Wednesday 1 June 2011

I need a GPS watch

Being a geek computer programmer, I tend to need different gadgets for different walks of life. Instead of a book, I have a kindle. Instead of the bog standard iPhone, I have an Android phone. I have a touch screen radio in my new car. I could go one forever.

When it comes to running, the only gadgets I have are a £7.99 watch from Decathlon and a link to http://www.realbuzz.com/mapyourpassion/. This just will not suffice. I'm not happy with simply having the time I've been running strapped to my wrist. No longer am I happy with mapping out my run after I've jumped out the shower. I am fed up with guessing how fast I'm running when I go on my nightly runs. All of this can be solved with a GPS watch.

The only question is what watch to get. My inner geek is telling me that bells and whistles is the way to go, so this would be a good purchase:
Garmin Forerunner 610

But this has the disadvantage of being uber expensive. The model down from this is a little bit more affordable but still quite expensive:
Garmin Forerunner 410

Now these watches are by Garmin, who have a good reputation for GPS watches and these are the watches that people recommend to me. However, they lack the coolness factor of this:

Nike SportWatch

Not only is this about £100 cheaper than the competitors it also looks super cool. It also boasts an online community where you can log your runs and enter challenges but I'm not sure how good this will actually be.

I'll have to hold off on this for the moment, give myself a chance to think about what watch I want to get and if I can afford it, but I can say that before Juneathon is done, I'll be running with the power of GPS at the lower end of my arm.

As for the run tonight, I did 3.54 miles in 29 minutes tonight. This was supposed to be 4 miles but I forgot my route and went the wrong way, hence accidently shortening my run. This is exactly why I need a GPS watch!

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