Improve Indoor Running distance 230/235

Are you sure your treadmill is showing the correct numbers? This winter I ran on treadmills at the gym, where there is about 10 of them ... I found they do not all measure speed/distance the same (even tough they are all identical). Some match up closer to my watches' numbers than others ... there is a noticeable variance. In any case, with dozens of outdoor runs myself, I've found I must run within my 'average outdoor pace' (6.5-7 mph) in order for the watch and treadmill to be close. If I don't run within this sweet spot, the watch and treadmill will differ by .2 to .3 km per 5Km.

Max

I have the same - but opposite - situation: my indoor runs show up as roughly 10% shorter than what the treadmill indicates. There are 15 or so TMs in the gym, and none of them come close. Since I don't do the exact same pace, incline, distance or structure every time I can't say I know there is a noticeable difference between the different units, but I would assume they are not carefully calibrated miracles of precision. However, constantly having a considerable difference between the watch and the TM has made me look for a solution - and indeed you can set the step length manually, either using the mobile app or the browser version in the User Settings portion of the Device Settings screen (by default it auto-calibrates, but I probably use a different stride or something when running indoors since I have a large number - well, a couple of hundreds at least - of outdoor runs on the watch by now, since it doesn't seem to give good results). That should solve the problem. I still have to test this though.

Andrew - if you try this out, would you please post the result here, letting me know if it works and if there are any noticeable drawbacks?


/Sven

Thanks for the replies.

Max - that's a good point. I tried indoor running again yesterday on different treadmill (make &model) and still had problems. My interval training workout of 5.10 km (TM) showed up as 5.74 km (FR 230). So it was actually worse. I wouldn't mind a 2% error, but this is more than 10%.

Sven - it appears that the distance error is worse when I'm not at my "usual" long running cadence and paceof around 178 steps/min and 5:45 /km. That's is, the indoor tracking is more accurate around these parameters. When I slow my cadence (for interval rests) or increase/decrease my pace, the error is exaggerated. I will look into setting the Stride Length but I suspect it will only be valid for a certain pace and cadence.

Cheers,
Andrew

I get about 5% off on a 10K run in the TM and I always try and run on the same one. This is maintaining the same pace.

Try and do some races at different speeds, 5k-HM. I've found that helps.

For any kind of interval or tempo runs, where you vary the speed, it's useless. I just use the lap button then tidy it up on GC. I might be going HM pace and the 235 shows me going way slower than my marathon pace.

If you spend a lot of time on the TM, best invest in a foot pod. If not just manually click off the miles/kms from the TM.

I should note that my daily 5K is always at the same pace when on a TM (6.5 mph or about 5:30/km) through the whole run ... yeah, I know I just mixed up mph and km ... my watch is set up for metric, but the TM is in mph. I think a steady run like that might help with accuracy as opposed to doing intervals. Also, I think the more outside runs you get in, the more accurate the accelerometer will be ... 7-8 runs might not be enough to get a 'really good' average yet. I have 150+ outdoor runs since a year ago when I bought my watch.

For me the TM is a necessary evil when I can't run outside, so I just turn it on, turn my brain off, and wake up when it's done half an hour later! Can't wait to get outside again!! Stupid winter! lol

Max

Why Not Use A Foot Pod?

I've had my FR 230 for about a month and logged 7-8 outdoor GPS runs, which work fine. Posting in the 235 forum because it's the same watch and you seem to have more traffic here.
I'm having issues with Indoor Runs (non-GPS) in that the distance is way out of whack.
For instance, yesterday I ran 16.1 kms (as displayed by the treadmill) but the Garmin FR logged 17.99 kms. This represents a total error of 1.9 kms, or 120 m per km.
The watch is consistently off about 100 meters per km on the treadmill. Is there any way to help the FR "learn" my stride length or improve this problem? Will more GPS running help it "learn" ?

cheers,
andrew

1. Buy a foot pod. 2. Run out of doors to calibrate the foot pod. 3. Turn off GPS and GLONASS while on the treadmill or an indoor track. 4. Rely on the foot pod to calculate your run distance.