Incorrect mileage and step count

[AMH2020]

I run the same loop in my neighborhood 5 days a week. I have measured the distance for 1.4 mi in my loop. I now run 3 loops. When I started working on increasing my speed but keeping my distance the same, my inspire 2 started gimping me on my miles and steps. I ran my 3 laps in 40 mins. My inspire says I ran 3.5 miles at 11+ minutes a mile?! I ran 4+ at almost 10 min a mile. What gives? Is my stride longer when running? I walk a mile to cool down. I used to always get my 10000 step notification during my cool down now I don't get it till an hour or two later in my day. How do I fix my step count??

[DrSteveBrule]

Since the distance is wrong, I'm guessing you're not using GPS while running? The Fitbit app will try to estimate your walking and running stride if you do tracked exercises using GPS. You can also manually input the stride lengths if you want in the settings of the Exercise section.

I've been doing treadmill runs lately since the air quality here has been bad, but Fitbit estimates my walking stride is 29.7 inches and running stride is 37 inches. These don't give the correct distances compared to what the treadmill tells me for my most recent runs where I'm faster so stride length definitely depends on speed.

You're running faster now so your stride should be a bit longer. You can determine your stride length from the distance and number of steps for your run. Just take the distance in miles, multiply it by 63360 (inches / mile) and then divide it by the number of steps from the logged exercise and that will give you inches / step while running at your current pace.

[AMH2020]

Thank you so much. I absolutely missed the stride setting in the exercise
section. I have a fitbit inspire 2. I also always have my phone on me when
I run. I am assuming the GPS is on?? I start the run icon on my watch when
I begin, so that I can get the extra info of time per mile and such, since
the automatic tracking doesn't give me that info. I will definitely put the
info you shared into action on my Monday run. Much appreciated!!!!

[DrSteveBrule]

As far as I know, you also need to have Phone GPS enabled on the Inspire 2 (scroll up to settings and it should be the second one). If you go to the Exercise section in the phone app and look at the details of a specific run that you manually started tracking, it should show the route you ran if GPS is working properly.

Your question actually got me to manually set my stride and I did a treadmill run today, Fitbit estimated 3.57 miles based on my steps and stride, treadmill said 3.60 miles, so much better than it was before (like 2.8 miles for a similar run). Hope it works out well for you, report back if you have any issues.