Finally... a blog post completely dedicated to my favorite tri sport... swimming! To start us off, I'll post a picture of me after our open water swim at Aquatic Park last week (compliments of Will, the "retired" triathlete from our 'Meet the Team!' page who is doing his first triathlon next weekend).
I'm smiling and waving so it doesn't look like I almost drowned in that swim, but afterward I came home and spent an hour reading about "how to not die in an Alcatraz swim"
Anyway, I posted a picture of the map that my Garmin recorded in that swim and commented about how I thought it was approximately accurate. Fast forward to today, when we went open water swimming in Quarry Lakes in Fremont. This swim went MUCH better- no hangover, no chafing, no salt water, no current, and 9 degrees warmer. It was a great confidence booster because I felt like I knew how to swim again. However, I had some SERIOUS issues with my Garmin 910XT. Let's compare the two files:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/507682196 (Aquatic Park, ~275 yards between buoys: 27:34/mile...slow for me, but believable)
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/511702991 (Quarry Lakes, ~80 (?) yards between buoys: 47:44/mile...definitely NOT right)
So I don't actually know if we have any readers other than each other, but if so... does anyone else have issues swimming with their Garmin? Is the inaccuracy due to the short distance between buoys? Or is my watch just completely messed up? The average cadence between the two weeks is the same so at least it appears to have done something right.
That's all for now, but I'm sure you'll be seeing another post from me very soon. We have our first tri of 2014 next Sunday (Vineman Monte Rio- Olympic distance) and I'm sure I'll have a whole bunch of pre-race thoughts to share with the blog world, although I'm still not totally on board with sharing my goals on the internet :) We'll see what happens!
Maybe you accidentally put your Garmin on me... Seems reasonable for my pace :-P - Chen
ReplyDeleteWell if that's true then it's too bad I didn't put it on you for the run as well... my total for today is 0 miles but it really needs to be > 0.
DeleteMy total is also 0 for running today, but I'm in the process of flying like 3300, so I'm gonna call it a day. - Chen
DeleteI did some research (aka googled it) and this forum seems relevant:
ReplyDeletehttps://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?30600-910XT-Open-Water-Swim-Massively-inaccurate-Auto-Lap-issue
at least it's not just my watch!
Interesting! So it sounds like the open water swim feature is best for straight lines and pool mode would be better in shorter distance (<400?).
ReplyDeleteIt looks like it could be.. the only problem is not knowing what that shorter, open water distance is in the first place! If you ever end up at Quarry Lakes, let me know what happens to yours. Our tri this weekend is up and down the Russian River, 2 straight lines of approx 0.4 miles each, so we'll see how it does with that.
Delete