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Saturday 23 July 2011

8 Miles!

So, I took a deep breath and bought a Garmin Forerunner 610!   Oooooh!

I have to say it's been a little complicated to set up, but it's done now and the link at the bottom shows you my 8 MILE RUN!

Runkeeper vs Garmin - opinion so far.

I took them both out for the run, with Runkeeper on silent, just tracking the run.  Sod's Law dictated that Runkeeper worked fine yesterday.  I did 12.98 km according to Garmin and 12.97 on Runkeeper.

Things I like / dislike about each.  I did miss Mrs. Runkeeper's voice telling me how far I'd gone, but Garmin 610 has a vibration alert, so you can set it for every 500m, or whatever you fancy, so that was fine.

I went mad with all the fields available on the Garmin and I'd got FAR too much information being thrown at me during the run.  All I need when I'm running is, the time, how long I've been running for, my speed, and my average speed.  I had calories, direction, accuracy of the GPS to within so many feet, lap times, and a few other things going on on 4 scrolling screens.  It was too difficult to see them all. Will pare right back for next run.  You can see everything else later on on the computer.

I'd like to get to grips with the Virtual running partner, I need to read up on it a bit.  I think that will be a really useful tool.

Annoyingly, I forgot to put on the Heart Rate monitor before I went out.  I've never used one before so I was quite keen to see what my heart rate would be like.  I'll remember it next time.

I'll still take my iPhone out with me because a) I use it as an iPod, and b) when I run, usually on my own, I need a phone for safety, so Garmin is another bit of kit to remember.

I've bought the Garmin for reliability as Runkeeper has been very unreliable of late, so until I've taken it out a few more times I can't tell if it's going to do the same thing. (I hope not).

The Garmin was quite complicated to set up on the computer.  The manual is not brilliant.  However I've done it and the more I use it the easier it'll be.

Garmin uses Bing maps, not Google, and I don't think they're so good.  You can however, look at your run on Google Earth once you've downloaded it, so that solves that problem.

Overall, Runkeeper is great and easy to use, but the reliability issue is a problem for me now.
Garmin is more complicated, and for the price, I do not expect any problems with the GPS, if I do get any I'll be very disappointed.


So, apart from all that, how was the 8 mile run??  Really Good!!

I am absolutely amazed at myself.  It's exactly 2 years ago this weekend that I did my first 5k, I'd gone from 48 years of couch to 5k in 4 months, and now look at me.  Nearly ready for a HM! The 8 miles was just not a problem. I was doing Jeff's recommendation of 15 mins running and 5 mins walking.  Funnily though after about an hour, when I would have expected to be flagging, I was actually finding it easier and could have managed without the 5mins walk breaks.

I had Lucozade Sport diluted by half with water in my bottle, and I also had a couple of Peppermint Creams after about 45 mins.

The new place I've found to run is lovely, all off-road and really pretty.  Husband is a bit worried in case "strange men" jump out of the bushes, but there are a lot of dog walkers about and some bike people and judging by the piles of poo, there must be quite a few horse riders using the route as well.

When I started Venice or Bust, at the beginning of Juneathon, my goal was to get to 9st 7lbs before we go to Venice, which is next Tursday. Well......I've done it!  After my run yesterday I was 9st 6lbs, and this morning I woke up at 9st. 7lbs!!!!  That's 10 lbs lost in 7.5 weeks.

I'll probably put the lot back on in 5 days on the Orient Express and in Venice   ☺☺

8 miles! by kimivory at Garmin Connect - Details

1 comment:

  1. Typical - although apparently little brother (from the chat on fb the other day) did a search and its based on GPS coverage in your area - if the GPS doesn;t work for RK it won't work for a garmin as technicaly they are using the same technology. Have you checked the map? Was it right?

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