Running Gadgets Advice
There are numerous popular types of running gadgets ranging from simple pedometers, sports watches, heart rate monitors, speed and distance gadgets and running GPS systems.
The decision you make when selecting a gadget should be based upon what your training goals are, how serious you want to take your training, the versatility required and the money you have to spend.
You can find further details and advice about buying your running gadgets below:
Sports Watches - classic Timex watches for day to day usage and all sports.
Heart Rate Monitors - for tracking your heart rate to train more effectively.
GPS Watches / Speed and Distance Monitors - the ultimate running gadgets.
A sports watch is usually a water resistant digital watch that offers normal functionality such as time, date and alarms. Better options also have dual time and multiple alarms. Plus a sports watch needs a chronograph or stop watch in order to time your activity.
The stopwatch will have a memory starting with a basic number of laps (approx 30). During an activity you can then mark a lap e,g, mile marker, to recall at a later date. Watches with a large memory usually have dated memory too so that you can store multiple workouts.
For your training requirements a sports watch will also have an timer. This may be a custom set or pre-defined, and it may auto-repeat e.g. counting down from 5mins over and over again. Plus some sports watches have multiple timers which means you can set interval training e.g. 5mins followed by 3mins and then repeated.
A heart rate monitor will track your heart beat during exercise. You may just be happy to continuously monitor your BPM (beats per minute) but you can also create zones based on a % of maximum in order to make your training more efficient. Note that if you want to use a heart rate monitor then you also need to wear a chest strap.
The idea of heart training using zones is that your body will burn energy differently at lower heart rates compared to when training at a higher percentage of your maximum. In simplistic terms the body will either burn fat (typically at 60-70% of maximum) or burn the most accessible form of carbohydrates (normally at 80-90%).
The results of training using different zones will either make you fit for sprinting or for long distance running. In most cases our customers will be interested in training for longer distances (>10k) so using a heart rate monitor to keep their heart rate below 70% will train the body to work as efficiently as possible.
The actual function of the watches will serve you in training for your goals. They have multiple zones and alerts, interval timers and a good memory to store average and maximum heart rate (for each lap and the entire workout). The more sophisticated watches also have wireless data transfer to your computer so you can track your progress on purpose built software.
One of the most popular features on running watches is the ability to track speed or pace and distance. This is possible using either a footpod to measure your strides or via a GPS receiver, normally built into a running gadget to be worn on the wrist or into a watch. More information about this is included in our video guide to
Buying Speed and Distance Running Watches:
The footpods (used with gadgets such as the
Garmin FR60) are accurate up to about 95%, maybe even a little more, and will track all your speed and distance calculations both on the go and on your computer. They will still automatically store the time of each mile / km and even offer alerts to keep your pace on track in order to hit a target time for a set distance.
Any running device that incorporates a GPS receiver will be almost 100% accurate its data and will not only know how fast and far you are running, they also know where you have been running. This means you can follow other peoples routes, navigate yourself home and watch a 'fly by' of your running using the Google Earth software.
Typically a GPS watch is bigger in size than a watch that tracks using a footpod, but there are obvious advantages and a wider range of features because of the additional navigational options. They are normally more expensive but the newer watches with footpods are now around the same price as older GPS watches such as the
Garmin Forerunner 205.
Note that these devices offer all the same training features as a basic sports watch. The difference being that your results are being tracked and recorded as you go. As such your training can become more focussed and it is easier to train for a set distance and especially to ensure you hit a target time. But that said, some people just enjoy knowing how far they are running.