2/28 Run, Workout, and Tech4O Watch Review, Part I

Decided not to go to the gym Friday night and workout, instead I took it as a rest day. Val and I decided to try to use the child care at the gym on Saturday so we could both get some workouts/runs in.

Got Kaitlyn some breakfast, and went to the gym. The child care is 2 hours for $3 (and you can get cheaper if you buy in bulk) which is a pretty good deal. Kaitlyn seemed to have a good time, and settled in pretty well, so I think we'll be trying this again. The two hour limit is a challenge for me if I do a workout and a run, but Val was done earlier than me and took Kaitlyn home and let me finish my run.

Warmed up on the treadmill, which was a change, since I normally use the bike. I wanted to try to get my new Tech4o Men's Accelerator Pulse watch calibrated. The fine folks at Tech4o contacted me and sent me this to review a few weeks ago. I've been procrastinating about it since I got the Garmin around the same time, and I was going to have to calibrate this critter. And walking a couple hundred yards, and then running a couple hundred yards was so difficult. :)

I took a note of the number of steps I was at, walked .2 miles, made a note, and repeated for .2 miles at 6.0 (since that seems to be closes to my current speed). Using the cool tool (bottom left, labeled See Your Results) It looked like 30 walk, and 34 run. I had estimated 28 for the walk when I walked to the bus on Friday and it came out close, so I'll try it again and see what we get.

The watch has the accelerometer that records stride in the watch itself instead of a foot pod, which adds to its convenience factor. I did notice that the step count seems a little choppy, and it can be hard to get a good feel for how many you are currently at when moving. It seems a little hard to stop and start as well, especially compared to the Gamin 405 I'm currently using. The heartrate strap is bulkier than the one that comes with the Garmin, but not obnoxiously so, and is reasonably comfortable.

Did my new workout, adding two sets of weight assisted pull ups (5@54, 5@60). Starting to get a a handle on the routine, and feel more comfortable with it.

There was a basketball team in the functional training room doing some crazy plyometric drills. A little distracting in both the good and bad ways.

I did the pullups again because I'm considering doing the 100 Day Challenge at Butterflies and Running Shoes. (started on the 20th of Feb, but never too late to join in) It might help me stay focused on the non running components of my fitness routine. I'm thinking; lose 10 lbs, pass an Army PFT (42 push ups in 2 min., 52 sit ups in 2 min.) again, bodyweight pull ups (between 1 and 5), reduce my sodium intake, increase my protein intake (more on those last two in my next blog entry.) Still thinking about it, but leaning strongly in favor. :)

After I was done, and Val rejoined me, she 'challenged' me to a stair climb session. She was curious to see if we would generate the same wattage during a session. We did 5 minutes, and yes, we generate the same wattage. I bumped the speed up to 60 from 40 for this one and managed to get 18 flights of stairs in in 5 minutes. I was really working hard for the last two minutes, which surprised me a little. Great quad workout. Noticed that my stair climber, and the ones on either side of me, Vals and an empty one seemed to be picking up the signal from the HR monitor provided by Tech4O. A potential added benefit to the watch.

Ran 7 miles on the treadmill @ 1% and 6.1 mph. I felt like I was pretty fresh and could push a little without bumping my HR too high so I did 6.1 instead of 6.0 like I did on Wednesday. Looks like the HR strap that comes with the Accelerator Pulse is Polar compatible, or at least compatible with the Precor treadmills my gym uses. It seems to be a touch slower to respond on the treadmill than on the watch, but it definitely works. Never got my HR above 160, which is too high, normally, but the pace is reasonable for comparison. I think I biffed the pace length estimate for running since it came up pretty significantly short. (Something like 6.47 for the 7 miles.)(Which is why this is a Part I review) Next time I go to the gym I'll recalibrate it and try again.

I'm not thrilled with the interface on the watch itself, it's not very intuitive. The manual could be written a little less like a technical manual, and more like a user manual. I'm also a little annoyed with the fact that they calculate max HR instead of letting you input it (don't they know it's not that accurate for a big chunk of the population). I think there's a way to do a custom HR zone for warnings, but that's an ongoing bit of research. You can't download any data to the computer for analysis, but if all you are using right now is a sports watch you aren't going to miss that.

All of that being said, if I didn't have a Garmin, I'd consider getting one. For $89.99 you get a HR monitor with sports watch functionality at the minimum. That's at least comparable to other products on the market, and cheaper in a large number of cases. I think that once I get the pedometer/accelerometer calibrated, then it's value goes up even more. Then you can get accurate distance/speed estimates for your training for a great price. I'll comeback and give the additional features and distance/pace settings a better review in a future entry.

Thanks to The Great Fitness Experiment for a link to this fascinating article about 'doing it perfectly' for a month.