And enter my bonus-time treat to myself… a shiny new Garmin!

After reading bad reviews of the Nike GPS, and deciding I didn’t want a gigantic watch weighing down my rather small wrist, I settled on the Garmin FR70. Decision made, should be easy now right? Hmm, not so much. Being in New Zealand things often end up costing so much more. I could see the US stores and what they sell them for in USD – so I convert it to NZD, only to find that what it would cost me at a shop here is far more than that. I know it costs more to ship here and it is a smaller market, but I’m really not willing to suck up an extra $100 because of that. So, I bought it from Wiggle. I took a bit of a risk (although the triathlete has made many purchases without any issues) and decided waiting for a Garmin on back-order would be better than paying through the nose in NZ.
And it worked out in my favour! Turns out the back-order warning wasn’t such a big deal and it arrived about 2 weeks after ordering. As I was expecting this to be at least a month I was stoked. I’d decided that waiting for a month was fine with where I was at in terms of training. But now I have it? I’m very happy I do. Still need to sort out my calibration, as it is under-tracking me by about 30m per KM, but that should be an easy fix. I’ve linked it up with the adidas MiCoach foot-pod and heart rate monitor and they are connecting fine.
Am I happy? Yes! I was worried about the size of the watch after running using a Timex IronMan watch (HUGE), but the women’s style is fairly streamlined and sits nicely on my small wrist. I did have a reaction to the watch strap the first time I wore it, but after cleaning it with some slightly soapy water it hasn’t been an issue since.
Do I wish I’d gone for the bells-and-whistles GPS watch? Nope, I’m pretty happy with the data this one can provide, and it is connecting fine with the foot-pod. I also really like the customisable screens so I can see exactly what I want (time, distance, HR, pace) and get rid of those that I’m not too fussed about (calories!).
A good purchase and a great aid to my training. I only wish I had done this before I went to the US!