GPS Jobbies

[Nigel]

Hold on - you don't need to wait until you have downloaded the run, since you can also have an instantaneous readout of altitude whilst running. This would be particularly useful if you were about to run up (hopefully not off) a cliff in the Beachy Head area. It might be less immediately useful in the flatlands of West Berkshire, although you never know.

Anyway, to get this, you need to format your custom page on the Forerunner. Press the 'up' button to reveal your custom page. It might be blank when you first get the machine, but you have a choice of different parameters to display here. The instantaneous display of 'calories burned' can be a good one for the morning after the curry night before.

To select from these various options (I've just remembered that elevation was where we started, two paragraphs ago) go to Settings -> Set Custom Page, and then choose what you want to have displayed.

Elevation is not that accurate on this machine. It's measured by triangulation from the satellites, so has a claimed accuracy of plus/minus 15 m whether it is north or south, or up or down.

For surface tracking across the terrain, that's pretty good. For elevation tracking in Nepal or Switzerland it's OK too, but not so good in West Berkshire, where the whole elevation profile of your run might lie within that range. But on a long run, uphill and downdale, it can provide you with a feeling of progress when you get discouraged. That's when I always use it, struggling up the North Downs behind my house.