I cut my nine-mile run to 3 miles this morning because we’re supposed to be going up to Bangor to see my parents.
Well in the hour since I got back I’ve been sitting around on the computer on Facebook eating leftover cake. Uhhh … probably could have done that 9-mile run after all. 
I’m waiting on my sweet husband to get ready.
So the other day, that miserable hot day when I drenched myself with Jen’s garden house, my heart rate monitor watch decided that it was not as waterproof as advertised. None of the buttons worked and it kept resetting the chronometer back to 00:00.
This was annoying.
For some runners, a GPS watch is essential equipment. I have not broken down and bought one yet. I have labored over this a lot. I have my iPhone for tracking distance, and I have a $40 Timex stop watch and heart rate monitor for tracking my heart rate.
This to me was the cheapest solution to “I need something that tells me my heart rate” and “I don’t want to spend a lot of money to get a device that does something I can already do.”
It’s satisfied me for awhile. But the system is imperfect. And despite having taken that watch in the pool early in its (short) life, it’s demonstrated that its now very sensitive to heavy sweat and moisture.
Things that are perfect about my iPhone:
- It’s a phone.
- I already own it.
- It has bluetooth music (essential!)
- It’s pretty accurate.
- It can record heart rate and cadence if I bought the right adapters.
Things that are not perfect about my iPhone:
- It is too big to wear on my wrist.
(And a few other things about how I keep dropping it and some of the buttons don’t work any more due to sweat and dust and abuse, but that’s beside the point.)
Heart rate data is only meaningful to me if I can see it, which I can’t if I use the iPhone to record it. And a small part of me would like to see pace data, but then again, I think there are disadvantages to seeing that too.
So I came home that day and googled it:
ooo. that’s a good sign.
Introducing, Pebble:
It’s a kick-starter project, so it’s not available for sale yet. But it looks like exactly the thing that I thought up. I’m so smart.
You can pre-order it at $150, but I don’t see a time when they say they are going to start shipping. So I think I will put up with my temperamental Timex until I see some dates.
The last watch I wrote about, the Motorola one that doubled as a GPS watch and MP3 player, I never got. They gave some samples to other bloggers I follow and they did not seem impressed with it. Plus, it was pricey and you couldn’t swim with it.