Wacky GPS Signals

This morning's run was one of those strange GPS signal days on my Garmin Forerunner 205. Everything started out fine as usual with the GPS accuracy in the 20-30 foot range.

The skies were generally clear with some low lying fog as I did my usual Monday run around the local golf course. The hills on the course were tiring me out so I decided to hit the roads after one loop. It was then that I noticed the GPS accuracy had jumped into the 50 foot range.

After stopping at the turnaround point to catch my breath and allow the 205 to acquire a better signal, I headed back home with the accuracy back in the 20s. However, less than a half mile later, it had spiked up to more than 80 feet. Weird thing was I was only pulling in signals from 4 satellites at this time. After stopping for another minute, it dropped back down to the 20s and I proceeded home without a further hitch.

Every once in a while, there use to be runs with my old 201 where it would just continually drop the signal throughout a run for no apparent reason. Although the 205 didn't give me a weak GPS signal, I guess it was one of those random days when GPS accuracy is inconsistent or maybe some satellites are offline.

Tomorrow, I'll try to do a tempo or fartlek effort and then plan to do some speedwork on the track on Thursday....

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