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Trail Running Distance Accuracy vs Running Distance Accuracy

Former Member
Former Member over 4 years ago

I recently ran a trail event advertised to be 18 miles. Since it was a trail event, at altitude, I set my Fenix 6 to Trail. When I finished the event, I recorded 24.55. However my friend, and others in the event, all recorded values around 19-20 miles.

Question; how exactly does the trail mode calculate distance over time, and why would there be such a variance between a value produced from this selection, versus the run mode.  We postulate that the numerous switchbacks contributed to the difference, however all of us are intrigued about the wide variance. I can say, I know I ran more than 20 miles.  But how do I "prove" this to the race organizers who advertised 19 miles at the start line.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Can you share the GPS track from that run? In my 10 year experience of running on trails, GPS watches tend to be short when running on trails due cutting through corners and switchbacks and straightening curves. I'd say, in my area getting the distances that are 5-10% shorter than actual is pretty typical, and if anything, Fenix 6X tends to be shorter than some of competitor watches. But even Ambit3 Peak, which is probably one of the most accurate GPS watches ever, tends to be too short on trails. Getting so much extra distance in your case means that something went quite wrong. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    The most accurate way that is not too time consuming would be to use surveying tool like a roller with distance counter. The devices are fairly cheap, +-$20 on amazon. They sometimes need to be supplemented with tape measures for steep drop offs, rivers, streams etc.

    Unfortunately a lot of trail event organisers use GPS watches and incorrectly assume they are more accurate due to the price of the watches...

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I recently ran what was supposed to be a 5K.  I used my foot pod along with trail run.  GPS said I did 3.6.  A buddy ran as well and his Samsung measured 3.0! 

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to silentvoyager

    Yes, sorry for delay and thanks all for the replies. How exactly do I share the track data from the run?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

    On the Connect website, just change the privacy option on your activity to "Public", and copy the URL and paste it here

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    When you select run mode vs trail run mode, do your regular "run" mode runs tend to be alot more accurate? Yesterday and today I ran the same exact trail both with all systems plus multi band and also with tracking set to "every second" the only difference was that yesterday with "run" mode my map was perfect and clearly WAS tracking every second but today, with "trail mode" on for the exact same run and settings it CLEARLY did not track every second  as my map shows alot of straight lines and corners and turns cut off and yes I double checked to see that multi band and every second tracking was still on and it was. Anybody else experience this? I use Epix gen 2 sapphire. Thanks yall!!