MBlog

Storming in the New Year

Last Friday (4 January 2008) the Bay Area was hit with one of the nastiest storms we've ever seen.  A strong steady wind (40+ MPH at times) was aided by wind gusts of 50+ MPH, and accompanied by a torrential downpour that made for one dark, stay-inside day that brought down fences (yes, mine - whimper), trees and power lines.  It also put a halt to the obsessive compulsive running, cycling, rowing, etc. for which our customers are known.  Well, most of you halted, retreating indoors for a ride on the trainer, a run on the treadmill or just curling up with a good book.  Yet, while most of us took cover inside, no fewer than nine of our Bay Area customers proved that they are slightly off kilter (my personal 348th reason to love the Bay Area).  In my quest to see just how many die hard outdoorsmen we have at MotionBased, I stumbled across this comment: "Very, very wet and windy.  Excellent!"  That was jmcauliffe's attitude about his 12.41 mile mountain bike ride.  Fortunately he was adventurous enough to go during what was probably his lunch break!  (For some reason the weather data for a few of the area's activities is not posting.  Check out the steady wind speeds on Intern-Devon's attempted drive to work.)  Check out jmcauliffe's ride out below.  And, if you're curious to see who else in the Bay Area suffers from OCD, take a stab at the search functions by choosing a Custom Date in Quick Filters, then running the Map Filter.  HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

My Challenge to All

I have 4 friends running the Greatest Race on Earth.  It's a series of 4 marathons in 4 international cities aimed at promoting a green planet.  In order, the marathon challenge began in Kenya (28 October 2007), headed to Singapore (2 December 2007), makes its way to Mumbai (20 January 2008), and finishes in Hong Kong (17 February 2008).  I was really interested in the second marathon.  My friend Kate has been struggling with injury and was scheduled to run it.  Because of her commitment to her teammates she opted to go to Singapore and run as she felt, realizing that if her body told her to "stop," she'd listen.  When her body gave her the go ahead to finish, I was really interested to find at least one activity on the TrailNetwork to show her the marathon in which she competed.  Here's that marathon below, as run by thelonelyrunner:

I then got to thinking about Emily (our first runner) and her marathon in Kenya.  I found something that really bummed me out.  Not one person in the Greatest Race on Earth - Kenya wore a device and uploaded.

My challenge to everyone is this.  I'd love to see the Mumbai and Hong Kong Marathons uploaded . . . and not by Allison (running Mumbai) nor Flora (running Hong Kong) nor me!  (I'm going to Honk Kong with my friend and teammate Flora to act as her Sherpa for the race.  Of course we'll be spending quality time in Hong Kong and Shanghai after the race!)  The first person to answer the call for each challenge will receive a year's subscription to MotionBased . . . soon to be Garmin Connect.  As soon as your activity is uploaded, comment to this post with the activity link and we'll get you squared away.

The Month of the Trot

With a seeming lull in the world of competitive athletic events and a general hibernation this time of year, I was wondering what to profile for this week's MBlog post.  I do have one thing in the works . . . but the activity hasn't been uploaded so there's not a lot I can do about it.  I started perusing the TrailNetwork.  Nothing really struck me.  Then I started thinking about how fun my Thanksgiving Day celebrations were (that's right, I said "celebrationS").  All the food, and the really good wine at the evening party I attended.  How all of my running friends ran in one Turkey Trot or another . . . and how I didn't feel the least bit compelled to join them.  "Hmm, I wonder if there are any good Turkey Trots listed in the TrailNetwork?"  Yup.  Public Trots uploaded this year total 361.  Wow, that's a lot of burned turkeys.  "Hmm, I wonder, what IS the oldest Trot?"  The Buffalo, NY Turkey Trot.  I think you get where I'm going with this.  Yeah, we got it.  Not once, not twice but THRICE.  Three of our faithful athletes uploaded the country's oldest Turkey Trot, after they had sufficiently recovered from the run and all the turkey and fixings.  Check out the course below.  Who knows, maybe the runners can start making the pilgrimage to the mother of all Trots.

Win a nuvi

PG, what we call our era pre-Garmin, we hadn’t spent much time with talking GPS units. Now we can’t go anywhere without one. My girlfriend says I’m obsessed with Betsy and Points of Interests.

The nuvi is our personal favorite, and it’s getting a big push at the Consumer Electronics Show. It even has its own blog – nuvi.blogs.com. We won’t normally give a shout-out like this, but we thought this was worth passing along. Garmin is giving away a nuvi a day during CES, four total. You don't have to attend the show. Just register here and cross your fingers. The first drawing is today!

Good luck

GPS Reception

We haven't posted much general GPS stuff on the MBlog, but I thought this was particularly interesting. I came across a post on gps tracklog titled, Does heavy cloud cover affect GPS reception. The post references Dave Patton's answers to some frequently asked questions about GPS reception.

The GPS signals will not be affected by clouds, rain, fog, snow, etc., because of the combination of their passing through water vapour, and the signal wavelength meaning they "pass through" rain etc.

On the other hand, water will block/attenuate GPS signals. For example, you can't receive GPS signals underwater, although having a GPS receiver antenna very close to the water surface may allow some reception.

Most cloth that would be covering a GPS receiver's antenna will pass GPS signals(e.g. backpack, jacket, etc.), but cloth with a metallic component will block/attenuate the signals.

Cloth that covers a GPS receiver's antenna and gets wet (e.g. from rain) can also block/attenuate the GPS signals. In fact, you don't even need the cloth - water on the case that covers the GPS receiver antenna can block/attenuate the GPS signals. That water could be drops, and/or a film of water. I've seen that happen myself, when using my etrex Venture in the rain - the signals were weak/blocked, but a quick drying-off of the GPS case over the antenna brought the reception back, which then degraded again as water accumulated on the case. Similarly, GPS signal reception is degraded in wet forest canopy conditions compared to when the forest canopy is dry.

Bike to Work Week

Although many of you ride your bike to work every day of the year.  Check out rwarren and the famous tchazzard mango ride:

We hope that many of you will take up this great way to mix exercise with necessity.  If it is unrealistic in your normal situation then no worries...but give it a try sometime this week in honor of Bike to Work Week. 

Make sure you post your ride and label it Bike to Work, categorize it as Activity Type = Cycling -> Road and Event Type = Transportation.

Here are some cool links...
http://www.bike-to-work.com/
http://btwd.org/

No matter how big or small your commute may be let's be sure to record it with your GPS and post it (and make it public) so we can share our cool community results with those that put great effort into making cycling better for all of us.

Improved State Rankings

Each time we send out our "now not-so-frequent" newsletters, we include a ranking of the states/regions with the most activities. This generates fun competition within the MB community.

Mark Wallace thought these rankings would be more valid if indexed against the overall population of each state/region. In fact, he found the latest census data and did the math for us.  Here's what Mark found for Jan-Mar 2005 (looks like California, Texas, and Florida lost their luster):

State	Activities	Activities/Million
Colorado	390	87.7
British Columbia	326	83.4
California	2409	69.5
Ontario	621	54.4
North Carolina	318	39.0
Texas	784	36.3
Georgia	285	33.8
Florida	542	32.6
Michigan	308	31.3
Illinois	294	23.8

True Love

Carol and I went on a run last night instead of deploying the official European release that many of you have been asking for:) Check it out...

The weather turned really cold so the moment required two of us working together to actually get out for a run.  Knowing the weather was so brisk we turned our Forerunner 301 units on in the car as we drove to the trail-head.  This way we knew our signal would be acquired and we could hop out of the car and get busy.

Luckily our individual Heart Rates were found correctly inside the car.  Keep in mind that your 301 will keep the same heart rate strap during the entire activity, but during HR acquisition it is important to be away from any other 301 heart rate strap, otherwise you may end up with someone elses biometrics.

Tennessee Valley is mostly open skies and makes for a good GPS run, but from where we started the trees were thick and the valley was narrow. The GPS reported a signal outage right away.  Losing signal at the beginning of an activity can be a bummer since this may cause the biggest loss of distance.  MB may not know that you actually started where you did and just assume the run started where the signal was acquired.   If you lose signal in the middle of an activity we know that you must have gotten from point A to B somehow so we assume at least a straight line distance. 

We continued and the GPS gained signal again.  The remainder of the run was in the open valley towards the ocean and back.  In the parking lot near the stables we had the choice of running on the fun trail away from the road or actually on the road itself. 

I don't know about everyone else, but I really don't like to run on the road.  Running on the trail is much more interesting jumping over logs and creeks.  Carol usually feels the same way, but when we were faced with choosing the trail or the road...she asked to return on the road.  I had to ask why because I know her usual preference.  She responded:

"Well, if we run down the trail we might lose signal again."

I mean, is true love or what?.  Thinking of the GPS signal quality over our own preference of the terrain!  Don't worry, we chose the trail. I am a GPS geek, but there is a limit.  She probably just didn't want to get her shoes muddy and knew she had a better chance of convincing me if she mentioned the GPS rather than her gear.  In a way, knowing how to manipulate your loved ones into following your own preference is true love too.

So the moral of the story is to not let the GPS determine your workout.  Choosing to run outside instead of on the treadmill is an acceptable reason to have the GPS modify your workout plans, but always choose the path that best fits your desires, not the limitations of the GPS.  Let us figure out how to make the GPS work better in your terrain. 

Simply remember to help out with those items that you can control.  Let your GPS and HRM warm up before you start your activity, make sure your battery is charged, moisten your heart rate strap, acquire heart rate away from other FR 301 units...leave the rest up to MotionBased and Garmin.  We're constantly trying to make it all better.

Aaron