<p><img alt=”” class=”floatLeft” height=”180″ src=”http://www.iammike.org/images/in-posts/garmin-910-xt.jpeg” width=”180″/>After many years of getting by and pulling my hair out with a semi-functional (it stopped working correctly after about two years, after which I waited for “a new level” of device for another three) <a href=”http://www8.garmin.com/products/forerunner205/”>Garmin Forerunner 205</a>, Garmin has answered my prayers and made the perfect device for me.</p>
<p>I’ve waited patiently, they announced the new device in the middle of last year, have continuously moved release dates around (was supposed to be last year, then mid-March, then early March, and then it finally went available out of the blue at the end of February) so I scooped it up on Amazon with next-day shipping.</p>
<p>It arrived, I unboxed it while taking a crap (couldn’t wait), got it and my bike all setup with the <a href=”http://amzn.to/zO7XR0″>quick release kit</a> Heather bought me for my birthday (she really wanted to get me the watch, but chose not to after all the release date shenanigans), plugged in a bunch of information regarding myself and my bike, and an hour later was off.</p>
<p>It’s a nifty little device. It has all the features of my earlier bare-bones model, but adds the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>1/2 the size. The old model looks like a small laptop attached to your wrist. This new one is still big, but much closer to a larger watch.</li>
<li>Waterproof and full support of indoor swimming pools. Also huge for a tri-sport athlete. Trying to count laps in a pool is a difficult task. Trying to time laps in the pool with terrible eyes is even worse. Suffice to say, the thing most on my mind when I swim is my counts. I hate that. No more.</li>
<li>Support of <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANT%2B”>ANT+</a> devices. That really just means wireless athletic add-ons. Some examples: a <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_power_meter”>power meter</a> (a bike tool that tells you how many watts your produce), a <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclocomputer#The_cadence_sensor”>cadence sensor</a> (another bike tool for telling you your pedal rate), a <a href=”http://amzn.to/xVaYad”>body composition scale</a> (can read all sorts of health-related data and push it straight to the device… I really want one, but can’t justify the price), a wireless syncing fob (my workout data is now uploaded immediately upon entering the house), and a <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_rate_monitor”>heart rate monitor</a>… More on that…</li>
<li>A heart rate monitor. I’ve never used one. Ever. For someone who does as much cardio crap as me, that’s pretty much unheard of. I don’t know my max heart rate (I’ll Google how to figure that out) so I used their estimate), but my resting is right around 50 (I’ve seen 48 and 52 recently so I figured that was a nice average). Those two numbers allow the device to tell me how hard I’m working at any given point. To give the human body some credit, I had a good idea of what my HR would be each time I took a look, but still, it’s neat to track.</li>
</ul>
<p>Last night was a fairly solid ride. I didn’t push it incredibly hard, but it also wasn’t a cruise. It was dark out so I did have to use 1-2MPH of caution, but I came home winded as if I hadn’t. <a href=”http://bit.ly/xu8BPF”>My average rate was 126 and my max was 171</a>. I don’t have much to compare that to, but I did dig up an old GPS log from a friend who did a 5hr mountain ride and he averaged 147 with a max of 212. I don’t know what all that means, but I do know his max of 212 is ridiculous and I don’t think in a good or bad way… Probably slightly more on the bad side if anything; theoretical max should be around 220-age (so 190 for me). An increased max heart rate isn’t something training brings and he’s in better cycling shape than me so he’s about to pop or his sensor wasn’t reading well.</p>
<p>So I’ve got a new tool. I’m very excited to be using it. I’m very excited to figure out what my heart rate means and I really enjoy the “training effect” value (a 1.0-5.0 scale ranging from “maintaining” to “overreaching”) Garmin attaches to my workout based on the data.</p>
<p>Gone are the days where I struggle for 5-15 minutes following each workout to sync my data, gone are the days where I get no beeping from my device (useful for training), and welcome are the days of effortless data transfer, and multi-sport support.</p>
Garmin Forerunner 910XT
Comments
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Heart rates vary a lot. My max is over 200 when the standard formula says it should be 185. My average heart rate on an easy spin ride is 145 or so. On a pretty hard ride, it’s around 170. In a race, it might be 185. Those averages don’t really seem to go down with training. You just get faster instead.
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Yeah, I’m thinking my max is pretty spot-on 190 or so. 3K today had me maxing at 178 and that was pretty darn close to 100% effort. 96%, which that comes out to is probably pretty accurate.
Excited to do some research into what that all means. I guess it means I have a pretty big f’ing pump in there.
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I’ve been looking for something to work as a lap counter for the past year or so. My pool workouts have been relatively easy to keep track of so far since I break it up by 100m or 200m intervals, but to prepare for triathlons I want to start doing straight through distance. Ryan bought me the Up wristband (by Jawbone) for Christmas- it was supposed to be able to keep track of distance and pace while swimming (as well as running and any other kind of workout you wanted to record). Instead it died after my first pool workout with it; apparently it wasn’t as water resistant as Jawbone claimed. So that was awesome.
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