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 how much Lap Memory Storage a watch can hold, making it time-consuming to find out, so we've taken the time to sort sports watches by their Lap Memory capacities.

Here's what we've come up with: