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Garmin Forerunner abroad
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Hello fellow runners,
Quick question.
I'm off on holiday to Kefelonia (Greek island) in 2 weeks time and I am going to continue running whilst I am out there,
Is it worth taking my Garmin? will the GPS work over there?
Thanks in advance!
Quick question.
I'm off on holiday to Kefelonia (Greek island) in 2 weeks time and I am going to continue running whilst I am out there,
Is it worth taking my Garmin? will the GPS work over there?
Thanks in advance!
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Was just curious, it'll be interesting to upload the info off my training runs and map it out on google earth
:thumbsup:
Don't the sounds of the startup/warning beeps change as well?
And when I go back to Aus, my Garmin plays the first few opening bars of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McsWKczU6wc
You should be ok in greece but not in places further away like the US
I'll give you a little bit of science in case you want it...
Basically the earth is not a perfect sphere, and there are different best fit models of it's shape (geoid's) depending on where you are in the world. The Garmin running watches have pre loaded goedetic models depending on where you buy them from. I think they have at lest 3 versions, a european version, US and far east/oceania version.
If you are working as a geophysicist (using a commersal gps) to minimise position errors you have to check and change your geoid settings depending on where you are in the world (and within europe) to get a best fit of the earths shape for your current location. For normal gps users who don't need that kind of accuracy it's not a problem.
If you use your garmin outside of it's geoidetic model zone, in somewhere like new york
you might find that the final distance it gives is out by a few cm every 100 meters compared to a hand measured distance. This is because the geoid model in it will give you a best fit for the earths shape in europe that is not a best fit for the earths shape in the US. So if your use your european garmin in the New York marathon the distance it says you've run probably won't match the official distance.
Edited to add link. If anyone is really, really bored you can read about it a bit on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodetic_system It tells you a bit about the position error(approx 140 m) between the gloabl best fit model and the UK model.
"The g stands for something that ends in ...lobal "
That is all very well, but what happens if I want to take my Garmin off the Globe. Do I need to download some new piece of software? No help from Garmin online manual as usual.
I think it got lost in translation!
I take mine when we go abroad every year (France and Spain) and I've noticed that as soon as I switch it on in either country that it changes my data from miles to km and the language changes from English to French or Spanish (depending on where I am).
You'll probably need to get the special overseas manual as well.
I'm sure it'll be fine! thanks for the advice peeps
Little Ninja - I nearly spat coffee over my keyboard reading your teleport type message. I don't have a running garmin but have done geophysical surveys using commercial GPS handsets.
I really want to get a garmin(or other running gps watch) but have skinny wrists and like gadgets so am struggling to work out which one to get
Mine is on the last 5 holes on the strap for me and I have a skinny wrist.
It still has holes to go on my 8 year old boy lol
Rigbunny.... I recently used my 305 in Canada. Seemed to measure fine but now wondering if what you've said makes it more likely to over-measure or under-measure?
As for skinny wrists I have a 305 and find it fine for skinny wrists. I thought it would really annoy me but actually find it fine.
shiny - it could over over and undermeasure a little bit on a single run. I think the only time you would notice it is if you did something like run the new york marathon with a us and european garmin. If you did that they should show different distance travelled at the end. Or if you compared the location coordinates given by a european or us garmin at the same location you should see a difference. Do wrist garmins show gps coordinates?
If you did a run in the US and uploaded run your garmin it to a map it might not show the correct route but it should be close. Another thing to remember is that gps' have a error factor. When I was doing survey work we had to have a position accuracy of less that 2m for our survey stations but the built in error in gps units was 5m.
I have a small wrist and find the 310xt pretty good but its functions may not exceed what you need ie bike/swimming. You can try putting a sweat band under the watch too