How far did I run this year? My apps disagree.

[Katie]

How do the apps calculate total miles run? This seems kind of easy – add up the miles. But Garmin says I have run 1,048.7 miles. Strava says 934. Training Peaks says 938…

Any insights on which app is closer?

[saquila]

Thanks for sending me down this rabbit hole! Much more complicated than I imagined: Calculating Distance Strava

I don’t look at my Garmin app. Training Peaks is my go-to for recording and analysis. Hope that helps.

[KatieEdmonds]

I have a slightly related question. What do you think is the best way to determine the grade of a hill? I often use MapMyRun to get an estimate. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but I’d be happy to do better. I really don’t trust it for the recently remodeled hill on Rogers up from the roundabout at Winslow and High. I’m thinking it might now be a fun hill to do repeats on, but I don’t have a great sense of how it compares to other options (which are abundant in this location).

[saquila]

I use Strava segments. You can create a segment and it will calculate the grade. If you have a Garmin bike computer, it can tell you the grade while riding the route. Also if you have a Garmin watch, you can add an iConnect App that can compute the grade.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by saquila.

[Katie]

I use my Training Peaks – after the run, I look at the map and mark off to see the grade. But the Strava idea is much better.

[KatieEdmonds]

I now realize I needed to think more carefully about using strava segments for this purpose. I dismissed the idea before posting my question because it seems to get the altitude information from the GPS data used to create the segment, so when the segment at the north end of the B-line was created, it used totally bonkers altitude data, and we seem to be stuck with that.

The grade on Rogers road is way less than it used to be, so the existing strava segment is now wrong. But maybe I can create a new (private) segment. I think there are 3 possibilities for where new altitude data can come from: watch altimeter, map data (not updated yet, but also not accurately sensitive to the original difference between sidewalk and road), and triangulation with GPS satellites. I think I’d have to use a GPS with an altimeter. My current one doesn’t have it, but my old one does. So I’ll head back out there to try again 🙂

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