Accuracy of moving distance with Garmin VivoSmart

This is convenient device, but the question is how accurate the distance is?

Calculate distance based on steps

    I usually use Garmin VivoSmart for indoor training activities with a heart rate monitor.  I basically do not care so much for the distance I move.  I just need a profile of my heart rate during an exercise.  However, I just curious how accurate the distance on VivoSmart is.  So that I did an experiments to estimate the error amount on the distance.

Comparing with a distance on Treadmill

   Here is the method for this experiments.  Assuming the distance displayed on a treadmill is accurate enough, then I just checked a distance shown on the device and a distance on a treadmill after an exercise.  The result is that the actual distance shown on a treadmill is just 7.15km and the distance the device which is VivoSmart showed 11.43km.  The actual distance is about 63% of the distance the device shows.  So the distance on the device is about 1.5 times larger than the actual distance on the treadmill.  We could calibrate the distance to adjust a distance per step.  However I do not see much value to calibrate it because the distance per step can be different when a person is running and walking.  The distance per step is vary and I do not see much point to calibrate to get an accurate distance.  It is good enough for me to compare just relative distance each time.  I did this experiment a couple times and the distance and steps were consistent when we do an exercise with a similar pace and similar duration.

The device may count some even if a person is not moving …..

   The other thing I found was the device could count steps even if a person is not moving, such as during driving, typing and playing a piano, I do see the number of steps keep increasing.  If a person who does not do much exercise, then the error amount could be larger.   On the other hand, if people who do more exercise, it is not a big deal.  Since the percentage of such false counting is smaller than actual moving distance.  In my case, I usually move more than 10,000 steps and it is not a big problem at all.  As a conclusion, I think number of steps is reasonably accurate and as long as people understand the limitation, it should not be bad.  I think the distance with some calibration would be accurate enough.  However people who really want to get accurate moving distance in outdoor, I suggest to get a device with GPS function.

Memorial Day Weekend ~ Camping in Big Basin Redwood State Park (California, USA)

Nice Redwood forest!

Long weekend this week!

   This weekend will be a long weekend with Memorial Day on coming Monday.  Camping during Memorial Day weekend is a sort of annual event in the past years.  A family arranges this camping almost every year and I really appreciate their arrangement.  It is not easy to reserve camping sites during such long weekend.

Camping in Big Basin Redwood State Park / CA

   This year we will go to Big Basin Redwood State Park in California / USA where is close to San Francisco Bay Area or Silicon Valley.  It is about an hour driving from San Jose and easy access from where we lives.  There is a nice redwood forest, the only thing is that it is sometimes cold in this time of a year.  We got a little rain a several years ago.

Hiking to Buzzard's Roost

   One of exciting thing this year will be a hiking to “Buzzard’s Roost”.  The trail hikes up to a peak and this is the first time to hike to a peak in the park.  So that I am really excited for the hiking!  The round trip is about 4.8 miles with total 1,200 feet elevation gain.  I probably takes a few hours.  I will wear an action cam recorder during the hiking and try to make a video.  I am not sure if I can get a good one because shooting a video with the action cam recorder is not really easy.  But we will try and upload the video to share in this blog.  Anyway, the bottom line, I will take some photos and write a short report.  I was thinking that it would be the first free kindle book I can publish.  Since I published a guide book for Mt. Whitney recently.  That is just a Japanese edition, but I will also plan to publish the English edition for sale.  But I also thinking to publish many free editions which is a short report for such short hiking.  It won’t be not many pages and the contents would be a similar as my posts in this blog.  Therefore, I think it is better to share by free!

Started training for Mt. Whitney hiking this year

I got a permit for Mt. Whitney hiking in June!

   Finally, I made a reservation for the overnight permit for Mt. Whitney hiking this year.   The entry date is about a month from now.  Due to an injury in January this year, my daily training was slowing down for a few months.  When I went backcountry skiing in the end of February, it was really tough for me.  I guess my fitness performance might get lower if I do not daily exercise for a few weeks due to my age.  After that I resumed my daily training and I am still on the way to recover to my previous performance.

   The last a few months since March, I have been doing “Elliptical” training in a gym and I just resumed “Treadmill running” and “Stair Master” since May 1^st.   I am still having hard time to do 1 hour treadmill running with 5 miles per hour pace and doing stair master with 75 steps par minutes for an hour.

Training Menu for the next 30 days

  Here is my training plan for the next 30 days:

1.       Elliptical with various stress setup for 1 hour with build-up style, the target heart rate started from around 100bpm and  165~170bpm at the end.

2.       Elliptical with long interval, 6 minutes resting and 6 minutes high intensity, total 5 sets

3.       Stair master with 75 steps per minutes for 1 hour

4.       Elliptical with various stress setup for 1 hour with build-up style, slightly slower than #1

5.       Elliptical with short interval, 1 minute resting and 1 minute high intensity, total 30 sets

6.       Treadmill running for 1 hour with 5 miles per hour and possibly 6 miles per hour with 6 degrees slope

7.       Rest day, either after #3 or #6 depending on my condition

   My maximum heart rate during the menu will reach around 160~175bpm based on my experience in the last few weeks and the average heart rate would be around 150bpm.  Last year, I had a similar menu before going hiking.  So I have a confidence I will be all right during the hiking this year as well.

   This menu can cover stress for cardiopulmonary and leg strength for ascending.  For a training of trail running, might need to consider for descending.  I guess it is better to do something, but it could be all right without it because the impact for descending during walking is much less than running.

Maximum heart rate limit during the hiking this year

   Last year, I set the maximum heart rate during the hiking to 155bpm ~ 160bpm.  As I mentioned a couple times, I felt it could be a bit high based on the experience last year.   This year I pick 150bpm which is the average heart rate during the daily training.  It is probably reach close to 160bpm in some sections such as a section between Outpost Camp and Trail Camp with camping stuff.  I probably need to accept such situation as an exception.   But I will try to maintain lower heart rate, therefore, I might need to stop walking when the heart rate is beyond 155bpm something like that.  Then I want to see how it work during the hiking this year.

   I am really looking for a good method to define the maximum heart rate and managing the pace based on the heart rate during the hiking.  So every hiking, I will try to collect more data to prove my concept at least myself.  This is the topics for my next book I really want to publish.  Let’s see how things go!