#9 - My Running Watch

While being a slave to technology is the antithesis of trail running, purchasing a decent gps running watch has had a large positive impact on my improvement as a runner. While it is possible to run 'free', most runners prefer to know a little bit about their miles covered and time splits. Also, having a good idea of what your heart rate is doing is an important part of Z2 80/20 running. While it's possible to use a rating of perceived exertion to get some idea of the effort your putting out during a run, I'm guessing my notions of PRE would've been way off without a heart rate monitor to calibrate my personal PRE scale. Now that I've been running with a HRM for a consistent amount of time, I'm actually fairly comfortable leaving the technology at home and going free. Had I not put in the time to learn how my own PRE related to my heart rate, I promise I would've been training way too hard while trying to go easy.

In addition to making Z2 running much more effective, any decent GPS watch will give you access to some sort of training app, or can link to a free Strava account. Instead of having to constantly log your runs in a book or spreadsheet, you can let the app do the tracking for you. While I still tend to put some info into a spreadsheet as part of a whole training plan, it's nice to know that all my relevant data is stored in the Garmin Connect app, and I only need to spend a few minutes a week transposing and thinking about my data.

The watch I'm using is a Garmin Forerunner 230. Compared to other watches out there now it's a fairly low end device, but for a beginner to intermediate runner it serves me well. It wasn't a super expensive investment and it tracks time, distance, and heart rate. One thing I like about it is that it requires a separate heart rate monitor strap. All the reviews I've been reading of wrist-based HRM indicate that even now it's not accurate enough to be a reliable training tool. If you're getting precise with Zone training, a few beats per minute can be a big deal over the long haul.

I also like the Connect app that comes with any Garmin watch. Gone are the days of trying to combine the interval timer on my Timex with the stopwatch to run different workouts. With the 230 I can program my desired times, intervals, distances, etc into a workout in the Connect app, and then sync it to my watch. When I go out to do the workout, the watch keeps track of interval times, how many intervals I've done, recovery periods, etc. You start the workout, and when the watch beeps and vibrates you know it's time to switch intervals. Couldn't be easier.

The only drawback I find with this particular watch is that it doesn't give me real time elevation gain data, so if I'm targeting a particular amount of climbing for a workout, I need to know where I'm running, how much climb a particular section has, and how many times I need to repeat that section. This probably wouldn't be a huge deal if I lived near mountains and just had to run uphill for a long time, but here in the midwest my only reliable way to get sufficient climbing in is to run a lot of repeats on the few decent hills I can find. Tracking and planning this can be a pain, but I'm not sure it would justify shelling out more dough for a nicer model watch that can track this.

Overall, if you're serious about training, a decent GPS watch is almost a must-have in today's world. Sure you can get by with a regular timex or no watch at all, but most people find that it's hard to improve without data letting you know how your're doing.

Training - 5 easy miles. Go for a big volume week.