I used the 920XT for the first time today. I ran 3.8 miles in 31:34 minutes for an average of 8:19 per mile. All this is pretty normal for me. I now have more stats about the run than I know what to do with.
Cadence: I already knew that my cadence is around 180 steps per minute. That’s because I have used a foot-pod in the past and my music playlist adheres to that rhythm.
Vertical Oscillation (VO): For the run yesterday, I averaged a VO of 10 centimeters. I have no idea what is good or bad, but I do know that the lower my Cadence, the higher my VO. The Garmin dashboard color-codes the VO values going from red to yellow to green to blue to purple as VO reduces. I’m pretty sure that a lower number is better, but I have no idea how I can reduce my VO. I suppose I could drag my feet!!
Ground Contact Time (GCT): I was all over the map on this one but in blue and purple colors. My average ground contact time was 217 ms. That must be pretty good considering it showed blue and purple colors!
So what do all these numbers mean? I’m not totally sure. In the end, the number that matters is speed and distance. While training, the other number that matters is my heart-rate. I guess I will experiment with trying the reduce my VO number to see if my speed goes up at the same level of effort!