The iPod lies!

So my six mile run was just as interesting as I thought it would be, and it turns out the hills were going to be an issue no matter which way I chose to run the route. When it came time to do the run, I chose to go opposite the way I had plotted it. So instead of going down Denny to Myrtle Edwards Park, I went down Virginia to 5th then over to Madison.

First, 5th Avenue. It shouldn’t surprise me that this is such a people-heavy area. I had to run next to (and below) the Monorail for a little bit, and once I got near Nordstrom I had to start dodging people. Pine and 5th is where a lot of retail shops are, and when we have nice weekends there’s a lot of shopping going on. Plus, there were some cruise ships in town today, so we had the people that were getting ready to go on their Alaskan adventures boosting the local economy a bit. We also had weary travelers back from their Alaskan adventures, but given what they do to your credit cards on cruise ships, I doubt most of them were contributing much to the local economy. So for a few blocks on either side of Pine, there was lots of weaving around shoppers.

I don’t forget how hilly this town is, mostly because it came as such a shock when I moved here, but I don’t always remember where those hills are. Running down 5th to Madison was a gentle reminder that I will get plenty of hill-work done just doing some normal outdoor running. I had to run up a relatively gentle hill to get to the ridiculous downhill that is Madison to the waterfront. I wonder if I should have just walked it since running downhill like that can be hard on the knees. It doesn’t seem to have bothered me this time, but if I run down that steep of a hill often I can see where it would become an issue over time.

The waterfront was nice. There were lots and lots of people, so I was dodging and weaving again. So many people looked at me like I was an alien. It was like they had never saw a guy running before. Oh, and why is it that four people need to walk side by side and take up the whole sidewalk? If you’re doing that, I will politely say “excuse me” or “coming through” and then run right through your group. I’m on a mission and I don’t want to stop to wait for you to clear a hole. I certainly don’t want to run out in the street!

I was about halfway between Madison and Myrtle Edwards Park when I started thinking that my Nike+ on my iPod might be lying to me. The calibration on the sensor is definitely off. Skipping ahead to the end of the run, it said that I went 6.62 miles at an average pace of 8:43. There were some times when I was able to speed up a bit and sustain it for a while, but there’s no way I averaged 8:43. That’s much faster than I would normally run a three mile run. And I’m pretty sure the distance is off by almost a mile.

Anyway, back to the waterfront. By time I reached the park I was around 2.5 miles into the run, but my iPod was already telling me I was at three miles. I didn’t realize at the time just how off it was. I ran through the park, following the route that the Seattle Marathon 5k Run used last year. I felt a little guilty running down the bike path instead of running on the pedestrian path, but bike riders ride on sidewalks around here all the time, so turnabout is fair play. I should have ignored the iPod and stuck with my plan. I was trotting along and it suddenly told me that I had two miles left to complete my distance workout, so I turned around and started back home. I think by doing that I cut off about a quarter of a mile off my run. The pedestrian path through the park was a great place to run. There were some gentle hills and it’s right by the water. I watched one of the cruise ships leaving town (the Norwegian Pearl) for a second, and I just generally admired the scenery. A good part of that was admiring the edge of the sidewalk so that I didn’t go tumbling down onto the rocks.

At the end of the park it was time to start the last leg of my journey. To my surprise, I was still going to have to end with a massive hill-climb to get back to my area. Broad felt like it went almost straight up. Let me say that once you’ve been running up a hill, it’s kind of a pain to step on the gas to get across the street before the lights change. But after getting to the top, the rest was a piece of cake. I found the Space Needle, and turned down Denny to get that last little bit before I could hit the shower.

In the end, my iPod said I did 6.62 miles in 57 or 58 minutes. I have a hard time believing that. I’m pretty sure the calibration in the sensor is off, but that’s an easy fix. I just need to go to a place where I know how far a quarter of a mile is. I could do that on a treadmill, but the sensors don’t like treadmills either. It’s got something to do with forward motion or something like that. I heard about a track on Queen Anne hill, and I mapped out a route to it. It just so happens that it’s a three mile run there and a three mile run back, so next Sunday I’ll run there, hop on the track and calibrate my sensor, then run back. I’ll kill two birds with one stone. It will be interesting to see exactly how much the sensor is off. This will basically be an out and back route, so I’ll be able to see the difference between what the iPod records on the way there versus what it records on the way back.