Running Indoors
Running Outdoors
Running is always for a purpose, and to achieve your purpose you need to know if you are making pogress.
Running Watches monitor your running every step of the way whatever its intention - jogging to keep fit, cross-training for fitness in another sport or activity, or training for competitive racing - to let you know what you have done and where you can get to.
- Entry-level Running Watches (e.g. the Casio Phys STR-400) monitor time elapsed calories burned and with alarms for pre-set targets or limits reached. They are therefore very informative about the effort you are putting in and the effect of your exertions.
- Advanced-level Running Watches (e.g. the Suunto T4 Marathon Pack) have Virtual Coach functions, which monitor your progress against your personal details and allow you to tailor your training targets against your current performance levels - a combined inspiration and guardian, just like a real coach.
- Endurance Running Watches (e.g. the Suunto T6) can simulate a running competitor or partner and are linked to foot PODs, which can record distance with 98% accuracy using inertia sensors. The T6 can provide laboratory standard information about significant body parameters - oxygen consumption, energy consumption, respiration rate, heart rate and ventilation - and can export the data wirelessly to a PC to allow you to study your running performance graphically for a given period of time.
- Global Positioning System (GPS) Running Watches (e.g. the Suunto X9i, the Garmin Forerunner 305) incorporate all the functions of the other watches but can also plot and log your location, distance travelled and altitude variations and download the information to a PC for analysis and then plan your training schedules going forward.
