I ran on the track today with the Garmin. Given that it’s a predictably accurate course I knew what my mileage should be. But as it turns out, the Garmin’s measurement was A FULL HALF MILE LONGER that my actual distance. A HALF MILE!

How could that possibly be? Aren’t these things supposed to be deadly accurate? I have theories.

1. The Garmin doesn’t care for the track. Since it measures point to point and the course is round, the Garmin gets confused and just starts making numbers up.

2. I live in close proximity to a Coast Guard base and they’re jamming my satellites, causing the Garmin to get confused and just start making numbers up.

3. Slow Ernie posted some scientific thesis about Garmin inaccuracies before he was abducted by aliens and forced to take it down. Sadly I never read his posts till late at night because they make no sense unless I’m drunk, but from the original scan it looked quite authoritative. Whatever it said, unless I’m confused and just making this up.

4. I forgot to hit the Stop button before walking home a half mile from the track. This happened only because I was being chased by a rabid pack of 8-year-old girls who had just come on to the track for PE. (Now I know how Justin BeeBee feels.) I finally remembered to hit Stop as I was arriving home. Is there a chance this could have caused the course to measure a half mile long? Unless Justin BeeBee is confused and just making me up.

This is exactly why you can’t trust technology. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to call up mapmyrun so I can measure the distance of my quarter-mile track …