Friday 27 June 2014

The Ultimate Training Partner


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.

















I will be trying out another Garmin in the next couple months called the :

GPS running watch with high-resolution colour display





Keep logging those miles on your Garmin!

Happy Running J

Caroline Wöstmann