Who's a Better Training Partner...GPS or Another Runner?

After running for a few weeks without a watch to tell me how far I've gone, or how slow I'm going :-P, it's been very nice to have that little running companion again.  I've been using the Garmin Forerunner 10 for almost two weeks now, and I'm loving it.  I've reconnected with the Garmin Connect website, and I've started to take advantage of some of its features; like the training calendar, tracking other runners, and plotting routes on Google or Bing maps.

I really feel like I'm training again, and I managed to log ~29 miles last week.  I've been running with a guy I met a few weeks ago from the UK, but, unfortunately, he's quite a bit slower than I am.  It's nice to have someone to run with here, but he's easily one to one-and-a-half minutes per mile off my normal pace.  I think the slower pace has been good for me in building my endurance for long running; however, I'm at a point where I just want to run my own pace for a change.  I'm not sure if he "broke up" with me, or if he was really  tired of running in the mornings, but he told me that he was switching to running in the evenings.  We won't be running together anymore, but perhaps we'll meet up for a weekend run every  now and then.

My brother has been sticking to the training plan I sent him, and he sounds extremely excited for his first marathon in November.  I can't even describe how cool of an experience I think this will be!  I hope that the Grand Ridge Trail Race, first marathon for him and first 50 Km for me, breaks us down to nothing, and we manage to tear through the walls and finish both of our respective races.  I can already envision sitting at the finish line, completely depleted, but beaming with accomplishment and seeing the same look on his face.  This will be a great adventure to share.

Training Summary for Last Week:

Total Mileage:            28.94 miles
Total Time:                4:47:00
Average Pace:           9:55/mi
Total Elevation Gain:  1,778 ft

Happy Running!

Bye Bye FR60...We Had Some Good Times

A couple weeks ago my Garmin FR60 quit working after the battery died, which just so happened to be slightly out of the 1 year warranty date.  After a little internet research, it looks like that has been a pretty common occurrence for the FR60.  How convenient for Garmin :-(.  It's also kind of funny that it happened shortly after my relatively positive review of my running watch.

I'm not too bitter about the watch because it was basically the cheapest Garmin they make, and, to be honest, it served its purpose.  I've been running for the last couple weeks without tracking my mileage, and it's been a nice break.  Ultimately, tracking my mileage is important for me in regards to my marathon and ultramarathon training, so I decided to give another Garmin a try.  This time I bought the Garmin Forerunner 10 GPS running watch.

The Garmin Forerunner 10 is their new cheapest watch.  It doesn't have most of the crazy features many of their more expensive watches have (Garmin Forerunner 310XT, Garmin Forerunner 910XT, Garmin Forerunner 610), but it can give you your total distance, total time, mile/km splits, current pace, virtual pacer, auto-pause, and you can program a walk/run interval timer.  That's basically all that the watch does, but that's enough for me.  My biggest gripe about the watch is that you can only display two fields at once on the screen.  I'd really like to see time, distance, and pace, but you get what you pay for I guess, and I'm pretty sure that you can display three or four fields at once on all of their more expensive GPS watches; their other watches tend to be a bit bigger though.

I've only been out on two runs so far with the new watch, an 8-miler and a 5-miler, but I'm very pleased so far.  The screen display is far better than my FR60, which was often times very difficult to read while running.  Perhaps this could be seen as a 'glass half full' benefit of only being able to display two fields at once.

I'm really happy with the Garmin Connect website, and the tools and training aids they've added since I've last explored the site.  I normally keep my training log in an Excel sheet, but now I can create a training plan on my GarminConnect calendar where it automatically tracks my runs and displays my weekly and monthly totals when I plug in my watch.  The site also keeps track of your PR's for specific distances, longest runs, etc.  You also get to view a detailed map of your runs laid over a Bing or Google map, your elevation change, and a precise record of your pace throughout the run.

I plan to write a review of the watch in a couple months, after I've had sufficient testing with the watch, but at first glance I'm very optimistic that I'll enjoy my switch to the GPS side.  Now that I can record my mileage again, I'll start updating on my blog posts!

Happy Running!

Garmin FR60 Running Watch w/ Heart Rate Monitor

That's 2 Indian Ruppees for scale, because I couldn't find a quarter.  They're roughly the same size.

This is a review that I should have probably written over a year ago.  I've logged a ton of miles with this watch, and I love it!  Before I get anyone's hopes up of purchasing the Garmin FR60 I need to warn you that it's been discontinued and replaced by the nearly identical Garmin FR70.  As far as I know, the only real difference is that they replaced the band because there were complaints about the FR60 band breaking.  Fortunately, I have yet to encounter this problem after close to 1,000 miles with the watch.

After a lot of thinking, I opted to not purchase one of the popular Garmin GPS watches (Garmin Forerunner 310XT, Garmin Forerunner 910XT, Garmin Forerunner 610, Garmin Forerunner 110-U) about which many runners rave.  Instead, I went with the Garmin FR60  which wirelessly links to a foot pod accelerometer, heart rate monitor, and/or speed/cadence sensor (for cyclists and triathletes) to give you real-time data on your wrist.  The watch also connects wirelessly to the USB ANT+ to seamlessly upload data to your personalized profile on the Garmin website, Garmin Connect.

Close up view of the watch and foot pod.

The major difference between the GPS watches and the FR60 or FR70 is, well...GPS.  The other watches connect to satellites to track your position, then use that data to give you pertinent information like pace, distance traveled, speed, and in some models elevation.  The FR60 and FR70 models use information gathered from the foot pod, which weighs about 1 oz and laces into one of your shoes.  Don't confuse the foot pod accelerometer with your standard pedometer.  A pedometer only counts your steps.  The accelerometer actually measures the distance, direction, and time your foot is in motion with each step.  If calibrated correctly, this will tend to be more accurate than the GPS watches.

Ultimately, the major decision factor for me was that I don't ever want to deal with waiting for my watch to connect to satellites.  Although the general feedback for the Garmin GPS watches is very positive, I've also heard many frustrating stories about losing GPS signal during a run in the woods/mountains/remote areas, or spending anywhere from 5 mins to 30 mins waiting to start a run because your watch won't track the satellites.  Given the fact that I knew I was moving to India soon after purchasing a watch, I didn't want to arrive at our new house only to find out my watch couldn't find any satellites.  A few minor decision factors were:
     1) The Garmin FR60 and FR70 use a standard watch battery so there is no charging.  (GPS watches are charged via USB cable and the charges last anywhere from 4hrs-8hrs)
     2) The FR60 and FR70 models are quite a bit cheaper than the GPS models.  (I purchased the watch, foot pod, heart rate monitor, and ANT+ stick for around $150 at my local running store)

My watch and foot pod on my current running shoes

Here is a list of some of the capabilities of the Garmin FR60 and Garmin FR70 watches:

• Tracks time, pace, heart rate, distance, mile splits (programmable to different distance splits), and calories burned
• You can program a virtual partner
• You can program interval workouts
• Stores up to 16 previous workouts (I believe, maybe a few more or less) in the watch, and you can store an endless number of workouts on Garmin Connect
• Tracks time stopped during a run, to give you total pace, distance, time, or give you moving pace, distance, time
• Easily switch between miles and kilometers

Here are some of the things that people may be upset if they bought this watch only to find out it can't do what they want:

• You can't display 'current pace' or 'instantaneous pace', but you can view your overall pace and/or your split pace (programmable from 1/4 mile to a mile, or in km splits)
• You can't upload maps or routes to the watch
• You can't compete with or track other runners who have Garmins

Overall, I am very happy with the Garmin FR60, and if I need to purchase another running watch in the future it will likely be the FR70, or whatever the current GPS-less model that has replaced the FR70.  I love not having to worry about my watch tracking satellites, not having to worry about charging my watch, and this watch tells me everything I care to know about running.  Ultimately, I enjoy the simplicity, and I would definitely recommend this watch to runners of all skill levels.

Happy Running!