Garmin Forerunner 210

So ever since I got my Edge 500 I've kinda been hooked on the idea of putting numbers to my training. When you're lifting weights it's very easy to know hey... I can life more today, I'm getting better.  With cycling using rating of perceived exertion (RPE) it's pretty easy to gauge how you feel, but how do you know if you're getting fitter?  Well you can look at things like heart rate, power and stuff like that.  With running it's a little bit more difficult because without having either something like the nike+ system or a running watch you have nothing.  So that brings us to the topic of the day.

Garmin Forerunner 210

FR-210

FR-305

So here it is in all it's glory. One of the nicest things about this one is that it actually looks like a normal watch that you could wear on a regular basis and not have it look like something is growing off of your wrist like the Forerunner 305.   Garmin is a company that a lot of people associate with GPS, and in a sense their sport products do have GPS built in.  This allows you to go back after your run, see where you have run what the course profile looked like and stuff like that.

Other companies that also take part in this market are companies like Polar (which most of you will associate with fitness equipment).  They make really good heart rate monitors and in general it is much better than the Garmin heart rate straps, but there is a fix that I may talk about later.  Other companies such as Suunto also make watches as does Timex.  The problem with the Timex one once again in my opinion is that it's MASSIVE...

HUGE

So that brings us back to the FR-210, in terms of size I actually wouldn't mind putting one of these on and going and eating 20 k for breakfast. Now what can it do for you?

Features
Well it can do all the typical things you would expect a watch like this to do such as pace, distance, time, laps.  But with these kinds of dedicated training devices you can do a lot more than that.
-calculating calorie expenditure (with HRM)
-calculating cadence (with footpod)
-interval training

Now those that haven't really trained with looking at numbers other than how far you ran on a treadmill will be left with kind of a .....uhhh great feeling, so what?  Putting numbers to your training especially after when doing long distance events can be really crucial to hitting your time or missing it completely.  For example you can do per km pace calculations by just pressing the lap button your watch every k.  The only problem with that is that by the time you realize you're off pace you've already lost that time and it will probably have had a great impact on your overall time.  So what is the point of the HRM (Heart Rate Monitor) and footpod? Well heart rate training by zones (how hard your heart is working) can allow you to target specific types of fitness.  While the foot pod can do things like speed and cadence (which allows you to train indoors during the winter)  Cadence is one of those things that a lot of people let drop by the wayside without giving it a whole lot of thought, but you can run quicker by upping your cadence slightly.

Last Thoughts?
Well as you've probably realized by now I LOVE my gadgets.  So when I finally save up enough money I will probably get a GPS running watch of some sort.  The only problems with things like this is that they're not cheap in the least bit.  So until then I'll keep on using the nike+ system which I shall post a review of sometime. After training with the edge for a bit, it becomes kinda surreal to see that you are getting better (or that you are just getting crappy because of not doing anything for 2 weeks).

~Cheers