Triathlon at Retirement

I know not to take fitness apps too seriously, but here we go again. Recently, I ran one of my regular routes on a new PR. Great, I might still be improving, despite age being against me. It was a chilly day (for Texas), about 52F (11C).  My first observation is that the Coros watch I am using right now gave me a distance of 2.61 miles and an elevation gain of 627 ft. Strava gave the same distance, but only a 371 ft elevation gain. Previous runs using Garmin have measured the distance to 2.60 mile and 313 ft in elevation. My Fitbit have given me 2.80 miles on the same route. I have got used to the discrepancy in distance, and I use Strava as the arbiter. Strava: 2.61 miles. 371 elev. gain Coros: 2.61 miles, 627 ft elev. gain Garmin: 2.60 miles, 313 ft elev. gain Fitbit: 2.80 miles, elevation gain not recorded This last time (Coros), I ran a PR with 35 seconds! This is a huge improvement, and I was deliberately trying for a new record, meaning that I pushed hard all the way to the e...

I have to confess, I look at Strava way too much. What really has my attention are the "segments" where my time is compared to other people. A big incentive is to appear on the list of top 10 of all times. As I am older, this is rare, but then there is the top 10 in my age group, or in my training group... Not on a Strava segment.. . If you are out biking with friends  and suddenly one person sets off in a mad pace, recklessly passing parked cars and loose dogs, you can be sure it is a Strava nerd that just entered a segment. Must have that record time! Recently, I did a longer run up a mountain in a rural area and my smartwatch lost contact with the GPS for part of the run. Consequently, Strava did not credit me with the segment. Grrr, I had a really good time... I tried for hours to fiddle with the settings on Strava to see if the program could understand that I had not been teleported from halfway up the mountain to the top, but I could not change the result. Then it happe...

Strava is a program on the internet where you can upload your exercise if you have a GPS supported fitness tracker. There is a free version and a paid version with more features, but the free version is very useful. If you are regularly active, you will hear a lot about Strava, and I suggest you join. (I am not paid or supported at all by Strava, this is my personal recommendation.) Start with the free version and see if its interesting to you. My Garmin tracker automatically uploads the training to Strava when I am done. For cycling and running, there will be a map of the course covered, data from the tracker like speed and heart rate. What I find most interesting are the "segments". Individuals can map any course, short or long, and all Strava users that pass the segment will have their best time uploaded in a table for other Strava users to see (unless they opt out of this feature).  The segment leaderboards allow you to see how you stack up against other people. There are...

It is so great to have a fitness tracker and get objective feedback on the workout, making sure I train on target.  I have a Garmin Forerunner 735X which I am very pleased with. It has enough battery power to run GPS for a whole day which saves me from carrying a smartphone. My Garmin can also measure swim distance. I have noticed that the recorded running distance often appears to be slightly short. I previously used a Fitbit, which also was great. The Garmin records shorter distances in comparison to the Fitbit on the same tracks. This has to do with how distance is measured by the tracker.  The Fitbit used my estimated stride length, which I had calibrated on a measured course. The backside of that was when I got faster and my strides longer, the Fitbit recorded a marginally shorter distance! Garmin use a GPS grid and interpolates distance between points. I think this is where the discrepancy starts, if the track has many curves, the grid has a tendency to straighten the co...