GPS-enabled sports watches can be extremely capable training tools for runners, cyclists, hikers, skiers, windsurfers or even skydivers. An advanced sports GPS watch can accurately measure:

• Speed and Pace
• Overal Distance Travelled
• Elevation above sea-level

Many GPS watches can plot 3D maps over a traveled route which can later be transferred to PC or Mac allowing reviewing and analysis of your workout in detail.

Few would dispute the Garmin Forerunner GPS watches are currently the most sophisticated sports watches in this market today. While offering all the benefits of GPS, the Forerunner watches offer much more.

There are currently six GPS-capable Forerunner watch models, but what can you expect? The table below summarizes the the features found in most of the six Forerunner watch models:

Forerunner 101, 201, 301 models compared

The older Forerunner models are cheaper, support considerably greater memory storage capacity and support a lot of the features of the latest Forerunner watches, but these watches don’t offer support for a bike cadence, or foot pod devices and have a less receptive GPS antenna than it’s successors.

	Forerunner 101	Forerunner 201	Forerunner 301
Amazon Price	$69.99	$117.15	$79.99
Specifications
Unit dimensions, WxHxD	8.28 x 4.35 x 2.3 cm	8.28 x 4.35 x 1.8 cm	8.28 x 4.35 x 1.8 cm
Weight	74 g	78 g	78 g
PC transfer		(serial)	(USB)
Battery Type	2 AAAs	Rechargeable	Rechargeable
Battery Life	15 hours, typical	15 hours, typical	15 hours, typical
Heart Rate Support
Map Navigation
Display Data Fields	3	3	3
Bike speed/cadence support
Foot Pod support
Memory
Lap History	5000 laps	5000 laps	5000 laps
Waypoints	100	100	100
Routes	0	0	10
Software
Garmin Connect
Garmin Training Center
Features
Virtual Partner Feature
Courses
Auto Pause
Auto Lap
Auto Scroll
Sports Profiles
Simple Workouts
Advanced Workouts
Pace Alert
Time/distance Alert
Interval Training
Customizable Screen(s)

Forerunner 205, 305 and 405 models compared

The more modern versions of the Forerunner watches all support the SiRFstar-III giving them better GPS sensitivity and reduced signal-loss.

The Forerunner 405, has a more “standard” watch shape, but lacks navigation features. It features a smaller watch face, only displaying three data fields in the display, compared to four in the 205 and 305 Forerunner models.

	Forerunner 205	Forerunner 305	Forerunner 405
Amazon Price	$144.99	$169.99	269.91 (no hrm) $349.99 (hrm inc.)
Specifications
Unit dimensions, WxHxD	5.33 x 6.86 x 1.78 cm	5.33 x 6.86 x 1.78 cm	4.8 x 7.1 x 1.6 cm
Weight	77 g	77 g	60 g
PC transfer	(USB)	(USB)	(USB/Wireless)
Battery Type	Rechargeable	Rechargeable	Rechargeable
Battery Life	10 hours, typical	10 hours, typical	8 hours, typical
Heart Rate Support			(supported)
Map Navigation
Display Data Fields	4	4	3
Bike speed/cadence support
Foot Pod support
Device to Device Transfer
Touch Sensitive Bevel
Memory
Lap History	1000 laps	1000 laps	1000 laps
Waypoints	100	100	100
Routes	50	50	0
Software
Garmin Connect
Garmin Training Center
Mac Support			(coming soon)
Features
Virtual Partner Feature
Courses
Auto Pause
Auto Lap
Auto Scroll
Sports Profiles
Simple Workouts
Advanced Workouts
Pace Alert
Time/distance Alert
Interval Training
Customizable Screen(s)

The Great Australian Run took place on the weekend, attracting in the realm of 4000 participants to the 15 kilometer fun run held in the city of Melbourne, Australia.

The race had some big-name draw-cards including Ethiopian distance king Haile Gebrselassie, Australia’s Craig Mottram and Kenyan Patrick Makau.

Gebrselassie, suffering from jet-lag, still managed to dominate his rivals, wining the inaugural event in 42 minutes and 40 seconds.

Ethiopian great Haile Gebrselassie burnt off his rivals for a commanding win in the Great Australian Run through the city streets here on Sunday.

Makau trailed in 35 seconds behind Gebrselassie to take second in 43:15, with well performed Australia athlete Collis Birmingham beating Olympian Craig Mottram for third placing in 43:35.

Kenya’s two-time world marathon champion Catherine Ndereba easily won the the women’s event in 50:43, Ndereba, 36, was second behind Romania’s Constantina Dita in this year’s Beijing Olympic marathon, but finished well ahead of sixth-placed Dita in the shorter event.

New Zealand’s Alice Mason was second in 51:27 and third-placed Lisa Weightman was the leading Australian in 51:31.

Click on the following link for a more thorough report on the Great Australian Run of 2008.

Technorati Tags: Craig Mottram, Haile Gebrselassie

I just wanted to announce that I seem to have put down the wrong link in the last post.
I guess that’ll teach me to publish a post when I’m tired!
My apologies and here is the correct link to Ten Running Watches that Won’t Ruin Your Budget.

While any cheap digital watch with stopwatch timer are fine for the recreational fun runner or occasional jogger, runners who train seriously have their our own unique set of needs. Put another way, a cheap watch won’t cut it if you intend to:

• Race regularly, be it a track race, fun run or road race on tarmac or a muddy cross country event
• Do frequent Interval Training - sets of hard/easy cycles
• Keep a Training Diary and regularly update it - or at least try to

To satisfy these needs, there are three essentials features every runner intending to do serious training should look for when buying a sports watch. They are:

• A Stopwatch Chronograph with large, clear digits that are readable at arm’s length
• Lap Memory Storage - to record training data to enter in training diary
• Countdown Timer feature, preferably with varying length time intervals for timed intervals

Watch manufacturers do not always clearly publicize the amount of storage in Lap Watches, making it time-consuming to find out. We’ve taken the time to sort sports watches by their Lap Memory Capacities.

While we have tried to be all inclusive, this list is not. It will be a living, growing entity that we’ll add to over time. If you know of a great sports watch that you think should be on our list. We would love to know of any possible future inclusions. You may contact us here.

Meanwhile you may follow the link to view our collection of Sports Lap Watches, that can store session laps in memory for post-session retrieval and analysis.

Technorati Tags: Lap Watches

By grayskullduggery

A total of 1,808 triathletes began the 30th anniversary Ironman World Championship race this Saturday, the most prestigious in the Triathlon calendar.

The winner - 35-year-old triathlete Craig Alexander from Sydney, Australia who finished in eight hours, 17 minutes, 45 seconds for the 2.4 mile (3.8km) ocean swim, 112 mile (180km) cycle road race and 26.2 mile (42.2km) run.

Alexander, who finished second in last year in his first Hawaii Ironman, was in 11th position at the end of the 112-mile bicycle ride, but took the lead at the 18-mile mark in the run leg as the other competitors faded. Alexander became the third Australian man to win the prestigious title, after McCormack and Greg Welch in 1994

Eneko Llanos of Spain, finished second in 8:20:50, and Belgium’s Rutger Beke was third in 8:21:23. Last years winner Chris McCormack suffered a mechanical problem that forced him out in the cycling stage.

Chrissie Wellington of Britain, overcame a puncture that cost her time in the cycling leg, but recovered to win her second straight women’s title in 9:06:23. Austrian Yvonne Van Vlerken was second in 9:21:20, and Germany’s Sandra Wallenhorst was third in 9:22:52

The competitors were challenged by gusty cross wind and heat during the ride through barren lava fields under bright, sunny conditions.

A new service to promote youth running and fitness in the US has just been launched by Running USA.

The website features a Youth Running Programs Directory which lists information about youth running programs around the country. It lets you to add your own program and allows you to search for programs by city, state age group or venue.

If you are interested in participating in a youth event, the event calendar lets you search for upcoming running events for youths in all areas.

The resources page contains topics of interest on the benefits of running for youth. The key theme seems to be on the benefits of running and exercise for fighting the rampant obesity crisis in the states. There is also a lot of information provided on running and conducting your own your local kids running event.

Perhaps one of the most exciting benefits for communities is that eight dedicated and experienced “Running Rocks Ambassadors” are profiled on the Youth Program Ambassadors / Mentors page accessed from the Resources section and are available to speak at national, state or school district forums on the proven benefits of low cost running-based fitness programs.

The running rocks website is located here.

A more complete summary on the new Running Rocks Website can be found on the Cool Running Website found here.

Gebrselassie has pulled off his third consecutive Berlin Marathon Win in a new word record time of 2:03:59 taking 27 seconds of his own world record set on the same course in 2007.

Gebrselassie won ahead of Kenyans James Kwambai (2:05:36) and Charles Kamathi (2:07.48).

Making the most of perfect conditions, the Ethiopian passed the halfway mark in 1:02:05 then shifted up a gear to record the second half in 1:01:54 and claim his 26th career world record.

Gebrselassie will be back in Berlin to run the marathon at the world championships next year, which will take place on a different course.

German Irina Mikitenko, took out the women’s race and became the fourth fastest women in history with 2:19:19 hours. Only Briton Paula Radcliffe (2:15:25), Catherine Ndereba of Kenya (2:18.47) und Mizuki Noguchi of Japan (2:19.12) have run faster.

Technorati Tags: Berlin Marathon 2008, Marathon, World Record

I just posted a new article on training session types for endurance athletes that should be interesting to those of you who aspire to be long distance runners. In it I give a run-down of 6 fundamental types of training that are cornerstone in the programs of the most successful elite runners: The long-run, Intervals, Hills, Tempo Runs, Fartlek and Racing.

I do not mention anything about planning a structured training program which is more important, but I intend to address this in a future article.

Technorati Tags: article, Running, training

We have just added an articles section to the site. Initially most of the topics will be on training tips for endurance athletes (from an athlete’s perspective) but in future this area will expand to include a whole range of sports related topics.
Rod

Technorati Tags: website admin