Aww yeah. It's the Garmin Forerunner.
Any triathlete worth her salt's gotta invest in one of these eventually, and I felt really left out on all the brick workouts, with everyone's wrists chirping away, and I with but a humble heartrate monitor. This puppy will keep track of your mileage, your heart rate, your calories, and split it up into biking and running too. (Dag!)
I finally got mine, since they've come out with a waterproof model (add swimming to the mix!), so the 303 is now half off, brand new on Amazon. Goooo budget.
When I took the watch out of the box, I whispered to it, "You're from the future!" No joke.
So far, it's been super helpful for this whole marathon training spiel. I get a very accurate picture of my workouts, my progress, and my improvement. I just have to make sure I charge it every time... it died mid longrun the other week, which was a super bummer.
As I'm lazy, and my computer is on death's door anyway, I haven't installed the software that allows me to upload and analyze my data. But I bet you it's totally awesome. Especially insofar as it's supposed to show elevation too. That makes a big difference when it comes to trail running... you're bound to go a bit slower. Will make me feel like less of a loser.
So, for the Garmin watch, I say: indispensable, though bulky. Love it!
My other new recent gadget that gets low marks is my scale. Oh scale, you enemy to women everywhere. I've shed pounds through triathlon training in the past, but seem to be holding pretty steady these days, and while I fit into my clothes well, I can't help but feel haunted by my weight hovering at that irritating 150 mark. So I figured perhaps I'd feel better if I got a scale that measured body fat, as I'm guessing my incredible density is due to lotsa muscle. (For someone who's 5'6", my weight is pretty high.) Best compliment I ever got was at the Red Cross, where they guessed, by looks, that I was around 130 lbs. Yeah right.
To my dismay, the scale I got indicates that I'm overweight, with my body fat up over 35%, just a few percentage points below my muscle. This sent me into a very typical female spiral of body hate. Okay, I have some padding, but I'm absolutely not overweight! The whole point of this was to put my weight into perspective, but now I just feel way more insecure. Scales are bad enough, but this one literally tells you "you're fat". Fuck you, scale.
Of course, now I look online and it says that these electronic fat scales are super variable and can't be trusted. And mine was cheapo from Amazon. And I have to say, when I switch my settings from female to male, it default gives me lower body fat. WTF? How does that make sense? I suspect I'm manlier than most women, so I choose to read it that way. And at least the weight seems accurate... so I can keep track of something with it.
So we had a big gadget win and a big gadget fail. Oh technology, you are a blessing and a curse!
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