[Guest Post] Gear Review - Garmin Forerunner 235

“It is time to watch my pace”

In December a great friend let me know he had won a new Garmin Forerunner 235 in a contest and asked if I would like his Garmin Forerunner 305. I said sure. For years I have been running with just plain old wrist watches keeping track of my time and than going on DailyMile and figuring out my distance ... so a GPS watch was a huge leap forward to say the least and one that I was willing to give a “try” but not “buy” anytime in the near future. 

One Wednesday night after our RunNinja speed work out a bag was handed to me with what I thought was the Forerunner 305. When I got home I believed my great friend had made a mistake as the new Forerunner 235 was in the bag. I really did not want this new unit and tried to give it back to him but his theory was "if it still works fine then why don't I just keep on using it?" The new watch sat in the box for a few weeks until my wife convinced me that sometimes I need to learn the lesson of being a grateful receiver and I gave into the total excitement of opening up a new electronic item (you know that smell). Crazy to think this watch is valued similarly to some used cars I have bought! 

Enough of my stories and onto the watch itself. The hardest part of setting up this watch was just getting it out of the box. It was definitely well protected for shipping considering the abuse a unit like this will take on ones wrist during its lifetime. Charged it up, entered a few settings and “BAM” like Fred Flintstone with an abacus I was ready to go. First race of the year was January 1st 2016 up in Orillia, and I am “off to the races” with my new watch. 

Some comments on the watch: 

• The band is incredibly flexible and adjustable. With winter running I am usually fastening the watch easily over a base layer and a running jacket. 
• The optical heart rate monitor seems to work great through all these layers. Not sure I really want to know how this technology works but it does. 
• The five buttons work great and are easily “pressable” with any gloves or mittens I have been wearing this winter. 
• The display is clear and crisp and even with my bad eyesight I can see the information at a quick glance in any light conditions 
• Text messages and phone calls are sent to the display while my phone is on my person through a Bluetooth connection. 

Two months later as I begin to train for my first marathon in Ottawa this May I will begin to really “put this unit through its paces.”  While I never want to fully rely on a watch to get outside and run I have already enjoyed the benefits of this watch during speed work and monitoring my times on a race pace run. Also I love maps so seeing my runs from above is great and a real time saver. Most likely I am only using about 10-20 % of this watch's capabilities so we will see as my training goes on what I find out about it. 

As this watch was a gift to me if ever we are out running together and you want to take it for a test run just ask and I will be happy to pass on the blessing someone has blessed me with.

Buen camino!

Lewis 

[Guest Post] Gear Review - Garmin Forerunner 235

crunching the numbers

i'm more of a process over product kind of person.

journey over destination.

quality over quantity.

people over project.

which is all kind of funny when i think about how preoccupied i am with tracking my training data.

with so many options out there, my favourite tool for keeping tabs on my weekly mileage is dailymile (you can see the dailymile widget on the left-hand side column on my blog).  i suppose that it's because it's a combination tracking site and social media platform, including the option to link up with friends/acquaintances and post comments, encouragements and other notes.  it provides me with just what i need in terms of at-a-glance data:  distances for specific workouts, for a week or month at a time - even what some of my colleagues are managing to pump out on a weekly basis.  

this may or may not be a preferred performance tracking and analysis tool for runners, but many of the athletes that i follow on twitter and facebook have a profile on dailymile.

many others have taken to sites like strava or runkeeper, and to a lesser degree training peaks and sporttracks.  again, there are all sorts of alternatives available, and many times i've found individuals to be fiercely loyal to their webpage of choice.

since i use my garmin 305 to record my run data, my first digital stop is normally at the garmin connect website.  so imagine my intrigue when i was reading alessandro santuz's blog and found out about tapiriik, an open-source platform for synching multiple performance tracking service streams.

what's great about this is obviously the concept of synching - one touch consolidation of information across multiple software applications.  instead of being daunted and/or bogged down by the work of logging into various profiles and inputting information separately into each one, tapiriik offers you the ability to set-up a synching network and then subsequently making your training and racing stats available in each one.  

the one notable feature of tapiriik that is especially enticing is the ability to synch to dropbox, a virtual (shared) hard drive.  while i'm still working at configuring this so that it works optimally for me, i relish the thought of being able to have a downloadable capture of my training info for my records.

which tracking service have you sworn allegiance to, if any?  do you think that a tool like tapiriik might be of use to you?

crunching the numbers

put me in coach - i'm ready to play ...

earlier today i had a great conversation with a person who just might be the coach for me.

(says the guy who usually likes to try to figure things out on his own)

after a brief conversation at a local Tim Horton's, i felt incredibly encouraged about how close i am to hitting my target of a Boston Qualifying time (3h15m for my age group).  and if i really believe my would-be coach, based on what's he's already researched on my training and performance history, he wouldn't be surprised to see me push closer to 3:10.

now, i'm not one who easily falls for sunshine being blown my way.  and if i read this guy correctly, he's not the kind of person to do that.  put that together with just the few pieces of recommended training tweaks that he shared, and honestly i'm starting to think that 3:10 is not out of reach.

but it's funny how conversations can dovetail as well ... i was chatting on facebook with my pal stan about training plans, heart rate monitoring and GPS watches, and he mentioned that maybe a GPS watch should maybe be on my father's day, birthday or christmas wish list.  well, doesn't my coach (let's just call him that for now) say that probably the first thing that i should do is get myself a GPS watch.

i'm not a real early-adopter when it comes to buying technology.  maybe it's because i try my best to keep my materialistic tendencies at bay - so to this point i've been using any decent digital timepieces that i could find at the local thrift stores, except for my last splurge of $11.95 on this baby on clearance:

i gotta say that it's served me well through two marathon training cycles and races - but having heard of the benefits that a true GPS/running timepiece can bring to my tempo runs and speedwork, i'm thinking that it may be time to train smarter (not cheaper).  so now i'm in the market for a garmin 305 or the like.

(see ... i'm still trying to spend as little moola as possible by going old school)

got any thoughts about garmins or other GPS-enabled devices that have made a difference to your running?  i'd love to hear about it - leave a comment!

put me in coach - i'm ready to play ...