To celebrate a small milestone, I bought the Garmin Forerunner 10. It’s really the best thing I ever bought (sorry Blackberry smartphone and iPod Nano). The hardest part about choosing one is which colour to get http://static.garmincdn.com/shared/emea/custom/forerunner10/img/watches.jpg.
The main reason why I bought the device was for the GPS system and the interval functions. Using my phone’s GPS is very accurate, but you can’t always get a signal, it eats up data, it’s heavy and pretty sensitive and has a tendency to log out mid workout. The iPod Nano has a distance calculator, but it’s pretty inaccurate.
The Forerunner 10 is as basic as one can get in a GPS exercise watch. It has pace function, a calorie counter, a timer and an interval function. You can also upload your workouts to your computer. While this feature is not necessary at the start of a running programme, it’s nice to see your progression once you start running longer intervals.
For example, as I was working through Todd Lange’s 5k101 http://runningmatemedia.com/ (also available in iTunes), I noticed how much closer I was to hitting that 5k mark.
Now that I am noticing my fitness improve, I’ve decided to increase my mileage. As such, it’s important to keep track of a comfortable run pace. You can go by feel, but it’s easy to zone out and next thing you know you’re flying through your workout before prematurely hitting the figurative wall. Or you can look up a pace using a pace calculator, but ultimately, those numbers means nothing if you don’t know the distance and that can mean running on a track. BOR-ING! (More on track workouts in a future blog).
Being a base model, the Forerunner 10 does have its limitations. One of them being you can’t see all your data on the same screen at one time. For example, if I am concerned about pace and distance, I have to scroll between screens, which really doesn’t bother me since I’m such a slow runner that slowing down for a couple of seconds doesn’t make much of a difference to my overall time.
The second limitation and this is more inconvenient is that the run walk interval settings don’t go more than 10 minutes. This can be worked out somehow, just not sure how.
Overall, I can say that I am happy with the Forerunner 10. I’m sure I’ll be able to work through my issues with it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Do you rely on gadgets to track your workouts? What are some of your favourites?
The main reason why I bought the device was for the GPS system and the interval functions. Using my phone’s GPS is very accurate, but you can’t always get a signal, it eats up data, it’s heavy and pretty sensitive and has a tendency to log out mid workout. The iPod Nano has a distance calculator, but it’s pretty inaccurate.
The Forerunner 10 is as basic as one can get in a GPS exercise watch. It has pace function, a calorie counter, a timer and an interval function. You can also upload your workouts to your computer. While this feature is not necessary at the start of a running programme, it’s nice to see your progression once you start running longer intervals.
For example, as I was working through Todd Lange’s 5k101 http://runningmatemedia.com/ (also available in iTunes), I noticed how much closer I was to hitting that 5k mark.
Now that I am noticing my fitness improve, I’ve decided to increase my mileage. As such, it’s important to keep track of a comfortable run pace. You can go by feel, but it’s easy to zone out and next thing you know you’re flying through your workout before prematurely hitting the figurative wall. Or you can look up a pace using a pace calculator, but ultimately, those numbers means nothing if you don’t know the distance and that can mean running on a track. BOR-ING! (More on track workouts in a future blog).
Being a base model, the Forerunner 10 does have its limitations. One of them being you can’t see all your data on the same screen at one time. For example, if I am concerned about pace and distance, I have to scroll between screens, which really doesn’t bother me since I’m such a slow runner that slowing down for a couple of seconds doesn’t make much of a difference to my overall time.
The second limitation and this is more inconvenient is that the run walk interval settings don’t go more than 10 minutes. This can be worked out somehow, just not sure how.
Overall, I can say that I am happy with the Forerunner 10. I’m sure I’ll be able to work through my issues with it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Do you rely on gadgets to track your workouts? What are some of your favourites?