Equipment Review

As promised, an update on my Garmin Forerunner 405.

I love the watch. I'm still not using a fraction of its capability, but I love it. I've been playing with some of the 'workout' features. Today I did some intervals: 0.5 miles with 2 minute recoveries between. It took all of about 2 minutes to program ahead of time and it was pretty easy to use.

I had one 'oops'. After hitting the 'Do workout' button a window pops up saying "hit lap when warm up complete' (or something to that effect). So I did my little warm up and hit lap...and...nothing. Turns out you have to hit 'start' to start the workout, but I'll take the hit on that one.

Here's the run I did today. Simple out and back, not too long:

I like the fact that you can see your run data displayed against time:


That's my heart rate against time.

You can do the same thing with elevation or pace too:


You may see above where I think things start to fall down a little bit. Look closely at the graphs. You've got heart rate against time, elevation against distance and pace against time. I'm not sure why they've selected it that way. It would make sense to have everything against time...or everything against distance...or even better, make it user selectable.

Second quibble: Look again at those graphs: particularly the elevation one. It goes all the way to sea level. That would have been fine last winter in DC, but here, not so good. There's a lot of wasted space on that graph and you cold see the elevation changes in much more detail if you could adjust the scale...even an auto scale would be more useful than that.

Third quibble: look at the pace against time. How about some data smoothing? That would make things more usable I think.

Last point for today: Garmin connect (the source of all the graphs and pictures from above) is slow. Not the downloading from the watch to the PC. I'm okay with that (and it's wireless). But navigating within the Garmin Connect site is very slow between pages, logging in and pretty much everything.

Things I'd like to see added:
-More user selectable options (as mentioned above)
-The ability to select a point on the geographic display and have the same point highlighted on which ever graph you are looking at.
-The ability to look at more than one piece of data on the same set of axes (i.e. elevation and pace against distance)
-Exportability (as a .gpx file or something similar)

A caveat: it may be possible to do some of the things I've mentioned above. If it is, I can't figure it out (and not for lack of trying). I'm willing to admit error though if someone can show me the light.

Overall, I love the watch. I'm living with Garmin Connect. I feel it's letting the watch down to some degree.

More Running in the News

Strange how things come in groups.

The other night, the LW and I were talking about Top Gear and their impending world tour and British actress Kristin Scott Thomas came up. The very next day at work I was reading a news article from a Canadian news site and WHAM! Kristin Scott Thomas' picture in the margin linking to an article in the entertainment section. If you want a third, we watched Four Weddings and a Funeral last night, but that's probably related to the first two.

Then, after my last post about running and science, I find this article in the New Yorker.

Interesting discussion of the development of running in the U.S. from both a competitive and recreational standpoint. Also some interesting comments on the demographics of recreational runners. Did you know the readership of Runner's World has the same average income as that of Forbes? Or, how about how we poor-fair-mediocre recreational runners subsidize the elite (our shoe and clothing purchases and race entry fees pay their appearance fees and sponsorships with the major companies). Intuitively obvious, I'd just never thought of it that way before.

Will there be a third?

Running in the News

Thanks to the LW for sending this to me. From ABC news of all places.

The thesis:

...[T]he human body took the ideal shape of a long-distance runner starting some 2 million years ago, the researchers say. The long, lean build helped us scavenge widely scattered kills and could also have been an advantage when hunting down prey over long distances.

Of course, one question not asked or answered in the article is "Who sponsored the research?" As usual, the LW cuts to the chase and asks the important questions. (She should know, she used to sponsor all sorts of research.)

Food for thought if nothing else.

Whoops (update 4)

Really nice run today at lunch. Not even 3 mile, but it was on uneven ground and it was pretty fast (considering how little speed work I've done since my abortive injury fest on the track).

Ankle is still not 100%, but it's getting better!

Translations

This, I believe, is why they send FAOs to language school. (Warning, LW snorted her wine with this one.)

Whoops (again...)

Today was a big milestone in my ankle's recovery. I ran for 30 minutes on the treadmill. While I really prefer not to use them, I did it for a reason. I wanted a nice even running surface so I wouldn't have to worry about turning my ankle again. Basically, I wanted to baby it. And I did. And it felt fine. Stiff but fine. I'll venture out onto the trails again soon.

One of the nice aspects of running on a treadmill is that there are usually other people around. And sometimes they're quite humorous.

In the gym there are 2 rows of 3 treadmills, with 4 bicycles and about 10 ellipticals behind them. I got a late start to the gym today, so by the time I got there I had to grab the last open treadmill in the back row, far right. I got it set up and went to plug my headphones into the audio jack and alas, no audio.

So I was left with a choice of watching one of three TV programs-with no sound:

1. analysis of the presidential election on a news channel,
2. a rebroadcast of the Bears vs. Colts game from Sunday night, or
3. some movie that I couldn't identify.

Needless to say only one of those really lends itself to sound-free enjoyment.

It soon became obvious that the gentleman using the front left most treadmill was a big Chicago Bears fan. Every time something went their way, he'd let out a little cheer, every time something went wrong, a little exasperated sigh. This was going on for some time and it was really entertaining.

Everything was going swimmingly right until there was a "big play." I don't recall if it was a touchdown, interception, fumble, dropped pass or maybe a safety. What made it so entertaining was that as this was going on the poor guy ran off the side of his treadmill and tried to take a header into the control panel. Luckily he failed in his attempt and got right back up running again.

Nothing is more humorous than the travails of others.

So, I guess running on the treadmill isn't 100% safe either.

Whoops (update 3)

I did 20 minutes on the elliptical on Friday. It felt really good. The ankle was a little stiff (likely from lake of use) but no pain. I felt good walking from the gym to the car to put my bag in the trunk.

Then I turned my ankle on a crack in the parking lot.

I suck.

Whoops (update 2)

Well, the ankle is getting better. As expected the knee has not been an issue.

Following a strict RICE regimen it feels pretty good. Not 100%, but good. I did about 20 minutes on the bicycle in the gym yesterday without any pain, and I've done quite a bit of strength training (including lunges) without a niggle.

So I'm hoping to be back running soon, I just don't want to rush into it. I'm signed up as part of a team for a 24hr marathon relay next weekend and I'd like to not back out!

Whoops (update 1)

I mentioned yesterday that the LM helped bandage my knee. Here is his handy work. He even offered one of his special band-aids to do it! I feel very lucky!