Garmin Forerunner 310XT
It isn’t available yet, but the new Garmin Foreunner 310Xt looks like an intersting bit of kit. I have a few GPS devices already and love my Garmin Foreunner 305, this just take it to another level, being more rugged and waterproof.
Finally, a GPS-enabled training device that isn’t afraid of the water. The rugged Forerunner 310XT is the triathlete’s indispensable training tool — a GPS-enabled, swim-proof trainer that tracks bike and run data and sends it wirelessly to your computer. This multi-sport device has up to 20 hours of battery life, tracks distance, pace and heart rate (optional), and goes from wrist to bike in seconds.
Could be good for swimming and windsurfing, as well as biking and other sports, and I may have to get my hands on one when it comes out. It seems to have most the features of the Forerunner 305, including the useful Virtual Training Partner. It is also slighter lighter, has a better battery life, is ANT power meter compatible, has wireless syncing capabilities and of course is properly waterproof. The Heart Rate Monitor appears to be an optional extra with this one though and it doesn’t appear to be able to store routes. This last omission seems a little od as the routes are used to allow the Virtual Training Partner to work , but otherwise it looks like a great piece of kit.
The Mountain Biking trails at Nant yr Arian have been riding really well these last few days thanks to the hot, dry weather. The puddles have all dried up, the surfaces are hard packed, fast and predictable so I decided that it was a good time to try to break my record around the Pendam Trail.
It’s only a short trail at just over 6 miles and my record stood at 38 minutes 51 seconds. I didn’t have this record breaking route recorded in my Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS system, but I did have a slower attempt from a few days ago which took me just over 41 minutes. So, I loaded this up and used that as my Virtual Training Partner to see if I could beat myself.
Trouble was, on that particualr day I’d started out pretty easy, then halfway around decided that I felt good and was doing a fairly respectable time so picked up the pace quite a bit. This meant that today as I was going for a record I would start out fast but then come the end would porbably start struggling just as my virtual training partner picked up his pace. It could prove painful!
I got up at 5am and was up at Pendam for around 5.30am just as the sun was peeping out from behind the mountains. I thought an early start would be my best bet as the temperature would be more comfortable. I did a quick warm up around the Hippity Hop section and then off I went.
The first couple of bits of single track were a little tricky as I kept getting blinded by the sun flashing in out out between the trees, but by the time I got to the first climb I was already about 0.1 miles up on my ‘partner’. The first climb wasn’t easy though as I just don’t think my legs were quite ready for it and a longer warm-up would probably have been useful. Not to worry I was still ahead at the top of the climb and headed off into the woods again. I gained quite a bit of time on the singletrack sections down to the Visitor Centre and was 0.4 miles ahead by the time I got there. Things were looking good, but this is where it would start to get hard.
The next little climb was also tough as my legs still weren’t quite awake and I lost a little bit of time but soon caught that up again on the Italian Job. I was now 0.5 miles ahead and my training partner was about to speed up. I kept on pushing and did well not to lose too much time around the lake and then I was onto the final climb. I know that I had pushed hard here last time so had to go for it so as not to lose out. I did lose a little bit of time on this last climb but then went for it down the Hippity Hops to catch up.
In the end I finished 0.61 miles ahead of my ‘training partner’ in a new record time of 37 minutes and 21 seconds. A whole 1 minute 30 seconds faster than my previous best time. My average speed was 10.2 mph, my average heart rate was 149 bpm and maximum was 166 bpm.
I will take a while to beat that again though. Conditions were perfect and I had no excuses, but I shall record that run in my GPS and use it to try to beat myself sometime in the future.
Pendam Trail. Topo, heart rate and speed trace
What a perfect day.. Summer’s here so I was awake as soon as it got light just after 4am! I got up at 4.30am and did a few hours work on various website projects for Pixelwave Web Design, and then as everyone else stirred at around 7am I stopped for breakfast and got ready to head off to another job.
I had an hours drive along the coast in the sunshine to get to this job, invigilating an exam for a biology student, which is actually quite an easy job. When I turn up at her house, her Mum provides me with my usual bacon sandwiches and coffee and then I sit on the sofa for a few hours making sure the student has everything that she needs and doesn’t use Google or Wikipedia (or anything else that she shoudn’t)! It gives me a chance to listen to some podcasts and catch up with things. Yesterday I even had time to start watching a lecture from the Stanford University on ‘Space: The hunt for hidden dimensions’.
Once the exam was over, I headed off to Brechfa Forest for a Mountain Bike ride around the Raven Trail. The sun was still shining and the trail had dried out quite a bit, even in comparison to last week, so was riding really well. There weren’t many people out there, but I was using my Virtual Training Partner to keep me motivated and although I didn’t try too hard, kept up a nice steady pace and did the entire trail in just over 90 minutes.
Next up was a leisurely drive back home where I discovered that Morgan, Kia, Shaun and my parents had all had a lovely day out, crab fishing in Aberdovey, wandering around a nature reserve and playing in the playground. The all seemed pretty happy and Morgan certainly seems to enjoy having Kia and Shaun to play with.
The wind was blowing so I then headed off for a lovely windsurf session on the seafront at Ynylsas. Amazingly I managed to time it so that I was out on the water during the windiest part of the day. It was then back home for dinner which Anna had lovingly cooked for me.
An action packed day but I did manage to do a fair bit of work as well.
I’d planned to go for a ride on my own yesterday anbd as i’d been singing the praises of my Garmin Forerunner 305 and some of the features on it I thought I should put the Virtual Training Partner feature to the test.
I hadn’t used this particular feature before which allows you to record a particular course and then race yourself around the course next time you do it. Whilst doing so the Garmin Forerunner will tell you how far you have to go to the end, how far ahead or behind your time you are, as well as all of the normal readings such as speed, time, distance, heart rate etc etc.
I headed off to ClimachX with my Mountain Bike and started my first lap of the Trail. The weather was perfect, still quite cool as it was early in the morning, but gorgeously sunny. The trails were still wet though. I didn’t go too hard as I was intending to go around a second time, but I was feeling good and did keep up a nice steady pace that wasn’t too shabby. My first lap was completed in a time of 58 mins 22 seconds, which isn’t bad for me and probably only the second time I’ve been under the hour (My best ever until this point was 56 mins 58 seconds).
I had rest in the car park for a while which gave me time to save the route I’d just done as a ‘Course’ which I could then use to compare against my next attempt at the trail. I got chatting to Ian as well and we decided to head off around the course again. I pressed the ‘Do Course’ button and off we went.
I’m never too good at getting going again once I’ve stopped and halfway up the first climb my Garmin was showing me that I was 100 feet behind my previous attempt. By the time I’d got to the top of the hill though I was 100 feet ahead and that’s when the challenge started. It’s really good, because once you’re ahead you just don’t want to drop back behind your virtual training partner so it provides a really good incentive to keep pushing a little harder. I was winning so there was no time to stop!
After the first two bits of singletrack I was up to around 300 feet ahead, and then by the halfway point I was around 0.15 miles ahead. My legs were beginning to feel it now though but I only had 4 miles or so left to go so had to keep pushing on. Just before the last singletrack climb I was just over .3 miles ahead, but this dropped back down to about 0.15 miles ahead at the top of the final descent. Only one thing for it, I was going to have to go for it on the descent. It worked, at the bottom I was still ahead and I even went hard down the last bit of fire0road and into the car park.
Stopped the watch and I’d beaten my Virtual Training Partner by 0.45 miles.. I was the winner! My actual time was 56 mins 17 seconds as well which was a record for me.
All in all it is a great training feature. I need to tweak what I can see on the screen at a glance as I’d like to be able to see the distance to the end, the time that I’m ahead or behind, my heart rate and total time but the screens are customisable so that should be easy to do. I also don’t think I’d use it if I was dropping too far behind myself. It’s all well and good to use it as a tool to motivate yourself, but if you’re having a bad day and are being beaten by your virtual training partner then it will only make you feel worse. At least, that’s the case for me. Other people well well find the opposite is true but I tend to try harder when I’m going well and just give up a bit if I’ve no chance of winning! Probably not quite the right attitude but its just the way I am.
If you have Garmin Forerunner or one of their other devices with a Virtual Training Partner feature, give it a go.
I seem to be becoming GPS enabled in all walks of life these days. It started with a Garmin eTrex that I originally bought to see how fast I could go whilst windsurfing and then started using for geocaching.
I had a TomTom One XL for my birthday which has been working well and is good fun in the car and now I’ve recently ordered a Garmin Forerunner 305.
Well, as usual at this time of year loads of people decide it is time to get fit and shed some of that Xmas excess, and I’m one of them so I have started running and mountain-biking in an attempt to regain some of my fitness. I thought if I splashed out on a GPS enabled heart-rate monitor to track my progress then I would have to keep at it in order to justify the expense.
It hasn’t arrived yet, but I shall write a little report on it here when I’ve had chance to try it out.
The prices of GPS enabled devices is dropping all the time, already the One XL that I got just a month ago has dropped in price by about 20%. Kind of annoying, but I guess I’ve had a months use out of it and technological gadgets always drop in price pretty quickly. Next on the list of GPS enabled devices will be a handheld with mapping capabilities… Maybe not or a while though!
