Calibrating indoor run / treadmill

Regrettably you cannot calibrate the watch manually.

Although you can amend the distance in Garmin Connect after the upload (web based, not on the phone app). But all the stats/splits will be wrong as based on the initial distance recorded.

That will have no effect on 3rd party uploads like strava or nike+ as only the initial distance will be transfered.

I wish that was different as I have the same issue.

How do I do it

Regrettably you cannot calibrate the watch manually.

Although you can amend the distance in Garmin Connect after the upload (web based, not on the phone app). But all the stats/splits will be wrong as based on the initial distance recorded.

That will have no effect on 3rd party uploads like strava or nike+ as only the initial distance will be transfered.

I wish that was different as I have the same issue.

Thank you for the info. How do I do this? NOT that tech savy.

Also: should I start my treadmill as indoor run (no gps)
Or as
Outdoor run (no gps)
To be able to adjust it in GQ desktop.

Would setting custom stride length maybe help?

It's way off for me. I ran 8km yesterday with most of it at 5:00-5:10 min/km and the watch said 7.1 km at 5:50-6:00 min/km.

I have run plenty with it outside also and I am definitely sure I was not running anywhere near 6:00 min/km.

At the moment my runs fall short....especially long runs can have a fault of 3-4km... even if I have a steady pace.

It sounds as if you're assuming your treadmill to be accurate on distance.

Just to play Devil's Advocate, how do you know that assumption to be true? i.e. what is the reason you believe the treadmill over the watch, rather than the reverse? Or that they're both off and the real distance is in between the two?

No, without a footpod I don't think there's any way to manually adjust the calibration in the watch. Sounds like you've done plenty of outdoor running, so it should be about as good as it's going to get. I prefer a foot pod though just from the sense that even if it's not perfect it's far more closely coupled to your foot movement than is a watch attached to your wrist. It's very easy for arm swing to change even if your pace doesn't, not so easy for your foot movement to change while maintaining pace.

Thoughts

It sounds as if you're assuming your treadmill to be accurate on distance.

Just to play Devil's Advocate, how do you know that assumption to be true? i.e. what is the reason you believe the treadmill over the watch, rather than the reverse? Or that they're both off and the real distance is in between the two?

No, without a footpod I don't think there's any way to manually adjust the calibration in the watch. Sounds like you've done plenty of outdoor running, so it should be about as good as it's going to get. I prefer a foot pod though just from the sense that even if it's not perfect it's far more closely coupled to your foot movement than is a watch attached to your wrist. It's very easy for arm swing to change even if your pace doesn't, not so easy for your foot movement to change while maintaining pace.

I know that the treadmill is quite correct. As I always use the same treadmill. I have tested it with Polar footpod and with TomTom multisport cardio (arm swing).
Both of those agree more w. treadmill than Garmin...which falls very much behind in km. (treadmill 21.1 TT 20,8 Polar 21 Garmin 19)

@Brian -> Adjusting stride lenght might help. I will have to test that when I have time.

I must say that I find GQ a bit lacking as one can not auto-calibrate. On my trusted TT I could calibrate immediately after the run (on the watch, if needed). So that might be something that Garmin should look into.

I got my watch this winter and haven't ran fast outside. So my watch is accurate on slow speeds indoors, but not on faster speeds. This is my fault, but I think it will be better after some faster runs outside. One thing you can do is to set a speed metric on the watch and look if it is near the speed on the treadmill when changing speed. If it's too slow, you must do bigger arm swings. Maybe your arm swing is a little different running outside than inside?

Thank you for the info. How do I do this? NOT that tech savy.

Also: should I start my treadmill as indoor run (no gps)
Or as
Outdoor run (no gps)
To be able to adjust it in GQ desktop.

when you are on your activity page, there is an edit icon on the top right corner (looks like a pen/pencil).

I believe any run can be edited. Indoor or outdoor setting should be irrelevant but anyway you should use indoor indeed for treadmil runs.