How do you work out distance you ran?

Mink

I run each night for approx 1/2hr but I'm not sure how far I'm going. I really want to work it out as would like to work my way up to being able to run in races by end of summer.

The area where I live isn't on any maps yet (newish estate) so I can't work it out by using the legend on a map.
This same problem prevents me using Mapmyrun.com

My phone counts steps you take & then translates that into miles but I don't know how accurate it is.

Does anyone have a little gadget they carry that tracks it?

MarieC

Alot of people here run with their garmin stopwatch. I dont have one but I know they track ur mileage etc.....

Running Bing

Mink wrote: »

I run each night for approx 1/2hr but I'm not sure how far I'm going. I really want to work it out as would like to work my way up to being able to run in races by end of summer.

The area where I live isn't on any maps yet (newish estate) so I can't work it out by using the legend on a map.
This same problem prevents me using Mapmyrun.com

My phone counts steps you take & then translates that into miles but I don't know how accurate it is.

Does anyone have a little gadget they carry that tracks it?

Nike plus.

Or if your willing to spend a bit more a garmin watch (305/405/etc.) is well worth the money.

Alternatively you could use your car to measure the distance if you can drive the route (or just run a route you can drive). You could buy one of those cheap bike monitors in argos too and use your bike to measure the routes.


Are you new to running? 1-2 hours of running a night seems a long time on your feet, how much distance would you cover in that time?

P.S. One more idea. If none of the above is possible you could run 100m (or longer. The longer the better) on a track and count the steps. Then divide the distance by the number of steps you took thus getting your stride length. Then you could multiply your stride length by the number of steps you take on a run and you get the distance.

You would need to measure your stride length pretty regularly though to keep it accurate.

shels4ever

Mink wrote: »

I run each night for approx 1/2hr but I'm not sure how far I'm going. I really want to work it out as would like to work my way up to being able to run in races by end of summer.

The area where I live isn't on any maps yet (newish estate) so I can't work it out by using the legend on a map.
This same problem prevents me using Mapmyrun.com

My phone counts steps you take & then translates that into miles but I don't know how accurate it is.

Does anyone have a little gadget they carry that tracks it?

You can get foot pods and GPS watches but they will cost you, maybe do one run in an area that you can map and know the distance, then you will have an idea of your pace for your usual route and get a idea on distance.

--amadeus--

the Gmap Pedometer allows you to map from a satellite image, even if your estate isn't there yet you can approximate. I used a pedometer for a while as well but they can be really inaccurate

robinph

The Garmin watches work by GPS so as long as your not running underground you will get a pretty good trace of where you have been, although it still coped reasonably well with my recent run through a tunnel.

The Garmins may be considered a bit on the expensive side though so just going by the cars odometer may do you for now in the event of nothing else being available. Used to get my dad to measure routes for me like that many many moons ago and have used the likes of GMaps-Pedometer, or similar variations of that theme as well before getting first a footpod Polar watch and then the Garmin GPS one.

Running Bing wrote: »

Are you new to running? 1-2 hours of running a night seems a long time on your feet, how much distance would you cover in that time?

I read that as 1/2 and not 1-2.

baza1976

I know this is nit picking... but... gps devices aren't exact.... that's why they aren't used to measure a marathon course and so on...
because gps use satellites and we all know they are above you, when you are going up or down a hill they don't measure accurately.
A good way to explain is... draw a diagonal line A-B (this is the hill you are running up or down) at both ends of this line draw a straight vertical line.... if you measure the distance of your diagonal line and the vertical lines you will see a difference... the distance between the vertical lines is what the gps records

Rusty Cogs 08

baza1976 wrote: »

I know this is nit picking... but... gps devices aren't exact.... that's why they aren't used to measure a marathon course and so on...
because gps use satellites and we all know they are above you, when you are going up or down a hill they don't measure accurately.
A good way to explain is... draw a diagonal line A-B (this is the hill you are running up or down) at both ends of this line draw a straight vertical line.... if you measure the distance of your diagonal line and the vertical lines you will see a difference... the distance between the vertical lines is what the gps records

Fair point, would there be a way to calculate your actual distance covered by getting the square root of distance squared + (de)elevation squared (that Pythagoris guy) ?

Seres

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

Fair point, would there be a way to calculate your actual distance covered by getting the square root of distance squared + (de)elevation squared (that Pythagoris guy) ?

I sure there is a maths forum somewhere that would welcome this question !

baza1976

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

Fair point, would there be a way to calculate your actual distance covered by getting the square root of distance squared + (de)elevation squared (that Pythagoris guy) ?

lol.. I asked for that.. just drive the car around or if you have something handy on the bike use that

lecheile

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

Fair point, would there be a way to calculate your actual distance covered by getting the square root of distance squared + (de)elevation squared (that Pythagoris guy) ?

Exactly - the memories will come craching back to all who dreaded Junior or Inter Cert maths. The square on the hypotenuse (the incline) is equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides.

for those so inclined....

http://www.mathsisfun.com/pythagoras.html

Mink

Thanks for all the replies. I can drive the route so will check it on the car tonight. That seems to be the easiest & cheapest way. I run almost same route every night so should be accurate. Then as I extend it, I'll check it again in the car.

When I said 1/2hr, I meant 30 mins. No where near doing 1 or 2hrs. Mind you, I've done well as previously was only able to run for a min or two before collapsing! Now up to nearly 40 mins so working my way up.

First race I want to work up to is 5k & then go from there.

I live in Tyrrelstown & most of the estate has been there since 2001 & there is still nothing on Google maps or any Dublin map I've looked at. Nothing on internet either. It's a pain in the hole.

Krusty_Clown

baza1976 wrote: »

because gps use satellites and we all know they are above you, when you are going up or down a hill they don't measure accurately.
A good way to explain is... draw a diagonal line A-B (this is the hill you are running up or down) at both ends of this line draw a straight vertical line.... if you measure the distance of your diagonal line and the vertical lines you will see a difference... the distance between the vertical lines is what the gps records

Hi Baza, that's not how GPS works. Yes, it's not terribly accurate (usually out by around 5%), but it doesn't measure based on horizontal distances. They actually do take into account your height above/below sea level.

Satellites don't track anything. All they do is broadcast regular information (like time-stamps). Your watch (or GPS receiver) picks up these signal from several satellites, compares the time the message was sent, with the time that the message was received to calculate your distance from the satellite. After doing this with a few satellite signals, the watch can calculate your longitude, latitude, and approximate height above or below sea-level.

But, as I said, you're correct in that they aren't very accurate. What they do is calculate your position every x number of seconds, and assume that you traveled in a straight line between those two points. That's why they are more accurate when you're travelling in a straight line and less accurate when you're travelling in an arc (like say around a track).

Ger the man

Mink wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. I can drive the route so will check it on the car tonight. That seems to be the easiest & cheapest way. I run almost same route every night so should be accurate. Then as I extend it, I'll check it again in the car.

When I said 1/2hr, I meant 30 mins. No where near doing 1 or 2hrs. Mind you, I've done well as previously was only able to run for a min or two before collapsing! Now up to nearly 40 mins so working my way up.

First race I want to work up to is 5k & then go from there.

I live in Tyrrelstown & most of the estate has been there since 2001 & there is still nothing on Google maps or any Dublin map I've looked at. Nothing on internet either. It's a pain in the hole.

Hi Mink,
Im living in Tyrrelstown too. I usually run to the corporate park and run through it about 3 or 4 times then head back. I love runnin in the px park too, Im also interested in guaging the distance Im doing without forking out a load of cash. Best of Luck!

Donny5

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Hi Baza, that's not how GPS works. Yes, it's not terribly accurate (usually out by around 5%), but it doesn't measure based on horizontal distances. They actually do take into account your height above/below sea level.

Satellites don't track anything. All they do is broadcast regular information (like time-stamps). Your watch (or GPS receiver) picks up these signal from several satellites, compares the time the message was sent, with the time that the message was received to calculate your distance from the satellite. After doing this with a few satellite signals, the watch can calculate your longitude, latitude, and approximate height above or below sea-level.

But, as I said, you're correct in that they aren't very accurate. What they do is calculate your position every x number of seconds, and assume that you traveled in a straight line between those two points. That's why they are more accurate when you're travelling in a straight line and less accurate when you're travelling in an arc (like say around a track).

5% error margin? 5% inaccuracy in longtitude or lattitude would be massive. GPS is far more accurate than that. You are correct in how it works, but the problems you describe with arcs are caused by low sample rates on the device, not an inherent flaw in the system.

--amadeus--

I thought GPS was supposed to be accurate to within 5m in terms of position but (as said above) could have errors based on samples (ie assuming straight lines when you've done bends)

jlang

Tyrrelstown isn't mapped on Google Maps but it does appear on the satellite photos so you can use gmap-pedometer.com or mapmyrun.com or whatever if you switch to Satellite/Aerial view. Unless you run under the big white clouds obscuring large parts of D15. Tyrrelstown is mapped on Open Street Map and Bing Maps, which I've just found is the new name for Microsoft's maps.live.com, but I don't know of a measuring website that uses either of these maps (except the built in "get directions" on the latter).

Off topic but really cool ... For anyone else who hasn't seen it yet, check out the Bird's Eye view on Bing Maps. It covers Dublin and other cities, not too sure about other parts of the country. e.g. Mary's house. Don't miss the zoom and rotate buttons so you can see the back of your house too.

RoyMcC

Mink wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. I can drive the route so will check it on the car tonight. That seems to be the easiest & cheapest way. I run almost same route every night so should be accurate. Then as I extend it, I'll check it again in the car.

Make sure you don't misread your odometer like runningman1980

Once you've got an idea of your pace (8min/mile, 10min/mile or whatever) you'll know approximately how far you've run just by time. But, as the guys say, a GPS is your only man if you really want accuracy.

Krusty_Clown

Donny5 wrote: »

5% error margin? 5% inaccuracy in longtitude or lattitude would be massive. GPS is far more accurate than that. You are correct in how it works, but the problems you describe with arcs are caused by low sample rates on the device, not an inherent flaw in the system.

The 5% I mentioned was in terms of distance covered rather than position (and it was a sweeping generalization). The 405 takes a sample approximately every 1 - 4 seconds, so in this example (GPS fitness products) accuracy is greatly affected by the arc problem. Have you ever used a Forerunner on a track?

Krusty_Clown

--amadeus-- wrote: »

I thought GPS was supposed to be accurate to within 5m in terms of position but (as said above) could have errors based on samples (ie assuming straight lines when you've done bends)

For Garmin Forerunners, 5m is the best case accuracy. That's usually more than enough accuracy for most running requirements.

pbuckland05

The easy way to track my mileage is to use Google maps all I do is right click on where I start then to where I finish Its very accurate and its handy.

Mink

Ger the man wrote: »

Hi Mink,
Im living in Tyrrelstown too. I usually run to the corporate park and run through it about 3 or 4 times then head back. I love runnin in the px park too, Im also interested in guaging the distance Im doing without forking out a load of cash. Best of Luck!

On weekends I run up to the corporate park & then take a right & go down to next roundabout. Works out as 4 miles for the whole trip. Haven't been able to run the whole time.

During weekdays I run at night & don't feel safe going up that long dark road to corporate park & back. Have had a few cars stopping to ask do I want a lift & freaked me out a bit. So I stay near the estate.

Mink

Ok I drove the run I do & it works out at a bit over 3 miles, which is 5k.

So I was already doing 5k every night anyway & didn't realise! This definitely puts me in the frame of mind to do a 5k race so will try sign up for the next one & get my time down.

plodder

On GPS accuracy. 5m error for measuring a particular position is about right. But when it measures the distance between two points, some/a lot of that error cancels out, because a fair amount of GPS inaccuracy comes from atmospheric conditions, which don't vary that much over short distances.

Another thing, while absolute accuracy is not that high, GPS is still very sensitive (centimetres), and apparently, with the newer versions of the garmin firmware, the watch can detect very quickly when you are changing direction, so it records more data points, and this improves the error, due to it recording straight lines across curved paths.

I've been meaning to test it out on a 400m track, to see how true all this is.

robinph

An example of the innacuracy of the trace on a track:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/6471613

I did start in lane 4 I think so that accounts for a little of the missalignment of the start and end points. But I also didn't stop the watch on the finish line, that wasn't until a good few meters after the line and was nowhere near as far down the finish straight as the graphic suggests. The overall distance is prettymuch spot on though.

Krusty_Clown

I take it the start point in the track is out by about 30/40 feet?
When you first turn on the GPS the acurracy is pretty wild, but as it starts to track more satellites, improves.

Plodder: Have they reposted the new firmware? They withdrew the previous build after they had a lot of problems reported like Robinph's.
*Edit*: Just checked. It's still 2.30

plodder

Went for a run at ALSAA and also walked a lap of the track. The distance was recorded as 401.42 metres. That's fairly impressive imo. The elevation is way off though. It's showing a 3 metre difference between the start and end points!

[edit] I seem to have 2.40 on mine. But I thought that the feature where it varies the recording rate, was in 2.30.

robinph

The GPS had been on plenty long enough by that stage to have locked onto as many sattelites as it was likely to find. The start point is off slightly, but in relation to the second time the trace goes past that point it's about right due to being in lanes for the first 100m, the finish point looks to be way off though and nowhere near where the bend starts.

This one, where I do 4 laps though, things seem to line up a bit better overall:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/5812413

They both had it pretty much spot on for the distance though, only 0.01 off each time.

Krusty_Clown

That's pretty damn good RobinPH. You're time is none-too-shabby either!
Plodder: you must have installed it before Garmin pulled it from their website.

robinph

I've got 2.4 on mine as well?!?