fun with gadgets--the speed/distance watch

I recently acquired (by marriage) a speed/distance watch with a GPS thingie. Today was the first time I used it. I tried using the armband for the GPS, but I felt like a dork with it strapped to my arm. I tried tying it to the drawstring on my shorts, but it made me look like I was wearing a cup. Finally, it dawned that these shorts had pockets, so I dropped it in one of them.

The first lap, everything was kind of fine, once it found the signal (about halfway around). When I finished the first lap, the distance display said .24 mi. I made a note of this and started my first running lap. At first, 4.2 mph...so far so good. Then I rounded a corner and went under some trees, and it reported 2.6 mph...even though I never slowed down. Hmm. Got to the next bend, and it was displaying 4.1 mph, which seemed more likely. When I hit the trees at the 1/4 mile mark, though, it was still reporting a reasonable speed. I ruled out trees as the cause, and figured that maybe it was just a fluke.

When I completed the lap, the distance meter said .74 mi. Once I got back around to the previous lap's slow spot, I checked the speed again--2.7 mph! The hell? Once I got to the next bend, it sped up just as before. Maybe I slow down around that corner, or it has trouble with the angle (~70-90 degree turn, probably), and it takes the device until the straight section to catch up. In that case, though, why didn't it slow down on the other corners? At any rate, it didn't seem to affect the distance calculation, as we'll see in a minute.

The next couple laps I got gradually slower, but managed to stay constant at around 3.8 mph. Somewhere around the middle of the fourth running lap, I realized that 2 miles was going to have to be long enough. My HR wouldn't stay out of the 170s unless I walked, I had a stitch in my side, and I was feeling the frustration start to simmer. I picked up my water bottle and leaned into the last tenth of a mile to pick up some speed (5.1 mph...yippee!). Then, I walked another lap. The ending distance on the watch was 2.71 miles. If I subtract the incomplete first lap from that (.24 mi), that'd be 2.47 mi for 5 laps, making each lap...0.494 mi.

Hey, what do you know...it IS a 1/2 mile track! Or close enough.

Going with a run distance of 1.98 mi (in 28:17) and a total distance of 2.96 mi (in 45:15), my speeds were 4.2 mph running and 3.9 mph overall.

I'm not happy about stopping the run early, but I think I'm going to be keeping it at 2 miles through next week. I'm also considering doing a 5:1 interval (5-min run, 1-min walk) thing for a while, but I'm not sure which is going to be better for me. Right now? Leaning toward 5:1 for next week.

Oh, and on my future use of the speed/distance watch? I liked having the constant feedback, but it was kind of a lot of equipment. With this thing and the HRM, I had a GPS receiver in my pocket (and the thing was bulkier than I would have liked), a chest strap, and a watch on each wrist. The speed/distance watch is also huge on me, since I have small wrists (Ray Charles would have thought I was fabulous, if the movie is to be believed). Now that I know the track is close enough to a 1/2 mile, I'm just going to base my speed averages on that. I'm not to a point where I'm really dying to know individual lap speeds, so having constant speed assessment is really more of a distraction than a help. For now, I'm only going to use the time/distance watch on road runs, so that I have more flexibility in the routes I can take around the neighborhood. Or anywhere, really.

What would really be nice is to have one (small!) gadget that does everything--HR, distance, speed, lap times, etc. I imagine such a thing exists, but I'm also sure it's completely out of my price range.

Garmin Forerunner 301 - just got one. Kinda pricey, but it is an all-in-one unit (except for the HRM sensor). GPS is built into the watch. USB connection to hook it into computer and upload completed workouts. Design workout with the included software and download to the receiver. Graphing functions in the included software are really cool. It can be yours for the low, low price of about $250.

I think Polar has some fancy-schmancy heart monitors that have the GPS stuff built in, but like you said... expensive! But hey if you keep at it, you totally deserve one later on.

I hear ya on the excessive amount of equipment! I feel like it takes me forever to get ready to workout, putting on my chest strap, watch, etc. And now on bike rides I have an odometer too. At least I don't have to wear that one.. it stays on my bike. But it sure does require a lot of record keeping, etc. But in a way, it makes it more fun.

Graphs, uploads, software, oh my! And no clunky GPS? Sweet. I think I might be drooling a little bit. ;)

How big is the watch--about the same size as the Timex? I guess if I only had to wear one, size wouldn't be as much of an issue, though.

$250, eh? Still a little more than I'm looking to spend this soon after dropping $100 for the HRM, but maybe in a few months.