Run Tracking - Garmin Vs Apps

Sounds like an economical solution.
unfortunately I'm not very good at economical solutions where gadgets are involved and there is any money in my slush fund<g>. I popped into the local Cotswold Outdoor store (just to see what the sizes looked like on my small wrist, honest) and came away impressed by the look of the FR210 but very unimpressed by the price they were asking. On the way out I noticed a poster about a Price Match policy that if anything was cheaper at another retailer, they would match it. I did a bit of Googling and found somewhere that had it on sale and to my surprise they didn't make any objection, which kind of bumped me into a decision as it was nearly £80 cheaper and with the advantage of a local outlet to take it back to if it leaks, as some reviews seem to suggest it might.
Downside is that in setting up the display I discovered that although it records cadence, it doesn't display it! You can only see it once uploaded. How stupid is that? Otherwise, it looks nice, normal enough to wear as a watch, and all the setup and upload worked seamlessly and it is certainly a lot lighter than my phone. So I will try it out and see how I get on with it.
 
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unfortunately I'm not very good at economical solutions where gadgets are involved and there is any money in my slush fund<g>. I popped into the local Cotswold Outdoor store (just to see what the sizes looked like on my small wrist, honest) and came away impressed by the look of the FR210 but very unimpressed by the price they were asking. On the way out I noticed a poster about a Price Match policy that if anything was cheaper at another retailer, they would match it. I did a bit of Googling and found somewhere that had it on sale and to my surprise they didn't make any objection, which kind of bumped me into a decision as it was nearly £80 cheaper and with the advantage of a local outlet to take it back to if it leaks, as some reviews seem to suggest it might.
Downside is that in setting up the display I discovered that although it records cadence, it doesn't display it! You can only see it once uploaded. How stupid is that? Otherwise, it looks nice, normal enough to wear as a watch, and all the setup and upload worked seamlessly and it is certainly a lot lighter than my phone. So I will try it out and see how I get on with it.
Let us know how it is! Especially compared to your phone! :)
 
So after a day playing with it, there are some pluses and some minuses. It takes a long time to pick up satellites compared to my phone, but it does look for them before starting the timer, so I could start it looking in the car park. I tried it out in the morning shopping around town and initially thought it was losing track whenever it went into power saving mode when I went into shops, but in fact it kept track well. When I used it for a run, it measured slightly less distance than my phone, but only a hundred yards or do and I have no reason to suppose my phone is spot on. I was glad I played around with it shopping because the user manual is pretty basic and the interface took a whole to get familiar with.
I loved the garmin connect website, somewhat surprisingly, and would consider using that instead of mapmyrun - I am frustrated that mmr wants a subscription to let you see HR or cadence data. Importing to both websites is very easy, tough it needs the watch to be plugged in to the USB cradle, rather than the automatic wifi upload of my phone.
I like that I could save a lot of runs to the watch before uploading - the mmr app doesn't save locally.
 
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So after a day playing with it, there are some pluses and some minuses. It takes a long time to pick up satellites compared to my phone, but it does look for them before starting the timer, so I could start it looking in the car park. I tried it out in the morning shopping around town and initially thought it was losing track whenever it went into power saving mode when I went into shops, but in fact it kept track well. When I used it for a run, it measured slightly less distance than my phone, but only a hundred yards or do and I have no reason to suppose my phone is spot on. I was glad I played around with it shopping because the user manual is pretty basic and the interface took a whole to get familiar with.
I loved the garmin connect website, somewhat surprisingly, and would consider using that instead of mapmyrun - I am frustrated that mmr wants a subscription to let you see HR or cadence data. Importing to both websites is very easy, tough it needs the watch to be plugged in to the USB cradle, rather than the automatic wifi upload of my phone.
I like that I could save a lot of runs to the watch before uploading - the mmr app doesn't save locally.
Sounds really good. :) especially you saying you'd use Connect over Mmr. The only things putting me off is the price... and the fact I need to connect to a PC to review my run. Phone is just so damn handy.
Thanks for giving us the low down on it. It's good to hear a phone/Garmin comparison! I've some thinking, and maybe some saving to do. :)
 
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It is a pity it can't upload by bluetooth like the Edge - then it could upload to the Garmin phone app directly. I can also imagine that there are situations in which it would be frustrating not to be able to see the track you have run immediately, as you can on the phone.
 
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Yesterday, I didn't carry my phone for comparison but just used the watch. I noticed the difference not having my phone bouncing in my waistband, even though it is a tiny one. (galaxy y). So that was nice. I used a separate little clip on metronome to focus on cadence, as the watch doesn't let me into that particular secret until the run is finished. When I bought the watch, being able to get cadence was one of my requirements, but I can envisage not using it all that much once I've got the beat in my head. Will I be bothered to use the footpod to get it? Who knows, but at least it means that if I do run in the gym I can track it. I didn't particularly want the heart rate monitor, but since it came with the watch I used it and found it quite interesting that the numbers tended to agree with my 'need to walk now' feelings, and slightly concerning that that feeling coincides with what the age-maths says should be my maximum heart rate. Perhaps I need to think about dialling back a bit?

I can envisage that once I've stopped playing with it for fun, I may well use the footpod and hr very rarely, which would mean I could have gone for the cheaper model, but since I did get this one at a discount in the local shop, and they don't sell the cheaper ones, I'm happy with my choice.

edit: it also picked up the GPS signal very quickly this time, presumably because it had picked up satellites in that location before and therefore knew where to start looking.
 
The age-maths for heart rate are ways of estimating and work well across a population, but it's a bit crapshooty as far as an individual goes. The only real way to determine max HR is to put yourself through a test, either at a facility or of a homebrew sort if you have a heart rate monitor.

My homebrew method involved me running an easy 15 minute or so warmup jog to the bottom of a good hill, then running up that hill about .2 miles, jogging back down to the bottom with a little over 2.5 minutes of recovery, charging up again, another recovery jog, then a final charge where my HR peaked at 176. Even then I might have been a few beats under the actual max, because basically, your body doesn't like going to max HR because it's so uncomfortable. At that time, my max HR by the 220-age calculator would have estimated me for 180. Assuming I've lost a beat a year over the last 3 years, my max HR would probably be down in the 173-175 range.
 
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The age-maths for heart rate are ways of estimating and work well across a population, but it's a bit crapshooty as far as an individual goes. The only real way to determine max HR is to put yourself through a test, either at a facility or of a homebrew sort if you have a heart rate monitor.

My homebrew method involved me running an easy 15 minute or so warmup jog to the bottom of a good hill, then running up that hill about .2 miles, jogging back down to the bottom with a little over 2.5 minutes of recovery, charging up again, another recovery jog, then a final charge where my HR peaked at 176. Even then I might have been a few beats under the actual max, because basically, your body doesn't like going to max HR because it's so uncomfortable. At that time, my max HR by the 220-age calculator would have estimated me for 180. Assuming I've lost a beat a year over the last 3 years, my max HR would probably be down in the 173-175 range.
Yeah this concerns me. The HR calculator thing says my max heart rate should be 184, no more, but I regularly go way over that! Especially on the hills! I get up to 195ish when really pushing, sometimes more. I feel fine doing it, don't feel like I'm gonna drop or anything but wonder how wise it is me pushing like that. Might go to ask the docs.
 
Yeah this concerns me. The HR calculator thing says my max heart rate should be 184, no more, but I regularly go way over that! Especially on the hills! I get up to 195ish when really pushing, sometimes more. I feel fine doing it, don't feel like I'm gonna drop or anything but wonder how wise it is me pushing like that. Might go to ask the docs.

The 220-age thing for max heart-rate is useless...mine is off at least 10 beats from that...you would need to do one of the brutal max-heartrate field tests on your own if really want to find out. Just as meaningful is if you have a recent full effort race time you can plug into McMillan race/training at http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/calculator/.

The training paces and race predictions have been very accurate for me... McMillan recovery pace matches my MAFF pace and the Tempo pace matches my anaerobic threshold pace closely...these are the only 2 paces I run with a purpose. Might be worth a look at without having to figure in a max heart-rate.

I've done one of the brutal field max heart-rate tests and my max heart-rate when training or racing hasn't been as high as that test...the closest was all out sprinting to the finish in a 5k race and I was still 3 or 4 beats lower than my max.
 
I've been using a Garmin Forerunner 305 for the past 2 years, and I was wondering how it would compare with a smartphone app, so I did download Runtastic on my Nokia and run twice with both devices on my wrist/arm. I was surprised to see how inaccurate the telephone is. On the pic below, I was running on a straight line as the red line (Forerunner) shows. The yellow line (phone) is much more... winding.
As I understood it, the app has no GPS feature itself and uses the GPS module integrated in the telephone. So the result might have been different with another phone than my cheap Nokia Lumia 610.
Anyway, it convinced me to replace my Forerunner - when the time comes - by an equivalent watch and not by a phone app.

comparatif_forerunner-305_lumia-610.png
 
That sounds more like it! Great article. Recovery time! I do the 2 min recovery thing. Heart rate at end of run, then two mins later. Subtract the two. More than 50bpm is great. I've not done it in a while tho. You need to do it on a treadmill. I was averaging 52-56bpm.
The formula in the link here gave me a max rate of 182.2. Lower than the 220 minus age. Weird. All good tho. Seeing max heart rate isn't what's important, that recovery time is more important is reassuring. Great article! Thanks!
 
I don't think it had occurred to me that the numbers were anything other than a rough guide - in fact I was interested to find that the number on my monitor did more or less coincide with my need to slow down! But I could definitely go over it. The calculation on the new article would give me a number about 5 higher, which may well be nearer my actual maximum.
 
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