The Running Thread Part II

MedMick

Slazengers or dunlops?
Nice one Kez, they say pbs come in 3s , expect more improvement over the coming weeks!
Picked my race number up today and had a quick recon of the course. I now know that when they describe a race as multi terrain , they actually mean x-country. To make matters worse , the rain is coming tomorrow am. Quote from the email I have just received from the race director:

"Come Hell or High Water, the race goes on.......We have had many enquiries about what the conditions will be like tomorrow and whether we will cancel.
Clearly rain will mean more mud and tougher conditions, however we will not be cancelling under any conditions, so pray for the rain to hold off (grab your wet weather gear, just in case) and come and race!
Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow...........
The Hursley 10k Team"

Sounds like fun!

StevePSIV

30 mins on the treadmill yesterday and 40 mins today (really slow pace).  Recovery seems to be going well at the moment.  The leg is bruised but I had to test it this weekend to make sure I was comfortable getting around the 10km next week.

Will be 3 or 4 weeks until I'm back to training properly

Abbeygoo

Thinking of getting a GPS watch, any recommendations?

Want a fairly simple one that just tracks distance / time and current pace. Not really bothered about anything too fancy or downloading stats etc. Just want to see my current pace to help with longer runs.

kez

Do you really need GPS?

My partner uses a Nike sportband, which would be fine for your needs.

I use a Nike GPS sportwatch as I like reviewing my runs online.

Abbeygoo

cheers pal, will have a look at one of those.

As you can tell, I'm not really sure what I want / need. The thing I am looking for is current speed per mile / km as with a stopwatch you can only tell where you are when you past certain mile markers (in a race) and in training it can be difficult.

EDIT : How accurate is the Sportband if it works off stride via the sensor in your shoe rather than GPS?

kez

It's not bad. You can calibrate it if you run a known distance (i.e. on a track / treadmill)

It also relies on you running similar pace each time. I don't, hence why I use the GPS watch.

Edit: as an example...at last week's GNR my watch said 13.22 miles, my partner's sportband said 13.00. That's pretty accurate over such a distance

Garmin will do similar watches but I find them a little large, plus I'm invested in the Nike running site and don't want to lose my stats

Abbeygoo

I take your point but over that distance I don't think that's very accurate at all. That can add nearly a couple of minutes to your time over a half marathon.

The accuracy of a GPS sounds more preferable to me.

kez

me too, which is why i use one there's about £100 difference in price, so depends what you really need...

Elrond

I've got the Garmin Forerunner 410 with the heart rate monitor. It only cost about £5 with the HRM. It's helped my pacing a lot and I would recommend it. You can change what it displays, but I've left mine as it was out of the box and it shows me the amount of time running, distance and current pace.

The Forerunner 110 is a bit cheaper but you would need to check if it displayed current pace.

I started using the Nike  GPS app and so had all my runs with Nike so when I was looking at watches that was a factor. However, this site fixes that:

Garmin Forerunner tcx to Nike  Converter & Uploader

kez

Wow cool. That looks very useful, cheers