It's over, man. Let her go.

Nice job on the hills! Life isn't just around the corner, it is the corner. uh, I mean, it's not just over the hill, it is the hill!

That garmin will do elevation profiles and tell you the grade too. Have you looked at SportTracks? It's a free program to collect and report on your garmin data. I think it's better than the software that comes with it.

Hi Mike. Thanks for the encouragement! I always think of you as I make a corner on a run. If I am bored, sometimes I'll put my arms up like I'm riding a chopper, make the chopper noises as I make a corner...leaning into it of course - wouldn't want to fall over, and it makes the run more entertaining - both for me and the spectators at the corner bus stop. LOL

I have my Garmin setup with a data field for the grade, but to be honest, I find it annoying to watch. I have a hill by my house which is a steady grade, about .25 mi long and I was watching the grade on my Garmin as I went up it the other day and it would show anywhere from -5% to 0 to 22%. I saw some discussion on the forum about the accuracy of the Z-dimension with the Garmin (any GPS, probably since they talked about the 305 and 405) and since it's a commercial grade GPS and not government grade, it isn't too accurate, even with the connect.garmin.com website fix. The website does make it better and more accurate, but with a 10' radius of your actual X-Y position, you could be off.

This was demonstrated the first time I ran at the track. I was getting this 20' elevation increase on the "home stretch" of the lap. I finally figured it out that when I run on the outside lane, I'm close enough to the 10-15' embankment that's about 10-15' away from the edge of the track. So, it was seeing me on that rather than on the actual track.

I will have to try out the SportTracks. I don't care too much, I guess about the grade. I know when I'm going uphill and it's either steep, steeper, steepest, or "I'll find a route around that one." :-) I'm mostly interested in the accuracy of the distance, pace, heart rate, etc. I find I get that with the Garmin, which is what makes me love it!

Nice run - what's with the track nazi forbidding you to run in lanes 1 and 2? You're right that even with the fix, the elevation won't be that accurate thanks to the sampling that they have to do for stored digital elevation data, and GPS is not optimal for measuring it real-time. There's just not enough memory in the world to store an elevation for every square foot, even if they could measure it all.

The "instant" readings on the garmin are very jumpy for everything including pace and heart rate. The averages and overall readings however, are very consistent. The elevation profiles and distances displayed in sporttracks from my garmin data are very close to what the blog course tool shows for the same route. It's not 100% accurate, but it is pretty amazing for the price.

I can imagine you ripping around a corner with your hands in the air making motorcycle noises like Al Roker on the Black Hills episode of Going Places. ..priceless :)

Thanks for the Garmin report, and good run. I have always suspected that the Garmin is pretty accurate over any distance longer than about a quarter of a mile. It has a certain degree of error, but it doesn't trend long or short, so over longer distances my theory has always been that it is probably more accurate than the folks who map out the fun run courses. The other variable, though, is tangents, which become more important in marathons. If I don't run all the tangents then I run long and my Garmin is off as well.

Joe - the track is incredible. One of the nicest tracks and football stadiums I've seen in a long time. My property taxes can prove it. But, they do have signs up that say that no running/walking is allowed in lanes 1-2, 3-4 are for runners, and 5-6 are for walkers. I ran right after their practice finished and the coaches were all still out there, but it was after the 5:30 deadline, so they couldn't say anything. I'm guessing if I were hitting a 5:00 pace he wouldn't have said anything since it would have been inspirational to his athletes. LOL Oh, and Google has enough memory...they almost have the entire universe mapped out and more, as well as most streets in major metro areas! I sure wish I thought of Google or at least bought stock when it was "reasonable." Oh well, I'll just keep being blue collar and running for fun!

Mike - I'll have to check out that episode! I missed it.

Flat - I'm quite confident it's accurate and with the software to smooth things out, that's nice as well. It looks like the SportTracks software will be downloaded tonight since it looks pretty sweet from what I can see (work blocks lots of stuff). But yes, tangents are important. Usually, unless I know I'm all alone on a corner, I'll track a little wide just in case there's a faster runner coming up behind me. In a marathon, I imagine the tangents make a huge difference!

That episode profiles a friend of mine who recently passed away. Indian Jeff McGeary was one of the most colorful and interesting people I've ever met. Not long after that show aired he lost all his fingers and the use of his legs in a tragic motorcycle accident, but continued to restore and even ride classic motorcycles! He had a vision of Jesus while he laid in a ditch paralyzed, with frostbitten hands and feet and later committed his life to the Lord. He was unstoppable even with his disabilities. He actually built a bike and sidecar called "the land shark" that he could drive from his electric wheelchair. It was quite a sight to see an unmanned motorcycle going down the highway with a wheelchair-bound biker in the sidecar. Sorry if I'm rambling, I miss Jeff a lot.

Thanks for the info on Jeff. He sounds like an incredible guy and I'll definitely check out the episode this weekend. I've been so busy I'm happy if I can just get my runs and blog postings in. The determination of guys like Jeff just amaze me and let me know that all things are possible no matter what happens. I doubt that I'd have the mental or physical strength to do all that he's done since the accident! Thanks for sharing!