I ran my first official marathon today, a proper big event with World Athletics -approved timing system and precise distance, so that you can use this to qualify for the Boston Marathon.
Of course, a marathon is 42.195km. According to my fitbit Charge 3, this marathon was 44.17km.
My fitbit was connected to GPS on my iPhone (the whole time, I assume) and I started the tracking on the starting line and ended the tracking on the finishing line, as you'd expect.
The Charge 3 added almost 2km to the distance, almost 5%!
The marathon was a satisfying experience, but years of using fitbit led me to believe that I had been running marathon distances fairly effortlessly. In reality, I had probably been ending my runs after 40km, not 42km, because fitbit told me the marathon distance was complete.
Until this official marathon, I thought I was a faster, better runner than I really was. Perhaps a little bit of arrogance helps face a marathon, but I would prefer to get accurate data from my fitbit, thank you very much.
Has anyone else had this experience? Any solutions I can try? I thought that a continuous GPS connection should be enough...
Fitbit is great. It's inspired me to healthier ways. So this is not a complaint, but a search for solutions.
