Garmin Question - Avg Pace vs. Avg Moving Pace?

BJohnson

Ok, this might be blindingly obvious, but what is the difference between Avg Pace and Avg Moving Pace? When Garmin updated the Garmin Connect service a few weeks ago, this started being displayed in the statistics for each run, but I'm not quite sure what the difference is between them.

You can take today's run for example - an easy 3 mile run that I ran straight through without any stops. I would therefore think that the two values would be the same, since I never stopped moving from the time I started the watch until I finished the run, yet Time and Moving Time are more than a minute different, and Avg Pace and Avg Moving Pace are different as well.

Can anyone offer any explanation? And why would this info be useful to know?

Krusty_Clown

Do you have you watch setup to auto-pause? If so, is it when stopped or below a certain pace? If you look at the pace chart, it's suggesting that your pace dropped a couple of times: at your turn-around point and towards the end. Might account for the difference (which would also be accentuated on shorter runs). Just a suggestion!

BJohnson

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Do you have you watch setup to auto-pause? If so, is it when stopped or below a certain pace? If you look at the pace chart, it's suggesting that your pace dropped a couple of times: at your turn-around point and towards the end. Might account for the difference (which would also be accentuated on shorter runs). Just a suggestion!

Thanks for the reply Krusty, but no, I actually turned the autopause off last night, getting things set for the Cork Marathon (if I need to make a toilet stop during the race, I don't want the watch stopping). I had thought of that as well, but no, that's not the case here. Any other thoughts?

Krusty_Clown

Just those drops in pace being interpreted as stops (though 15 min/mile is hardly stopped). At some point on an out and back you are stationary (if only for a second!). Otherwise, it could be loss of signal being mis-interpreted as being stationary, though I'd imagine you'd also have a spike in pace afterwards. Odd one. Run longer in future!

BJohnson

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Just those drops in pace being interpreted as stops (though 15 min/mile is hardly stopped). At some point on an out and back you are stationary (if only for a second!). Otherwise, it could be loss of signal being mis-interpreted as being stationary, though I'd imagine you'd also have a spike in pace afterwards. Odd one. Run longer in future!

Ha - I'll try! I wondered if it could be anything to do with the minute or so it takes to acquire a GPS signal? That's the only thing that comes to mind. I stand and wait for the satellites to connect, then start my run by pressing the start button to start the stopwatch. Would it be counting that time before I press start? Like from the time I switch to the start screen, but before actually starting my workout?

Krusty_Clown

No. it doesn't record any data/trackpoints until you press the start button. In any case you'd see a consistent difference across all your runs. Maybe somebody rebooted the Galway satellite?

RayCun

Were you on a treadmill?

BJohnson

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I finally found the answer to my own question. I thought I'd post the answer here, in case it's been driving anyone else crazy. Apparently it's a bug that they're working on fixing. You can find the answer below - I've cut and pasted it from the Garmin Support forums.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ADAMJOWITT View Post
Have been enjoying exploring the new features in the recent update, especially liking having elevation correction and the ability to edit summary data.

One query though regarding Moving Time. How is this calculated? I know it is supposed to be the total elapsed time minus any 'stopped' time, but yesterday I went for a short run and uploaded it so that I could check out the data in the 'new' Garmin Connect. I know that I ran continuously for 25 minutes (24:59 according to my device, TC and GC) but my Moving Time is given as 24:32. I don't know where the other 27 seconds went?! I was running the entire time on a route where there are no stops for traffic etc. Any ideas?

Hello Adamjowitt and Paticorunner:

I have encountered the same problem as you both have rightly identified. This has been occuring for many of my recent activities.

I have exported the data of the activities with errors to find out where the issue originated from. The bug appears to be at the point where each new lap begins where the speed becomes nil for a few seconds. This should not be the case obviously. If you add up all the seconds with no speed of all affected lap changes, you get the total difference in time between the moving time and the time. I am assuming here there was no time in the activity where your speed was nil or had very low speed, as the case you have described.

I have advised the Call center at Garmin earlier today so that the engineers are aware of it. The person I have talked to understood quite well what I described so that he should provide enough hints to have it fixed.

Hope this helps. Until this is fixed, I would generally not rely of the moving time related statistics.