Statto and Garmin Forerunner - Perfect Partners!

I purchased my first Forerunner in October 2006 – the 205 model (no HR monitor). I found this a great way to manage my pace(*) in both training and racing. As a novice racer, I found it particularly useful to have a way of not running too fast in the early stages and still find it useful in this respect, despite having much more race experience!

In August 2007, I upgraded to the 305 model (identical to 205, but + HR monitor). This now allowed me to train within HR zones which I have found to be very useful in running at the right intensities for easy, recovery and long runs. I don’t tend to look at the HR reading during speedwork, but I do look at the data afterwards. This can tell you if you were pushing too hard, or perhaps did a 5k workout instead of a 10k one!

It’s not generally recommended to use HR as a means of gauging race effort. I agree up to point, but I found, once I had a reasonable race history from the watch, I could retrospectively identify model HR profiles for different race-distances based upon best performances.

For example, in a 10k, I would now typically aim to be at about 170 bpm (93% of HR max) after about 2k. I would then maintain this effort for most of the rest of the race, with a push up towards HR max in the final km. On more undulating courses you need to be more flexible, but I have found it pays to minimise the variation.

Naturally, you should not be a slave to these methods. Sometimes you find your true level of current race fitness by taking risks! One final note on this subject - warm weather racing. These model HR profiles are very useful on hot days as a way of running appropriate paces for the conditions. You will find your HR wil be much higher for a given pace on hot days.

I upgraded again to the FR405 in the Summer of 2008. Apart from being much smaller (which could be viewed as +ve or –ve from a display-size p.o.v.) essentially offers the same specification and functionality as the 205/305. However, the 405 does seems to have the following advantages

> GPS signal is attained more quickly than on older models.
> Doesn’t seem to suffer from ‘lock-up’ problems

I have also found two extended uses for my Garmin Forerunners. The first is, in association with the Motion Based web site, the ability to generate an objective measure of the how undulating a route is (see my hill-ranking table). The second is a means of calculating base running fitness by comparing the average HR over an entire run with the average speed attained and plotting the data over time. This is a measure of how efficiently you are running. I have also found this method can help identify on-coming illness, tiredness, stress or over-training, as the scores generated tend to decline in these contexts.

(*)
NB: to any FR users, you need to set to measure AVERAGE PACE not PACE, as the latter is from moment-to-moment and the device is not capable of producing meaningful results for this.