I’ve been given a new toy to play with.
Only temporarily, but it’s still making me get off my backside and back out running. Those fabulous people at Running Bug wanted people to give the Tom Tom Runner Cardio a try and I’m one of the lucky ones to get my mitts on one.
I’ve only had it a week, and yes, the weather hasn’t been so kind, so I’ve stuck to the treadmill so far, but even so, I’m rather enjoying it.
Normally, my running tracker of choice is Endomondo – originally because I was bamboozled by the number of apps on offer and this is the one my husband used. Whilst his use of it has deteriorated, I upgraded to the Pro version and have been using it for 3 years.
It’s good, but just because something’s good, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore other options. And, it’s limited. It can’t monitor my heart rate, if you miss it shouting your race pace at you (often because a big truck has just gone past) it’s a pain to have to stop, try and wrestle your phone out of your pants pocket without pulling your earphones out of your ears or the phone itself and it wastes time you could be running.
So, though I can’t do a comprehensive review yet, let’s take a look at the watch.
Ohhh pretty.
It fits like a normal watch – no faffing around with straps anywhere else, and though it feels a little clunky in some respects (my personal day to day watch is certainly smaller) it’s not uncomfortable, or distracting.
In fact I’ve had mine on whilst doing a weights set before I went for a run and even a circuits session before I hit the treadmill, and didn’t notice it.
The bulkiness is caused, as you’d expect from the important bits underneath. The watch not only monitors your heart rate, it also has a GPS tracker, so it can track you, your route, your lap times and even, map your last run. Fancy beating your PB? This sounds like a good place to start.
It’s heart rate monitor is fun too – it can tell from your heart rate which sort of training you’re doing – even noticing when I’ve pushed to a sprint on the treadmill.
So, over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be giving this a go – both indoors and outdoors and seeing how it compares to my usual tracking app, just in time for my self imposed deadline of hitting half marathon distance runs by October.
Wish me luck!