An occasional series - the personal musings of a novice runner.

I don't know where we stand in terms of product placement on the GCH web-site and if there are any rules forbidding same, but if such exist, I've probably broken them several times before, so here we go again.

Most people who run to any great degree probably run with a wrist-watch of some sort. Certainly, as you step up in terms of running and racing seriously, at some point you are probably going to have to immerse yourself in the wonderful world of timings for input into a training log to record your endurance/stamina/speed/sprint workouts and the appropriate pace for your race target time for recovery, long, easy, steady-state and tempo training runs and of course the dreaded tempo intervals.

I've been using a basic model Polar stopwatch for a couple of years now (one of the FSX series), but I recently made the big technological leap to a fully-fledged GPS-enabled, all-singing, all-dancing Garmin watch (the latest and greatest Forerunner 405 model) with heart-rate monitor and a range of other bells and whistles besides. A small amount of research on the internet will probably throw up any number of discussion-board debates as to the best option in this particular field (see http://www.boards.ie for starters), and I certainly couldn't or wouldn't advise one way or the other. I have heard though that some of the elite athletes in GCH favour the Garmin Forerunner, so that in itself is a pretty good recommendation.

Some points worth making however:

Pricing - the price of the Garmin Forerunner 405 is clearly falling rapidly since it came on the market at €350+ about 12 months ago. If you are in the market to make a purchase, I would think that you should expect to pay no more than €200-€250 (including VAT/delivery) wherever you source yours from and this should include the Heart Rate Monitor and ANT stick bundle. For what it's worth, I purchased mine online at: http://www.elara.ie who are Irish-based and seem to be fairly competitive against the UK-based online electrical goods stores and eBay power-sellers.

Technology - one potential disaster (for me anyhow!) - the "training centre" software provided for synching watch data to a computer is not yet compatible with the Apple Mac and OS-X (the following statement currently appears on: http://www.garmin.com/forerunner405: "Note – Mac support for the ANT Agent is scheduled for the First Quarter 2009.") Bummer that - sort this one out soon Garmin folks please!

Usability - where to start? As with all at first seemingly complicated devices, you should read the manual fully (you'd be suprised what you'll actually find out!) and be sure to configure your watch properly from the start (you may for example not be happy to accept default metric units and prefer to switch over to the statute setting (miles, etc.)). I couldn't possibly give a full break down of all the functionality and usability features, but one usability tip - there is a setting to configure the sensitivity of the bezel control. I have mine currently on the "Low" setting - seems to work well for me. Quite good to know that if your finger is a bit heavy to the touch! Also, you may want to get into the habit of locking the bezel control when out running to prevent against your training data screen getting pushed out of the way.

The following is by far the best online resource to get you up and running quickly with this particular watch: http://www8.garmin.com/learningcenter/training/forerunner405/

Speaking of HRMs, as advertised elsewhere, the Galway Triathlon Club are hosting a specific talk on HRM training as part of their triathlon training lecture series starting this week. Details are as follows:

Learning to train effectively using the right amount of effort for each session is an important skill for any athlete, beginner or elite. This presentation covers a wide range of subjects including basic Physiology, Heart Rate Monitors, Heart Rate Range, Lactate Threshold, Heart Rate and Heart Rate Zones.

Speaker: Ray Glynn, Galway Tri Club Head Coach
Venue: Menlo Park Hotel
Date: Monday 2nd February 2009, 7:30pm
Cost: €5 (or €20 to attend the entire lecture series)

Could be a good one to go to if you want to get the most out of an expensive device like the Forerunner.

As a final word, despite all that has been said above, there is another train of thought in running circles which advises against becoming too much of a slave to timing devices when either out on a training run or even while racing. Run freely is sometimes better advice for some of us average runners who may easily get too caught up and distracted by negative splits, irregular running intervals and so on. Proceed with caution may be a good compromise here.

Be careful out on those roads...