<div class="header-image"></div> <table class="table-header"> <thead> <tr> <th colspan="2"></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>2024-05-13</td> <td style="text-align: right;"><a href="About.md" class="internal-link">About</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> # New Running Gear Part 2: New Watch!  I've gone through a few fitness bands and watches at this point. I started with a couple of different FitBits, which I wouldn't recommend to anyone. The UI of the FitBit was good, but the hardware was terrible. My requirements of a fitness watch are pretty standard fare I think: - It needs a built in GPS to track my runs - a music player capable of playing mp3s via bluetooth, that I can upload to the watch manually - a heartrate monitor that will track my heartrate and display it currently while running, and graph it out for later analysis - a pace monitor that will do the same. That's really it. Anything else is nice, but superfluous in my mind. The last FitBit I bought had all of these abilities, but whenever I tracked a run while listening to music at the same time, the watch would just reboot, and I'd lose that run, or at least anything after it crashed. Plus I'd have to go through the trouble of connecting the earbuds and starting my playlist again while running. Getting music on the thing was a pain too. It *only* would transfer music through a Fitbit app run on a Windows 10 machine. And because I use Linux, I had to run Windows 10 on a VM and use the app that way. It worked, but was terribly inconvenient. So my GF at the time (now my wife) bought me a Garmin Venu sq. This was much better. 1st, the watch could just connect to my laptop as a storage device, which made it very easy to transfer music. 2nd, it didn't crash. I didn't like the UI as much, but I didn't really care about that. I just wanted the thing to work. I also was not a fan of the touchscreen. The Fitbit had this too, and I didn't like it there either. I found it a pain to navigate and select, *particularly with sweaty fingers during a run*. It also had a habit of scrolling and changing screens when wearing long sleeves. But it was the best watch I had used to this point, and my complaints were pretty minor. I've been using that watch for 4 years now. The battery was never great, but it's been getting worse. At one point I tried to go for a 12-14 km run, and the watch died after 10. It was half charged when I set out. So I decided to reward myself from my injury recovery with some new gear. I got some [new shoes](2024-05-12%20New%20Running%20Gear%20Part%201%20New%20Shoes!.md), and thought I needed a new watch too. I originally wanted the Forerunner 245, but I read in some reviews that the FR 255 made a substantial improvement in battery life, so I ultimately decided to go with that. The first thing I want to talk about is the screen. OMG the screen! It's always on, but uses a MIPS screen. Before I bought the watch, I had no idea what that was. It apparently uses far less power, which I'm guessing was the secret ingredient for the improved battery life. But how it works is it *reflects* light rather than produces light. So you can see it perfectly in sunlight, and in well lit conditions inside. There *is* a backlight that comes on when it senses your wrist turning, but that is configurable too. And I discovered that by default, the backlight is disabled during activities, like running. And yet, because I was outside in the daylight, it was super bright, and I could see it *perfectly well*! Better, much better even, than the OLED display of the Venu! What technological wizardry *is* this?? The second thing, was that *all* the relevant data was displayed for me on a single screen. It shows my total distance run, my current pace, and my heartrate. On the Venu, I had to flip around using the touchscreen to see my HR or pace. I couldn't see them both at once. But aside from this, at every kilometre, a voice comes on telling me how many kilometres I've run and the pace kept for that kilometre. And, like other midrange watches from Garmin, there is no touchscreen. Navigation is done completely with the 5 buttons along the circumference. This I really like. I actually find it more intuitive than the touchscreen interface of the Venu sq, though many will probably disagree with me on this. I just like it better. Another thing I want to point out is this: I believe that the heartrate monitor on the Venu sq is severely inaccurate. The following two images are screengrabs from the last run I did with the Venu:   Virtually all of my runs with the Venu look like this. I just started to ignore it over the years. I saw improvement, but the best I ever got was about half zone 5 and half zone 4, with an AHR in the high 140s. The reason I really just ignored it is because these all felt like *comfortable* runs. I could sing along with whatever I was listening to as I was going. (Just imagine a middle-aged man belt out 'New Moon on Monday' as he trots past you in a park. You're welcome.) This is my first run with the FR 255:   This is *much* more realistic, considering the relative ease I felt I was putting into the effort. So I'm not sure of the difference between the two watches. There's no doubt in my mind that the Venu's HR monitor is simply faulty. Now whether that's just *my* single watch, like I bumped it too hard somewhere down the line, or the technology itself has gotten more accurate, I don't know. All I can say is that I'm much more tempted to pay attention to my heartrate now, with this new watch. There's many people out there in fitnessistan that say you shouldn't trust wristband heart monitors in general, which may be true. But they also recommend dunking myself in barrels of ice-water every morning, presumably while my wife is inserting her [Gwyneth Paltrow vagina-egg](https://www.businessinsider.com/gwyneth-paltrow-defends-selling-vaginal-eggs-says-not-dangerous-2021-2). So I'm hesitant to trust much of their nonsense too. But I digress. There's also plenty of other stats, and coaching, that is easy to access on the watch as well. There's a morning fitness recommendation that's ready for me to read upon waking, which basically recommends the effort I should put into my fitness routine for that day. I don't really listen to it, to be honest, but I haven't disabled it yet either. Perhaps when I actually start to get serious about marathon training I'll give it a try. As for the rest of the stats, I'll probably look into what they actually mean and how they're useful. I'm thoroughly enjoying just playing around with it, so I'm sure it's inevitable I'll eventually want to learn about everything I'm looking at! In short, the watch is a hard recommend, and [so are the shoes](2024-05-12%20New%20Running%20Gear%20Part%201%20New%20Shoes!.md). I also have to say that treating yourself once in a while is a good thing too. I was a little frustrated at being less than I was before my injury. But the new gear has made it all fun again, somehow. I haven't used the watch yet in the gym, so I may very well come back to talk about that a little too.