Sheep and Fields (Reviewing the TomTom Runner Cardio)

My run took me round behind the big mansion house, across the parkland where I made friends with a few sheep and rare breed cows, and down to the lake.

I then joined a path through the woodland, which apparently is home to eight different species of bat, although I didn't spot any, just lots of people walking their dog!

I repeated this loop twice finishing up back outside the front of the hall, just as it began to rain which was perfect timing 🙂

At the moment, I am using a 9-1 run/walk method to complete my runs- it helps to break them up ie. 6 x 10min sets, and makes sure I don't overload my hip. I ended up taking quite a lot of extra walking breaks too, mostly to take photos, but also because my legs weren't used to the uneven and slightly more undulating terrain! Definitely an indication that I need to do some more hill training and not run along the (flat) river paths in London quite so much.

This was my 2nd run testing out the TomTom Runner Cardio which monitors your heart rate through blood flow changes detected from changing light reflections through your wrist (and only the 1st one where I actually got it to work!). I haven't really had a chance to play around with all of the options yet, so these are just some of my initial thoughts. I will have a more in depth post after a few weeks of testing!

I had 60minutes on my training plan but must have stopped the watch a little early, as I was timing it on my phone as well.

Negatives

• The charger is quite tricky to attach/detach (and there are no instructions in the box).
• The watch comes in Demo Mode, and you need to change this before you can use it properly (again not stated in the box).
• The navigation of the menus is not particularly intuitive, but I suppose I am used to my Garmin. I went and watched a couple of videos on the TomTom website in the end to figure out what to do. 
• After a run, you don't get a summary screen appearing with your stats so I had no idea whether it had actually saved my workout. In order to find this out, you have to go back into the "I Want To Run" menu, as if you were about to race a previous session to try and beat your time.
• You can only see one piece of information on the screen at a time- duration/distance/average pace/current pace/heart rate- and have to scroll through with the button while running to view different options. 
• Uploading the data requires plugging the watch into your laptop/PC- there is an App you can download to your phone and then automatically Bluetooth workouts to it which is meant to make the process much quicker and easier. However, since this is only available for iPhones it isn't any use to me. EDIT- the Android app was apparently released on the 2nd August, so I will download it and give it a try!

Positives

• I like the chunky strap and the fastening is very adjustable as it has loads of holes. The watch also isn't too big (a bit larger than the FR10).
• If you run with a time/distance goal, then it buzzes at 50%, (and 90%) which is quite nice if you're doing an out and back loop so you know when to turn around.
• It's pretty quick to find satellites when you want to run, around 10-20seconds, which is much faster than my FR10. 
• The Heart Rate seems reasonably accurate at first glance, with no anomalous spikes in the data, and it is interesting to see that my regular runs are apparently mostly within what should be my "Speed" HR Zone (probably showing that I'm not very fit!). The zones are calculated based on your age/weight etc, but you can manually adjust them.
• You can sync TomTom MySports with MapMyRun (if you use that to log workouts) so your data will automatically be displayed on both dashboards. 

What do you look for in a running watch? Do you think training by Heart Rate is a useful method of measuring effort? Have you run past any sheep lately? 🙂

Beki x

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