Discussion: speedometers

Hi,

I am looking into garmin and polar speedometers. I run primarily on a treadmill, so I would want it to work on that. My main goal for the equipment is to assure me I'm running the actual distance and pace the treadmill says. I'm worried about the treadmill's accuracy. I'd appreciate any input on what would be the best equipment for this. Thanks.

How do you get the treadmill into the forest?

It should be relatively obvious that any GPS based unit isn't going to work for you on a treadmill, so you would need the accelerometer type but it's an expensive way to validate your treadmill ...

As an engineer who designs this kind of stuff, it's difficult to imagine anything that would have better distance and speed reliability than could be obtained from the treadmill itself. It's possible that the design of the treadmill is really botched, but if you wanted to validate it, I'd say your best bet would be to measure the belt, make a mark on it, and then let it run and count how many times it comes around in a mile, while you time it with a stopwatch.

I'd say use the metric system - less chance of error.

I recall using a Polar footpod on a treadmill once with really ridiculous results. I wasn't sure that the treadmill was perfect, but I was sure that the footpod numbers were totally bogus.

I'm an engineer who uses this kind of stuff, but I don't design it, and I will absolutely defer to J-J on the arcana of the internals. What I do know is that the knowledgeable people I've read believe that treadmill running is an approximation to the mechanics of real running across a surface like a road or path. One must use an incline of 1-2% on the treadmill to add effort indoors roughly equivalent to moving through the wind outdoors. These two approximations make me conclude that there's enough imprecision in it already, that I don't need to second-guess the treadmill's mileage.

Your Mileage May Vary.