Discussion: Speedometer 4 runners

As I am running all my intervals alone, I am contemplating getting a speedometer for running, which monitors the speed and my heart rate. This way I can control my workout, making sure I am not fooling myself.
I must admit I have only limited experience with those new running engines out there… but I thought this product is pretty good: http://www.garmin.com/products/forerunner305/
Has anyone researched about that watch, or has someone even tested it? Or have you had any experience with another speedometer?
Thanks for your advice, Marc

I've never used a speedometer, but I have used a heart rate moniter while spinning. The whole tiem I trying to fight against my heart rate to either make it go up or down. Although, it always did the opposite. When I wanted it down, it jumped up to 232. Not a fun class and I've never used one since...
Hopefully those speedometer thingymadooers are better, but they sound pretty cool!

Hi Marc! There have been several discussions about the 305... type "garmin 305" into the earch box which is located to the NE of this message.

I used the spedometer on my Polar S625X until I lost the footpod and found it to be pretty accurate. It measures distance by acceleration through a footpod, and will also give you "live" speed readings. They aren't really live though since they only update when the watch updates. You can set the watch to update at 5, 15, or 60 second intervals, so on the 5 second setting you can get a pretty accurate reading while you are running. It will at least give you your average speed over the last 5 seconds.

By the way, not to take this thread off topic, but Emily, HR monitors never work on standing bikes because the spinning mechanism messes with the transfer of information between the monitor and the watch. I have found that the monitor has no problem communicating with the bike itself though, so you can at least see what you HR is while you are riding, you just can't log it with your watch.

John is right about the problems with HR monitors and stationary bikes. However, I've sometimes been able to work around that my keeping the "watch" part off the wrist and putting it as high as possible - on the handlebars or draped over the display. That way you might be able to get a workout record.

Regarding Garmins. I am now using a Garmin 205 (non-HR) and Speedy is using a 305 (so hopefully he'll speak up, too.) Anyway, I think it is a neat gadget. I think it is very good at measuring overall workout distance. However, it is not good at measuring climb, and, if you are doing your intervals in the forest, the current pace reading may be inaccurately from time to time. But, again, afterwards, it will have a good idea of how far you've gone and therefore, how fast overall.

Of course, if you are doing your intervals on the track, it gives great pace readings, but then you don't really need a speedometer on the track...

I've tested Polar S625X footpod accuracy on the track doing intervals and wasn't satisfied with results: hudge discrepancy ... And I never used it for orienteering. But I like how it measures climb.

As for the Garmin-305, it's a nice gadget for the measuring your distance (and HR). Average speed is pretty accurate. And it's impossible to measure climb - inaccurate:(

Instantaneous speed on the Garmin-305 is bad in the forest, okay on the track. Average speed over the current 'split' can also be displayed though and if your intervals aren't too short, e.g. 400m+, it seems pretty accurate - although thick forest will make even that dubious (if it keeps tracking - we've had a few reports of problems now that the leaves are out.)

Mark, nothing can match and improve "the heart of runner", the desire to run hard, to train long hours. You know by now how hard you work, when exercising, most likely you do not even need a heart rate monitor. But,... gismos spark scientific enthusiasm the feeling of research, new knowledge, some time useless, another time useful. Over this weekend I saw Speedy with Polar 625X on one hand and Garmin-305 on another, all he needed was a missile he could guide to the target, while sitting on it:-)

Pure baltering:)) And guess what, I like it!!!

I like my Polar-625 watch and still use it if I want to know climb, but in such weather as it was this past Saturday - nothing can help but measure it on map. As for FR-305 - I enjoy it, especially HR strap - it's match better than Polar's. And now I can measure more accurate distance (as far as I get satelites signals) I run in nearest forest (w/out map it's really hard to do).

BTW, do you have a spare missile?!

Yes, Speedy is right. The altimeter in the S625x has problems in wet weather, and also if you wear sunscreen. I think the air intake holes plug up, or some such. The altitude readout becomes noisy. If you post-process it to smooth, you can mostly recover the total climb but will obviously lose the 1 m resolution.

Air holes? Are these as effective as the speed holes in my car?

You need to let the outside air into the pressure gauge unit (MEMS-based?), but you don't want to let much of other outside things in, hence small air intake holes.

Greg, doesn't every heart need a brain with it?
Philosophy by side, do I understand correctly that all those speedometers are alright for measuring the distance you are running and to give you your average speed, but are not able to give you precise speed like a bike speedometer.
For instance if I want to do my 2min flat intervals at 20.5km/h but not at 19.5 or 21.5km/h, the watch won’t be a helpful pacemaker, right?

The inertial system in the footpod of the Polar S625x is about 3% accurate. Some people said it's better than 2% for them, but there are many ways to get it wrong and only a few, to get it right. There seems to be a "sweet" placement of the footpod on the foot that yields the best accuracy. So, your desired 5% accuracy is most likely achievable with the S625x. Don't know about the Garmins.

I need motorcycle to get that 20.5km/h speed ;-[

If you run 2 minute intervals, you can see pretty well if your average speed was during the interval 20.5km/h, 19.5 or 21.5km/h. Also about after first half (1min) you may see your average speed pretty well, so you might see if you need to push harder for the secong minute.

But while you run you can not see if you running at this very second 18km/h or 22km/h.

I have run 1000m path intervals with garmin, distance has been +-5m. So average speed is pretty accurate.

In your particular example you could also easily calculate in advance how far you should run in your 2 minutes at 20.5 km/h (~683 m) and use the distance measurement instead.
For your average speed that would work just as well as the average speed that Jagge refers to above - so no difference really. But unfortunately that would not tell you at the beginning of your interval that you were actually running at the right speed - only help you to reach the finish at the right time.

Mmh, this wouldn't be a direct control of my speed, but at least this way I get a feedback of my performance... not based on pure subjective feeling like "wow, today I felt strong, I must have been kicking ass".
The remaining problem is that I only have short passages of flat terrain, were I can calibrate my effort to the corresponding speed I want to do my intervals in (in my before mentioned example 20.5km/h). Maybe I should just find a better training stretch=way to university... I'll ask my girlfriend about moving...

Btw, the Polar watch would than be better for instantenous speed than the GPS watches?

If you run 16 km from school to home and you like to do some intervals here and there on the way, Garmin would do just fine.
You just push Lap button at the start and the end of your each interval, and you'll see what your average speed was during each interval.
Garmin measures distance (and time) accurate enuogh (if you are not running near tall buildings).

You don't have to first measure the distance and run the same 2 min flat all over again.

Marc, the S625 adjusts rather slowly to changes in speed, especially when the difference is large (e.g. when you jog and you start an intervall it will take some 10-15 sec to show your speed). Afterwards changes in speed will be shown rather quickly (5 sec = 5-10 steps). Therefore I find that for short (<2') distances it does not help to give you a good feedback but for longer stretches it works fine. However this always implies that you take the time and first calibrate it correctly (which is rather cumbersome).

I have seen what some elite marathoners did in Valley Forge for running at constant speed - the coach measured and marked the paved trails every 50 meters, so the runner can now judge the speed more often, like on the track. It is a low tech solution. If your training terrain is all up and down, then constant speed is not your goal - constant effort is more important for threshold runs and intervals, then you use a measured trail, and compare times it takes to do work bouts to measure your fitness level (provided same effort). I use Google pedometer to measure distance for my trail intervals

Well, I guess Sebastian Coe still did it the best way... his father would accompany him with the car to measure his speed and drive him down the downhills... made him pretty fast. In other words, to hell all the technology, the good old fashioned way remains the best... but maybe for the love of ecology, one should try out new paths and use a watch as a speedometer instead of a car... besides, I doubt Sandra would be willing to follow me in the car while I run back home from school...

Btw, Google pedometer... sounds like everybody should know it... well, I don't!?

Btw # 2, is there a great difference in the receiver capacity of the different GPS, for instant NAVMAN vs Garmin? Or Garmin Forerunner 301 vs Forerunner 305?

The pedometer is the good stuff. I think it even works in Bern, too!

Works just about anywhere.

Hey Mark, now that you know what Google pedometer is, could you post the link to your commute run route (just curiosity, I am not planning a hit on you :-)

Works okay in the city, Vlad, but not so good once you get outside of Mkad (whatever that is).

Yet.

My house was just on the edge of darkness until a couple days ago. Now the imagery is so detailed I can even measure my trail runs.

Yes, they just added hi-res. images for your area, John, most of Harriman and Bear Mountain park too

Has anyone tested GlobalSat GH-601? Sirf Star III, waterproof, about as light as FR305 (72g), batteries last 16 hours ect. Nothing special, but price isn't bad (FR 205 costs here almost 3 times more).
http://www.globalsat.com.tw/eng/product_detail_000...
http://www.globalsat.com.tw/eng/awards_detail_0000...

Back to speedometers for sprinting. Until I left it on the Tallinn to Stockholm ferry, I used a garmin regularly. It has a running partner function that warns you if you fall behind or get ahead of a target pace. But the satellite is rarely accurate enough to give a smooth pace. So the fix will jump every couple of minutes, and suddenly it wants you to walk or to run at 30 km/hour. I gave up with it pretty quickly and used the gadget to measure distance and time. As a tangible measure of distance, it helped really well with my enthusiasm for training. I know that now that I don't have it. Was anyone else on that ferry and found it... nah I didn't think so.

I have to agree with some of previous posts – use of gadgets does not make anyone faster runner. I would even go as far as saying that having latest greatest model of running sneakers is not the key of becoming faster. Do gadgets or nice and “shiny” sneakers improve comfort level of workouts – no doubt. If gadgets and sneakers should have such an impact on quality of training then US should have been ranked #1 in middle/long distance running and Kenya should have been at the bottom of the pile.

However my Timex GPS gives me feedback about my running patterns I was not aware of. For example: when I go for 10+ mile runs at intensity level 2-3 I thought I run with constant speed from start to end. Actual mile splits were all over the board – from 7:30 (2,3,4th mile) to close to 9 mins (second to last mile).

I somewhat knew that I run slower uphill but I was not aware that even the smallest incline slows me down at least 1MPH.

Using GPS at local O-meets showed me that my speed between legs was twice as slow when I made a mistake or when I spiked.

Use of gadgets takes away guessing, assumptions. It shows exactly what you are doing, not what you think you are doing.

I am quite happy with Timex GPS set. All together it’s cheaper then newest Garmin by half. The drawback – it is not all in one unit .

I'm jumping into this late, but am grateful for the link to gmap-pedometer - that is wonderful! (I have done the driving my car around the route, but the latest route I was looking at wouldn't allow the car to take the path I wanted through the woods;-)

For elevation - I have previously discovered that google earth shows elevation (where the cursor is), and was able to determine a good appoximation of the climb on my routes.

I am a member of the south african team who went to jwoc this year. The local importers of garmin supplied myself and the other team member with a garmin forerunner 301 for training. The unit is great for running against and for logging training sessions. It records your heart-rate , speed, climb, distance covered ect. This can be downloaded to your pc and the route overlayed onto a map. It is a great tool for training and for comparing routes. It tends to struggle for signal in thick trees though but the newwer 305 is much better in this respect.