Trumml,
I use a Charge HR on one wrist and a Garmin 920XT on the other. The Garmin 920XT is a serious runner's watch. What you are probably seeing on the Ionic is "Lap speed" at all times instead of "average lap speed". "Lap speed" changes instantly as you slow or speed down, so it is more difficult to pace yourself versus "average lap speed". I understand the Ionic does not have "average and this
is why I have not purchased an Ionic yet, but the issues you mention are somewhat common to GPS phones, so I will share what my experience and knowledge is.
By the time you see the distance and you stop the watch, you have probably lost a second or so and the watch is still recording until you stop the watch. The difference of .03 is trivial, but some watches, like my Garmin, automatically start a new lap at each mile or kilometer so that at least each lap is recorded. it sounds like your Ionic is just recording the run all as one lap. Maybe there is a setting to make it record a lap every km or mile. If there is a "lap button" on the watch, you can also start a new lap manually with that. Sometimes if you are running four 800 meter sprints followed by 2 minute walks in between, the lap button will start and stop a lap with each sprint and walk. Of course if you are running and don't want to be looking at the watch all of the time for completion of a km or mile, it would be helpful if the watch beeps or vibrates at each km or mile so that if it does not start a new lap, you could do it manually.
If the watch is recording instant speed, it will be interrupted as you slow or accelerate going up or down a hill. It should not corrupt the pace, but might delay the computation of an accurate reading. I have noticed on my GPS watch that sometimes I think I have completed a lap at a certain speed and when looking at the downloaded data afterwards, it is slightly different than what I saw on watch during the run. I think this is normal.
I am not sure why the GPS would destroy your run pace in a tunnel or area with no GPS. Is this with or without your phone being with you? Sometimes the phone's GPS is more accurate than the watch and maybe that might help. I usually do not take my phone with me and everything gets downloaded to the phone and ultimately to my computer just fine, but if the phone is with me, it is coordinated more often and might help preserve your run data.
I joined this forum in hopes of finding out when the Ionic has more features that serious runners need. Once I started training recently for a marathon, I had to step up from just using a Charge HR plus a cell phone running app and another watch that only had a simple elapsed time on it.
