New Year, New Gadget

What my watch said when I forgot
to switch it off while I wasn't
using it. It's very bossy.

I've done a few runs now with my new Garmin. So far, it's working exactly how I was hoping. It tells me (mostly) how fast I'm going. It even stops when I stop, which is really nice, since I usually don't bother stopping my phone's clock. (I'd rather think that I'm running slower than I really am than the other way around.) It motivates me to keep on my pace.

I did have a problem with it on one tight-ish zigzag. On a couple of my running routes, I run up a street, over a block, then back down the next street. It took my Garmin a few blocks to catch back up with what was going on, and at the end of the run the mileage didn't quite agree with what my mapping program says. And not in the "I-didn't-run-the-tangents" way, but in the "wasn't-the-mile-marker-supposed-to-be-two-blocks-ago" way.

So, I'm smoothing out that bit of my routes, by going a few blocks more down before I turn back, and I hope that will help. I haven't done that particular route since the great day of electronic confusion, but it's coming up again this week. We'll see.

Do you have a fancy gadget that sometimes has a bit of trouble keeping up? What do you do with it?