WKO calculation of runs - question

MattAaronson

I did a run this morning, using my Garmin 405.

As usual, I stopped my watch twice on this route, due to a very short  tunnel that throws off the GPS.

The total time per my watch was 47:02. The "elapsed time" showing upon upload to Garmin Connect was 49:45.

I exported the TCX file from Garmin Connect to my computer, then uploaded to both WKO+ 3.0 and TrainingPeaks. Strangely, in WKO, the workout shows as 47:23 (49:46). So the elapsed time is within 1 sec but the running time is off by 21 sec.

In TrainingPeaks, no problem, the run shows as 47:02.

Any ideas on what is going on here?

Thanks, Matt

In case it is important, the "moving time" per Garmin Connect was 46:48 (this is bogus since I never was stopped when the watch was wan't stopped...just the usual GPS shenanigans I assume, like "best pace" of 5:xx). Distance shows as 6.84 in Garmin Connect and TrainingPeaks, and 6.833 in WKO.

Addendum: looking back at all the runs I've uploaded to WKO, this seems to be an issue for all of them. Examining where the difference occurs during the course of the workout, it seems to be on the laps where the watch is stopped at some point (i.e. for a traffic light or whatever). But clearly the time difference is not the full time that the watch is stopped...the "elapsed time" matches almost perfectly.

MattAaronson

Bump (sorry!)

Am I the only person who has this issue? Or am I just missing something really obvious?

Al Truscott

I never noticed this before, but in checking it does seem to happen with my 305 >> Training Center >> WKO+ I checked two very long runs of 17 & 15 miles. EACH mile (I auto lap by mile) is EXACTLY the same in Training Center and in WKO+, but in WKO one runs was longer in total time but not the ohter. Since I use a THIRD program to mainly follow my progress, I never noticed this before.

So that got me curious, and I checked a few more runs at random. The runs when I manually stopped the watch for various reasons (stopping to pee, or fill a water bottle, etc) seemed to be longer in WKO, even though all the lap times were exaclty the same in TC and WKO+. Maybe WKO+ is reading the total elapsed clock time, not the time the stopwatch is running. Do you have "Auto-pause" enabled on the 405?.

BTW, I have a tunnel on one of my routes, and I just leave the watch running for the 150 yds I'm out of sight of the sats. The 305 seems to extrapolate the distance for the absent data, drawing a straight line between two points entering and leaving (the tunnel is a little curved.) The time keeps going, as I leave the watch running, and auto-pause assumes after the fact that I'm moving, since the entry and exit coordinates are different.

 

MattAaronson

This is a strange one. It cannot be that WKO+ is reading the elapsed time because the difference between elapsed time and stopwatch time is much larger than the difference between stopwatch time and what WKO+ is reporting. Also, WKO+ can show the elapsed time and it is a perfect match to the Garmin Connect elapsed time. But it only happens on laps where the watch is stopped at some point, so it has got to be SOMETHING to do with the watch stoppage.

Thanks for checking it out. At least I feel good that the situation is not unique to me...although perhaps I'm the only person OCD enough about my workout data to have noticed!!! (but I'd find that hard to believe around here).

Regarding "auto-pause", I use it with my Edge 500 on the bike but not on the watch. And on the tunnel issue, with most tunnels the GPS works just how you describe. But in this particular tunnel there is a ramp leading down to the tunnel, and the concrete walls that from the tunnel gradually rise up. I'm not sure if it is the signal "bouncing" off the walls, but the GPS gives some super-wacky readings if I leave it on. Same thing with all the Chicago running races that start on a particular route going North on Columbus under a raised street where you aren't totally cut off from sight to the sky, but the view is partially obstructed by lots of large man-made structures and you get super strange readings.

Tom Glynn

I read somewhere (probably Google's wattage forum) that most of these programs import the raw data and then use averaging algorithms to figure out summary data. I believe some data is included/excluded depending on the program. The big discussion I remember was that numbers were all over the board when coming to a stop sign when riding. So if you where riding for a minute, came to a stop for a minute and then pedaled for a minute, most programs would give different answers for counting in averages. My takeaway was that as long as you were consistent, it wouldn't really matter.