Logging KM's when running

Are you running in circles or perhaps small laps? As far as I know, the game tracks your current location and the location after an x amount of time. I believe it's 4 minutes. Correct me if I'm wrong guys. So if you traveled say 5 kms. in a small radius and you end up like 2 kms. near the starting spot where the game initially noted, you'll simply get more or less 2 kms.

Edit:

In this scenario, I do not really care about how slow I am driving. I usually drive around town for stops and hunts. People often said and I do believe it's true that you shouldn't really exceed a certain km/h. But since the game simply calculates your location you can bypass this by driving/running normally then rest for a couple minutes in a certain distance. I already hatched +700 eggs via this manner. I do not walk for eggs and for my buddy. When I occasionally jog, I do not bother bringing my phone with me so all the distance I logged were all attributed to this method.

I deal with this jogging. I find out the update time and jog 3ish minutes then fast walk until the update. Usually bag .5KM per 4ish minutes. If I straight run I can go over and get little or nothing.

I was so sure distance updates every 15 seconds, maybe eggs take longer, but half ? If you were running serpentine the whole time making weird turns you could lose half your distance, but you say you try straight lines

Whenever I go by bike I slow down each time I am about to change direction, but incense has never worked for me at optimal speeds, I can't get a feel for how fast I am going

Check the cell signal intensity. I feel when it dropped around -100, it will only register half or just 100 meter. My estimate is it updates every four minutes ballpark.

I find this same problem. I've gotten around it a little bit. Lock the screen, run for a bit and make a turn. After running a block or so, unlock your screen. You'll get the distance of the hypotenuse of the right triangle you just ran. Just don't keep your phone locked for more than about 10 minutes. Usually 7-8 minutes locked (or on another app) seems to be the sweet spot.

I bike to work and try to bike extremely slow to record distance, but its almost impossible. Speed limit has been reduced significantly.

This has been a point of frustration for me since the game came out. I'm a competitive runner and usually average 70km per week. I thought this would be a huge advantage in the game but I regularly get credit for only about 25% of the distance I actually run (I use a GPS watch to log my actual distance). Many of my runs are in straight lines along roads so I am suspicious of this being just related to when the distance updates trigger. My pace will vary between 4:30/km and 6:00/km depending on the day. My wife is also a runner, but at slower paces. She regularly gets 75% of her distance 'credit'.

My working theory, which I haven't tested scientifically but does fit with my experience, is that there is a multiplier attached to distance traveled based on speed. We know that at 30km/hr (20mph) you get the 'going too fast' message, pokemon disappear from sightings, and you get no credit for egg incubation. I suspect that there is actually a logarithmic curve applied as a multiplier. So if you are traveling at average walking speed you are getting most of your distance, but as your pace increases you start getting less and less credit. And as you hit 30kph, the percentage is basically zero, so they simply cut it off entirely since 30kph is a fine estimate for 'maximum human short-term speed'.

Anyway just my observation. Hope it helps.

When traveling within a certain speed range, I've heard that incense spawns pokemon every 30 seconds. That's why the spawns have been so consistent for you. When traveling outside that range, the spawns from incense happen every five minutes instead, even if someone isn't moving at all.