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A half marathon with AW3 LTE — mixed impressions

Kinda irrelevant, but glad to see my time is better than others (have always thought mine is bad)

I am confused about how to changed songs without having to stop every 5 seconds
  • First, my Apple Watch doesn't have all of the songs I need, I like changing my music up a lot
  • Second, I find it hard to change songs without fooling around with the watch too much, and of course in a race environment you don't have time to fiddle with a watch
 
SoN1NjA said:
Kinda irrelevant, but glad to see my time is better than others (have always thought mine is bad)

I am confused about how to changed songs without having to stop every 5 seconds
  • First, my Apple Watch doesn't have all of the songs I need, I like changing my music up a lot
  • Second, I find it hard to change songs without fooling around with the watch too much, and of course in a race environment you don't have time to fiddle with a watch
Click to expand...
Not sure what others do but I download a a workout playlist with as many songs as will fit on the watch (293 currently) and then I just shuffle the playlist when I go out for a run and don’t mess with It any further than that.
 
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mk313 said:
Not sure what others do but I download a a workout playlist with as many songs as will fit on the watch (293 currently) and then I just shuffle the playlist when I go out for a run and don’t mess with It any further than that.
Click to expand...
My interest change all the time, so a song might be relevant one week and not in 2
 
Based on the battery levels on the half, it doesn't sound like the AW3 will be able to last a full marathon, or at least not without slimming down all of the power services (LTE, Heart monitor, Headphones, etc).
 
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Depends on how fast you run the full marathon I suppose. :)

But yes, I don't think an AW3 will solo a full for most folks, especially if using GPS and LTE and playing/streaming music. It'd get a bit dicey even on the longest of the training runs. Probably will need to carry your phone.

In a few years that may be different.

-- Lew
 
I'm finding mine to use +/- 20% per hour with LTE and the built-in HRM. I would imagine streaming music would greatly impact that number.

So far accuracy has been generally quite good - agreeing with my Garmin exactly as well as with mile markers placed on some of our local paths. However today's run was a little wonky in the city for some reason - you can see the track as it's plotted down the city streets having more variation than usual. Not sure why it would be different suddenly today. Added about 0.2 miles to a 10 mile run.
 
larmende said:
Did you get decent heart rate data out of your run?
Click to expand...
Yes, except that I suspect all of my three AW's have veered on the high side with heart rate data. My Boston half average heart rate showed at 156bpm. That's consistent with numbers I get on other runs, but still seems high.
 
zhenya said:
However today's run was a little wonky in the city for some reason - you can see the track as it's plotted down the city streets having more variation than usual. Not sure why it would be different suddenly today. Added about 0.2 miles to a 10 mile run.
Click to expand...

It's tough to compare day-to-day GPS accuracy since although every visible factor may appear identical, you're not accounting for the GPS satellite positions. With 24 satellites in approximately 12-hour orbits, the number of satellites above the horizon as well as their elevations above the horizon constantly varies. Today you might have six fairly high in the sky, unobstructed by buildings, tomorrow at the same time you might have four fairly low and somewhat obstructed.

2% variation is on the edge of good, you'd like better but it's not been uncommon to see that on the same route on different days with my AW as well as prior Garmin units.
 
How did you export your AW Workout gps data ?

PatrickNSF said:
Frankly, the AW built-in GPS doesn't seem that great, at least from a GPS tracking perspective. I've uploaded two runs comparing it to a Garmin 935 (which tracks decently). One of the AW runs was recorded with Workouts, and the other with the Nike app. Of the two, I think the Nike app performed better.

Although the mileage ended up similar, the AW pacing was pretty erratic. I think it's fine for casual running, but I'm not sure I'd want to pace myself with it for an actual race.

Garmin 935 vs AW Workout
http://www.mygpsfiles.com/app/#DfROP4tm

Garmin 935 vs AW Nike
http://www.mygpsfiles.com/app/#DgFe09xq
Click to expand...
 
deeddawg said:
It's tough to compare day-to-day GPS accuracy since although every visible factor may appear identical, you're not accounting for the GPS satellite positions. With 24 satellites in approximately 12-hour orbits, the number of satellites above the horizon as well as their elevations above the horizon constantly varies. Today you might have six fairly high in the sky, unobstructed by buildings, tomorrow at the same time you might have four fairly low and somewhat obstructed.

2% variation is on the edge of good, you'd like better but it's not been uncommon to see that on the same route on different days with my AW as well as prior Garmin units.
Click to expand...

Good explanation. In any case, my Forerunner 225 doesn't seem to have this kind of variation so I'm interested to see how the AW does for me in the long run. I frequently run the same routes so I have years of historical data to compare to. I'm hoping for the best - really liking running with the AW!
 
Also, I did read about turning off the gym equipment sync option that it eats battery and is on by default per YT Vid.
My replacement LTE comes in tomorrow so unable to verify currently if true.
 
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