviously, this would not be 100% accurate since the treadmill activity is merely estimating values based upon arm movement, but it would be a significant improvement of the state of the current FIT file which is just flat out wrong.

All of this to say that the response that the issue "is not an issue that we can resolve" is nowhere near enough of an explanation. I paid for a device that is supposed to be providing useful/correct info.The device is not recording statistics that are useful/correct. Garmin should either provide a firmware update that addresses this issue or provide a concrete reason as to why doing something as simple as multiplying numbers together is impossible. 

At this point I am debating getting a job at Garmin to correct the issue myself.           

I must’ve submitted this problem to Strava and linked this thread. Hopefully they can fix it. 

this was an awesome response! thanks..

This is really annoying that Garmin won’t make the fix here. Come on Garmin. As I recently switched from another platform that integrated seamlessly with Strava, I expect Garmin to step up to the challenge.