Thoughts on Garmin Foot Pod

Tuesday 3.5 miles / 32:04
Wednesday 3.5 miles / 30:04
Thursday 3 miles / 26:19

I’ve been doing a lot of treadmill running lately, avoiding this gross New Orleans weather, and using my 910XT and my new Garmin foot pod.

For those of you considering a GPS watch or considering running on a treadmill, I hope some of these thoughts might be helpful. I am kind of a sports tech newbie and this is my experience so far.

Making it treadmill ready: I had already spent a hunk of discretionary income on this watch (it’s ok, the cats are still eating fancy food, and Mo loves Ramen) with a couple of months of treadmill running ahead so another $40 for the foot pod was worth it. It’s seemed a waste to only use the watch on the weekend.

Calibration: I calibrated the watch to the foot pod using GPS. There are three methods of calibrating your watch: GPS, distance, and manually. I didn’t have a track handy so I calibrated it using GPS. Based on my treadmill experience, I may go to the track and see if it needs more calibration.

My treadmill seems faster than I expected. I expected that my treadmill was overestimating how far I was running, but according to the watch, I was running faster than the treadmill said and as a result, farther than the treadmill said. I’m not sure this is entirely accurate so I’m going to keep tinkering with the calibration.

I’ve found all kinds of new data to become obsessed with. Time? Speed? Duh. But know I’ve got cadence and splits and cool charts to pour over. Or not if I don’t want to. Checking out the charts has made me more interested in trying out new treadmill workouts.

Do you have a new favorite gadget?

Any great treadmill workouts you can share? Lately I’ve been picking up the pace for commercials.