An additional item about running in London that intrigues me is the distance measurements and times.
When I travel within the U.S. and go to sea level, the difference is noticeable and I feel better and run faster. London is at sea level but while I was there, I didn’t notice the benefit from the oxygen boost that I normally get when I’m at lower elevation. There are multiple possible reasons for this including jet lag, more travel stress, etc. And yet while I felt fine, my pace and time as shown by my watch did not reflect the sea-level advantage.
I would’ve chalked it up to the aforementioned factors and not given it any further thought until I remembered something else. A couple of years ago I ran the virtual London Marathon. Part of doing this included using their app on my phone to track my distance and time for their official statistics. In addition to starting the clock on their app when I toed the line that morning (aka the edge of my driveway) I also used my Garmin watch.
Oddly, the London App said I finished the 26.219 mile distance a short distance before my watch did (I did keep running that day to get the full marathon on my watch, too). I went back into my Garmin data from the marathon and specifically, there was a .574 mile difference between the two devices which comes to .0219 per mile.
In theory, all devices at all times were pulling their signal from a satellite. I’m a publisher and a writer, not a rocket scientist, but in my mind, a satellite is a satellite. After we returned from London a couple of weeks ago, I looked up whether I should have done something to calibrate the watch while I was overseas. According to Garmin, the answer was no. It reinforced my belief that a satellite is a satellite.
Still, it’s interesting that the two times I used “London satellites” I seemed to be getting shorted relative to my watch. As further evidence, based on my past experiences when running at sea level, if I applied the .0219 miles to my 30 minute runs when I was in London earlier this month, I get a distance that makes a lot more sense based on my current speeds.
I suspect that the real answer is that satellites are satellites and two things explain the strange data. The London Marathon App may not have been as robust as the Garmin and\/or since it was wedged in my phone belt, maybe the readings got funky. When we were in London, I probably was running on top of jet lag and my speeds just weren’t there. Still, if I’m running overseas again, it will be interesting to see if the results are similar…
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An additional item about running in London that intrigues me is the distance measurements and times. When I travel within the U.S. and go to sea level, the difference is noticeable and I feel better and run faster. London is at sea level but while I was there, I didn’t notice the benefit from the … <\/p>\n