What I DON'T Want in a GPS Watch

A runner's watch and its settings are a personal thing. With the massive variety of GPS watches on the market, we have options not only for which device we use, but how we personalize it.

Houston Half Marathon Finish

One on extreme, there are the runners who always want the latest and most sophisticated technology. They want to track all the possible data and they want their watch to be able to receive text messages, play music, track their sleep, predict their marathon time and more. On the other extreme, there are the runners who may not even want to wear a watch, let alone a GPS device.

As for me, I'm pretty basic, with one exception. And the one exception makes it difficult for me to find a simple GPS watch that meets my needs. When I started racing in 2005, I bought a Timex stop watch with a lap button. That worked well for awhile, until I decided to get a Garmin in 2009. I went with the Forerunner 405. I loved being able to run anywhere and know how far I had gone. Before the Garmin, I would typically run on the W&OD trail, which had mile markers, or I would use a treadmill. Those were my options if I wanted to track my distance.

After five years, the battery died and I moved to the Garmin Forerunner 220. This watch was slimmer and more comfortable, but otherwise it wasn't all that different from my previous one. At least in terms of the features I used. When that started acting strangely (not uploading to my phone, cutting workouts short) I bought the Garmin 630 on Black Friday sale last fall. And I hate it. Alright, hate is a strong word, so I'll revise my statement to "I find the watch highly frustrating and I wish I had not purchased it." Greg got the same deal, but he's not as tortured by the device as I am.

As I said above, a runner's watch is a personal thing, so here is everything I want, and don't want in a GPS watch.

The Basics
The reason I use a Garmin instead of my stop watch is because I like to track my speed and distance.

Garmin Forerunner 630

I need my watch to track and display:

• Total Distance
• Total Running Time
• Average Pace of the Run
• Lap Pace

The first three of these I like to have on one screen, in that order. As I run, I want to know how far I have gone, how long I've been going, and what my average pace has been so far. On a separate screen, which I have set to auto-rotate, I display the lap pace only. I like this to be large and take up the entire face of the screen so I can quickly glance down and see what pace my current mile (or split) is. This helps me slow down or speed up when needed.

I used to want to see heart rate, but I have stopped training by heart rate. That got its own screen too.

Data and Integration

I will always be loyal to the Garmin brand because it integrates with my training log (RunningAhead) as well as Strava and Final Surge (my coach's app). So my second requirement, in addition to the basics, is that the watch can upload to the Garmin database and instantly update all those other sources. 

Programmable Workouts (loudly, please)

7:59 lap pace, big and bold!

If it weren't for this one feature requirement, I'd be able to get away with a much simpler GPS watch. But it turns out, if you want to program workouts into your Garmin, you have to buy a fancier model. If it weren't for programmable workouts, I would have a tough time with many of my training runs.

For example, this morning I ran 15 times (1 minute hard, 1 minute easy) followed by 15 times (30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy). I programmed that into my watch so that it beeped, letting me know when the intervals were starting/stopping. And then it recorded my distance, pace, time, etc. for each of the laps. Now I know exactly what pace I ran for each of the 1-minute segments and each of the 30-second segments. 

With the Garmin 630, the beeps are so quiet, I can barely hear them. And even though this watch has a zillion options for everything (I can even put a photo of a zebra on it), there is no volume adjustment for the beeps. Because of this, if I need to do a pre-programmed workout, I use my 220. The alert beep for the auto-lap function is also quiet, and I often don't hear it when I'm doing my easy runs, especially if I am running near traffic.

Touch Screen

I do not want this! I purchased the Garmin 630 fully knowing it was a touch screen, but I thought it would be as easy to use as my iPhone. But it's not. navigating the touch screen is not intuitive. I always end up pressing the wrong thing. And when I go to put the watch on my wrist before my run, I inadvertently touch the screen so that it tries syncing my iPhone contacts. WTF? Why do I want my iPhone contacts synced to my Garmin device?!? No thank you. Plus, in the winter I wear gloves, so I usually need to remove them to use the touch screen, whereas I don't have to worry about that with plain ol' buttons.

Auto Upload

My feeling about the Garmin auto-uploading to my phone is similar to my feelings about automatic flush toilets. Let ME decide when please! I do not want my workout to upload to my phone until I say so. Maybe this is a setting I change, but I haven't found it. Because it integrates with Strava and my coach's Final Surge app, I don't want to publish my run until I am ready to say something about it. Otherwise, it's just hanging out there as "morning run" for people on Strava to view with (gasp) no context on what it was!!! But in all seriousness, sometimes if I am running near my phone, (I don't run with my phone, but sometimes it's in my car and I pass it), the Garmin will try to upload the workout still in progress. And if I'm doing a cool down, it will automatically upload the warm up and the workout itself, which I log as three separate activities.

Backlight

I often run in the dark so I need a backlight so I can see my Garmin. I use the "stays on" feature so the watch is always lit once I turn it on. With the Garmin 630, if you select the "stays on" feature, but do not un-select the default "backlight is part of an alert" then every time you lap, your backlight will come on and stay on. This drains the battery. I discovered this one day on a treadmill run when I realized the backlight kept coming on and staying on.

Activity Profiles

I look at lap time instead of lap pace on the track

I'll end on a positive note with the Forerunner 630. This watch offers different activity profiles, and I use three of them: run outdoors, run on a track, and run indoors. For running outdoors, my settings are as I described above. If I select track running, instead of my lap pace showing, it shows my lap time. Because GPS watches are not accurate on tracks, I pace the workout using the elapsed time of the lap rather than lap pace. And for those rare occasions when I run on a treadmill, the watch turns off the GPS and using my cadence (I assume) to measure distance. And it's fairly consistent with what the treadmill says.

Even though I'm not a fan of the 630, I'm using it for most of my runs. Ultimately I'll probably buy the 230 which does not have a touch screen or a lot of the fancy features I don't use. My 220 works well enough, so until that dies completely, I will probably hold off on getting a new one. I wore the 220 in Houston because I didn't want the 630 doing anything funky. I'm carefully considering which watch comes with me to New Orleans in two weeks.

I'd love to hear from my readers on this: 

• What features do you need?
• How is your watch face configured when you run?
• Do you log your warm up and cool down as separate activities, or put them all into one?

I'll post a training update next weekend, but that's going really well. I just wrapped up 69.3 miles last week and I'm feeling strong.

A Zebra Doesn't Change Its Stripes

I was so excited to know my time that I ruined my finish line photos! I specifically tried NOT to do that this year, but I guess I wasn't as far away from the finish as I thought!

Veteran's Day 10K 2009
48:54 PR

Veteran's Day 10K 2011
45:19 PR

I've been taking it pretty easy this week in terms of running. I know I will need fresh legs for my Turkey Trot 5K next week!

I took a complete rest day on the Monday after the race, and on Tuesday I went for an easy pool run and 900 yd swim. On Wednesday I was back out on the road with an easy 7-miler. Thursday was another easy 7-miler, although the pace was a bit zippier. Today I subjected myself to 5 x 3:00 pool running intervals (harder than track intervals!) and tomorrow I plan to do a long run of 14-15 miles.

In other news, I jumped on the Richmond Marathon bandwagon and registered for the 2012 race at the low introductory price of $55. (Which means no Veteran's Day 10K). It will be the five-year anniversary of my first sub-4:00 marathon, and I'd like to beat my 2007 time by 30 minutes. It's a pipe dream at the moment, but I'm going to work hard all year to try and make it happen. It's not horribly unrealistic for someone to decrease his/her marathon time by 30 minutes over a 5-year period of consistent training.

I do regret that I am missing out on the opportunity to experience a new marathon, but Richmond is one of my all-time favorites. Let's just hope I can hold off a few seconds before hitting that "stop" button on the Garmin!

Fun with Garmin

I think few people realize the full potential of their Garmin Forerunners. As a proud owner of the Garmin Forerunner 405, I've been doing some pretty fancy stuff with mine, and I thought I would share.

The Garmin gives you the freedom to run anywhere without having to know the distance of the route beforehand. My fiancé and I have been enjoying exploring our new area, and coming back home to see the maps of our routes.

What I want to focus on in this post is creating custom workouts using the Garmin Training Center. The Garmin Training Center is free software that you can download from the Garmin Website. You must also have the Garmin ANT agent installed on your computer, which most users already have in order to see the workouts in Garmin Connect.

Once Garmin Training Center is installed on your computer, you can create custom workouts. You create "steps" that are defined by either a particular distance, a particular amount of time, a particular heart rate, or simply by pressing the lap button on the Garmin device. You can create steps that repeat and save yourself the hassle of entering the same interval six times. Additionally, you can create a "target" for each step. This could be a heart rate zone or a particular pace range. If you fail to be in this target range, the Garmin will beep at you until you are within your target.

One of the more complicated interval sets I do is intervals of 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 2:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 with equal duration recovery jogs. These intervals are sandwiched between a warm-up and a cooldown. Programing this workout into my Garmin device is easy. I write the steps into the workout builder and then transfer the workout to my device wirelessly via the ANT Agent.

Now it's time to go running! The Garmin tracks my pace, distance and heart rate. Best of all, the Garmin beeps at me when it's time to change intervals so I don't have to worry about looking at my watch-- I can focus on pushing hard! During the intervals, the Garmin displays my pace, my heart rate, and how much more time is left in that particular interval. If it was a distance-based interval, it would tell me the distance remaining. I try my best to focus on running and to ignore all the juicy data on my watch- but sometimes I can't resist taking a peak! The intervals end and I do my cooldown jog.

I come home and set the Garmin near my computer. The ANT Agent detects a new workout and automatically uploads it to Garmin Connect and the Garmin Training Center (this is optional). From either one of those interfaces, I can see my pace for each interval and how much distance I covered during each segment. I can look back on previous workouts of the same interval set and compare heart rates and paces. Best of all, I can import this workout into my RunningAhead training log with just one click. Now I have all the data stored in my log.

And then it automatically publishes to Facebook! (This is a RunningAhead feature-- not a Garmin feature). My running friends can view the workout and I can view their workouts.

Programming your own workouts into your Garmin is just one of the many great things about this training tool. Happy running!