Tips for using my Garmin watch (first time)

McDonnellDean

Hi,

I recently decided to loose some weight. I started at 135kg and through treadmill and diet I am down to 120kg... yay

Anyhoo, about 3 weeks ago I decided to go jogging outside. I made it up to 3km without having to walk, so far so good.

Because of this I decided to buy a Garmin 210, I've been really enjoying jogging (soreness aside) and really feel its working for me so I want to up the ante a bit and keep track of my improvements or dips.

One of the things I want to try on my first run tonight with it is to do the 3 / 3.5 walk for a bit and then see can I crack out another 1 / 1.5 km.

And so to the question.

Do I leave the watch running for the duration of the walk or do I stop it? Ultimately the goal is to run 10K by some stage mid next year so my gut feeling to track overall distances running or not?

Rogue Runner

Firstly, well done. I'd leave it on for the whole distance. You wouldnt be stopping and starting it normally so why start now. Regardless of how you do now you'll see how much you've come on as you improve and this first outing will provide an initial benchmark

McDonnellDean

Cheers, that's what I thought. Ultimately 10k would be 10k no matter which way you did it so it makes complete sense I just wasn't sure.

lway

+1 on the well done.

I was in a similar position to you when I started running, my advice would be to leave it on for the whole time, perhaps you can hit the lap button when you stop running that way you have a record on Garmin Connect of how far you have run and hit it again when you start running again. That way you can see how far you have run versus walked. I do this when i'm doing 400m repeats at the track on my 210.

That way you can see your overall distance as well as having a breakdown of your run vs walk times + distances.

McDonnellDean

lway wrote: »

+1 on the well done.

I was in a similar position to you when I started running, my advice would be to leave it on for the whole time, perhaps you can hit the lap button when you stop running that way you have a record on Garmin Connect of how far you have run and hit it again when you start running again. That way you can see how far you have run versus walked. I do this when i'm doing 400m repeats at the track on my 210.

That way you can see your overall distance as well as having a breakdown of your run vs walk times + distances.

Sweet! Would this screw with the GPS data, pressing lap I mean? It would be great to use that function as a run walk cycler. My only concern is I will actually be lapping myself (its a 3.5k block I run around)

pointer28

No difference to the GPS data, it just divides the workout into sections (laps).

That way you'll know Lap 1 was X km's in X mins at X pace, Lap 2 was etc etc.

You'll then get to see all this on Garmin Connect and hopefully you'll be able to look back at it and see how far you've come.

Well done by the way.

McDonnellDean

Great,

So I think it's settled then. I'll use the lap timer to record walks / runs as I am not interested in laps (total distances is really what I want)

Cheers all,

Thanks for the kind words too!

Horseboxhead

Do you mind me asking where you got your watch?, as i am currently looking to purchase one , and do not have a huge budget, but i know i need it to improve my running.

McDonnellDean

I got mine from Amazon, specifically, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-Mens-Heart-Rate-Monitor/dp/B003EGC47Y/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1382621976&sr=8-5&keywords=garmin+210