Anyone who has run with me will
be able to attest to the fact that I am a little obsessed with my Garmin. In fact, it’s so bad that I literally get
tempted to abort a run if my battery goes flat. Or, if I realise before a
training run that my battery is low, I would rather delay my run for an hour
and let it charge then risk it going flat whilst I’m on the road. Yes, my
Garmin and I are one united team in training.
I never run without it and I’m pretty sure it never runs without me.
I can still remember the first
time I encountered a Garmin running watch on the road. It was about a year after I had started
running and the idea of having a GPS device on your wrist (which at that stage
was about the size of your forearm) was still relatively unknown in the running
community. I was running with a team mate who had some sort of massive machine
strapped onto his arm. As most runners
are willing to try many extreme inventions in the hope that it will help them
run faster and further, I initially ignored it, but what I could not ignore was
its constant beeping. I was fascinated when
I found out that this contraption was measuring the distance via GPS and
beeping every km. Shortly after, I, and about 90 percent of (serious) runners,
became proud owners of a Garmin watch and the beeping, whistling and chiming of
time, distance and heart rate alerts, forms our own little orchestra during
early morning Saturday and Sunday races.
So what is it that makes the
Garmin such an essential part of running?
Is it the fact that you can see
your heart rate and get alerts as to what training zone you are in?
Or, is it the fact that you can
set it up to assist you in interval training or other quality sessions, where
it actually will alarm to tell you when to speed up and slow down?
Or maybe it’s that you can see
your current pace, your average pace, your distance, your elevation, and pretty
much anything else you might be interested in knowing during your training.
For me it’s all these things and
so much more. My Garmin is my own little
trophy of my achievements. It logs all
my training with enough detail to keep me analysing and reflecting for hours
after uploading the data onto Garmin Connect.
What makes this experience even better is that my friends, training
partners, club mates etc. are linked to my Garmin connect profile so that we
can all compare and analyse each other’s workouts. I think it’s this collection of data that
makes me so reliant on my Garmin. If the
run isn’t recorded it almost feels like it’s not done. And the fact that it’s
recorded makes training so much more fun ;-)
My Garmin of choice is currently the
A full-featured GPS-enabled watch designed with the
multisport enthusiast in mind.
This watch is designed for
triathletes giving you everything you would need for running, swimming and cycling.
I am not a triathlete but still
find this watch to be ideal for training and racing. The fact that I can see four sets of data
(eg. Current pace, Actual pace, Distance, Time) all simultaneously and have
four different screens which each can contain 4 sets of independent data, through
which I can easily navigate whilst running, makes this watch ideal for me. It also has a virtual partner where you can
enter your desired goal and then run against your watch, being able see whether
you are ahead or behind your set target. And… it has 20 hours of battery life,
which makes it the ultimate endurance training partner!
My only gripe about the watch is
that it is slightly big for my tiny wrist but the value it adds to my training
is well worth the slight discomfort from its size.
During Comrades I was constantly aware of what my average
pace was and whether or not I was on target thanks to my Garmin.
GPS running watch with
high-resolution colour display
Keep logging those
miles on your Garmin!
Happy Running J
Caroline Wöstmann
