Forums >Gears and Wears>Question about my Garmin 205 Forerunner
an amazing likeness
Just wondering if I should use the GPS tomorrow or just leave it at home and just use a watch.
I will NOT attempt to reply to that, you can over here for a quick read should you want to see some folks' opinions.
"The course for tomorrow's race will run through a railroad tunnel (the oldest operational tunnel in the US) that's about 75 meters in length. Can I expect this to screw up my data due to a lack of signal, or will the Garmin keep tracking data?"
It will just have two data points 75 meters apart and straight-line average the time and distance. No problem, it may cause a slight blip in pace / distance (especially if the tunnel is curved), but it is only 75 meters of 10 MILES.
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.
In my experience you garmin will definitely lose signal in the tunnel and so you will have a gap in the distance data which will probably be big enough to screw up your pace etc.
Personally I'd use a different watch but I never race with my garmin anyway.
If you do use the garmin, I'd definitely turn off auto-stop and auto-lap and just display total time and lap time on the display...the clock will keep running even when you're in the tunnel and you can hit your mile splits manually if you want to record them.
Runners run
In my experience you garmin will definitely lose signal in the tunnel and so you will have a gap in the distance data which will probably be big enough to screw up your pace etc. Personally I'd use a different watch but I never race with my garmin anyway. If you do use the garmin, I'd definitely turn off auto-stop and auto-lap and just display total time and lap time on the display...the clock will keep running even when you're in the tunnel and you can hit your mile splits manually if you want to record them.
ah, so you DO own a Garmin! Busted!!
Why is it sideways?
I own one too.
I don't see why it would screw up your pace if its a staight line through the tunnel. The garmin will use the last two data points it has and uses the distance between and the time elapsed to calc the pace. If its not a curve, like MilkTruck said, the pace will be just fine. If you have to look at a watch for your pace in 75 meters while your in the tunnel, I will add that you will probably run faster if you're not always looking down to see your pace.
The pace on a GPS watch is only as good as the GPS data it records. I went on a run over luchtime today and my Garmin tracked 2.82 miles. When I uploaded it, the route actually had a small loop in it where it loked like I ran in a circle in the middle of the road, which I did not do. It also has me running on both sides of the road instead of with traffic. After I edited it and doubled checked my route on Google earth, it ended up 0.09 miles long on the Garmin. The time I ran did not change so the positional errors definately affected the calculated pace. To a large degree? No.
The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff
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Run with the GPS. You'll get a straight line for the stretch without a signal. It may take a couple of seconds after you emergy for it to reacquire your position but you should be fine.
I don't see why it would screw up your pace if its a staight line through the tunnel. The garmin will use the last two data points it has and uses the distance between and the time elapsed to calc the pace. If its not a curve, like MilkTruck said, the pace will be just fine. If you have to look at a watch for your pace in 75 meters while your in the tunnel, I will add that you will probably run faster if you're not always looking down to see your pace. The pace on a GPS watch is only as good as the GPS data it records. I went on a run over luchtime today and my Garmin tracked 2.82 miles. When I uploaded it, the route actually had a small loop in it where it loked like I ran in a circle in the middle of the road, which I did not do. It also has me running on both sides of the road instead of with traffic. After I edited it and doubled checked my route on Google earth, it ended up 0.09 miles long on the Garmin. The time I ran did not change so the positional errors definately affected the calculated pace. To a large degree? No.
I ran a race in Chicago last spring and I lost signal while running on lower wacker drive. It was an 8K race, but my watch read 5.5 miles at the end. When I downloaded the data, and looked at the route ran, it was all over the place, going down some side streets the race ran past. Luckily, my inner running sense is fine tuned and I didn't need it for pacing.