Tracking My Training And Buying A GPS Sports Watch

  From when I decided to do my first triathlon I wanted to keep track of the training I was doing and any improvements I was making. Initially I turned to my smart phone and a fitness tracking app. Smartphones are great for this sort of thing as they include a GPS and there are loads of different fitness tracking apps available. Over the 1^st 18 months of my training I tried a few fitness apps. The one I used most was Endomondo I also used MyTracks. Endomondo worked well with my phone when recording run’s and cycles. Of course I couldn’t record any swims with it but I could log them manually with an approximate distance. Example Endomondo logs for running, cycling and swimming are shown below. 

Endomondo cycling log

Endomondo Running Log

    After 18 months of using my phone and an app to log my workouts I was wanting more. I no longer wanted to just track what I was doing to review later but also wanted to be able to view what was happening while I was doing it and to record my swims . Don’t get me wrong I could get a bike mount for my phone and grab it out of my pocket while running but that would be a pain. The solution of course is a GPS sports watch. So I started researching and found a massive array of watches available with loads of different features and at many different price points. As with all the equipment I have bought for doing triathlon I was looking to get the most for my money. Immediately I discounted as watches that were only for running or didn’t offer any cycling tracking. I was left with a few watches to consider which would fall into the triathlon or multisport category. The watches I looked into along with a few details on each are shown below:

Make	Model	Swim Features	Bike Features	Run Features	Triathlon Mode	Price	My Comments
Bryton	Cardio 60 Multisport	Open water GPS only	GPS & Speed / Cadence	GPS & Accelerometer	Yes	£160	Review not that good, didn’t like the look of it & do most of my swimming in the pool so not good it didn’t do that.
Garmin	Forerunner 310XT	Open water GPS only	GPS & Speed / Cadence & Power	GPS & Footpad	Yes	£120	Good reviews but an old model now. Is big & ugly looking. Again no pool swimming.
Garmin	Forerunner 910XT	Open water GPS & pool	GPS & Speed / Cadence & Power	GPS & Accelerometer	Yes	£250	Does everything & even looks ok. A bit on the pricey side for me.
Magellan	Switch	None	GPS & Speed / Cadence & Power	GPS & Accelerometer	Yes	£100	No swimming, old, ugly, poor reviews.
Polar	RCX3	None	GPS & Speed / Cadence	GPS & Accelerometer	No	£150	Separate GPS pod, good looking but no swimming or triathlon modes.
Polar	RCX5	None	GPS & Speed / Cadence	GPS & Accelerometer	No	£200	Built in GPS but still no swimming or triathlon modes. Also getting a bit pricey.
TomTom	Multisport	Open water GPS & pool	GPS & Speed / Cadence	GPS & Accelerometer	No	£150	No actual open water swimming mode but works in freestyle mode. No triathlon mode. Good looking, good reviews and a good price.
TomTom	Multisport Cardio	Open water GPS & pool	GPS & Speed / Cadence	GPS & Accelerometer	No	£250	As above but is it worth the extra £100 for the built in heart rate monitor which in reviews is the weakest part of the watch.

  This is not an exhaustive list of features for these watches or of the available watches. New watches have come onto the market since I made my purchase and I haven’t included those or watches defiantly out of my price range. I could not have made my decision without a fantastic website  www.dcrainmaker.com ran by Ray Maker. Ray does brilliant independent reviews of and guides to all manner of fitness based technology. He also blogs weekly about the training, racing and testing he gets up to. Running the site isn’t even his job so I have no idea how he fits it all in. I can highly recommend his site.

 

TomTom Multisport Watch

  As with all of the equipment I have purchased since I started doing triathlons I had to compromise between function and price. I will admit that looks as an everyday watch did also come into it but only a little. I chose the TomTom Multisport as it had the most features I would need at the best price. Since getting the watch I have used it constantly with very few issues. I can sync my activities via my phone which also updates the quick GPS. It find the GPS in seconds and has never lost connection while I have been using it. For running and cycling the watch is great and even works with £20 no name bike Bluetooth speed/cadence sensor I got from eBay. In the pool it does sometimes miscount the number lengths I do. However it still does a better job than I do at keeping count. I have tested open water swimming in the freestyle mode (as there is no open water swim mode) and as long as you stick to front crawl it works well. Even without a specific triathlon mode I have used the watch in a sprint triathlon wearing it on my wrist throughout the race and changing modes manually in transition. Again it worked well and allowed me to keep up with how I was doing during the race. My only grip is the lack of a turbo trainer mode. Indoor cycling works as long as you have no GPS signal. It uses the Bluetooth speed/cadence sensor to picks up speed and distance when there is no GPS signal. As soon as it finds GPS you lose speed and distance readings but keep the cadence. When they fix this the watch will be perfect for what I need. If the extra £100 had been available to me I would have got the cardio version with the built in heart rate monitor. As it is if I want to start monitoring heart rate I can get a Bluetooth heart rate strap. All TomTom watches allow uploading of data to different tracking websites but I have stuck to using the a combination of the TomTom site and MapMyFitness. 

TomTom Multisport Indoor Swimming Log

TomTom Multisport Cycling Log

TomTom Multisport Running Log

   The difference in between using the watch and phone is like huge. With a GPS watch you get feedback as you train. It allows you to set goal for a training session like negative splits when running or riding to a set cadence on the bike. I would only go back to using a phone if my watch broke. A smart phone is a good training partner to start with but a GPS watch allows you to take it to the next level as you want to do more.

My Training Week : How do I fit it in

  Firstly I don’t just do triathlons of course I have a job but also have some other interests that take up my spare time. I work as an IT project manager and am lucky to live close to work so commuting doesn’t hamper the time I have for training. The other 2 things that take up my spare time are family (of course) and my local rugby league club. To start with I am chairman of the club (the only reason I do this is to stop committee meetings taking hours and hours), I help run the men’s 1^st team and coach mini rugby (under 7s through to under 9s). When you add triathlon training into the mix most weeks I am busy every day.

Training I have Been Doing

  Let’s start with swimming since doing swimming lessons to sort out my front crawl I have been progressing through the lessons and classes that are provided at my local pool. I now take part in 2 triathlon focused swimfit sessions each week. These are Wednesday and Friday mornings from 6:30am for an hour. When I say the sessions are triathlon focused what I mean is most of the swimmers are triathletes and the coach takes this into account planning them. It’s an early start but it’s really improving all aspects of my swimming. We normally get through between 2km and 3km in a session.

  Next of course there’s cycling. I have been getting out on the bike at least once a week since the spring. When the weather wasn’t so good I used static bikes at the gym. I have been doing anything from short fast 20km rides up to longer 60km rides depending on the weather and the time available to me. My rides are normally on a Sunday after I have been coaching under 7s rugby. Between work and rugby I haven’t been able to fit a 2^nd ride into my week very often.

  Lastly there’s running. My running has been a massive focus for the past 12 months as it was defiantly my weakest leg in 2013. Most weeks I have been running 3 times and always in the morning. I find it much easier to get up and get on with whatever type of training I have scheduled rather than doing it later in the day. On Tuesday mornings I do my long run at or around race pace to help with stamina. When I say long run I mean longer than race distance so as I have been doing sprint distance triathlons my long run is between 6km and 8km. On a Thursday I have been doing either a short fast run or an interval run to help improve my speed.  My last run of the week if my Saturday morning 5km parkrun for a few hundred other people in my local park. This has been great for tracking my running progress. I have dropped my parkrun PB from over 28 minutes to under 25 minutes this year. I am now regularly running 25 minutes for 5km with no problems.

Training I Will Be Doing (Changes I Am Making)

  There aren’t any massive changes I am going to make to my swim training going forwards. I will be continuing with my twice weekly early morning swift sessions. What I will be doing a few weeks before each of my races in 2014 is visiting one of Wakefield triathlon clubs open water swim session at Pugney’s country park. My pool swimming is good but at each race this year I have had problems with the open water swim. This should help sort out the issues I have had and I will be better prepared for each race I do.

  For the bike it’s simple I need to do more. I have recently moved from a hybrid bike to a full road bike. I found a road bike big enough for me (I am 6 foot 6) that I could afford. I have got a turbo trainer for the winter months. Also the gym I am a member of has a new myride cycle studio. For the winter I will be using a turbo trainer with some programs I have found on youtube and the myride studio classes. When the weather improves I will get out on the bike as much as possible and supplement that with myride classes at the gym. Whatever the time of year I am aiming to be cycling in some form at least twice a week and up number of miles I am doing.

   On the run in many ways it’s more of the same. Over the winter I am dropping the Thursday run but keeping the Tuesday morning and parkrun on Saturdays. I am making the Tuesday morning run longer and longer with the aim of getting it over 10km by the new year. I am planning to enter a couple of road races in the new year before the triathlon season starts. These will be at least 10km races. After these I will reintroduce the Thursday interval/speed sessions and see where that takes me.

  Lastly over the winter I am working on my core and flexibility. At least 2 mornings a week (normally Monday and Thursday as I have nothing else planned) I am doing a half hour core and flexibility circuit session. The aim of this is to of course improve my core strength as I suffer lower back pain when swimming for over half an hour. Secondly I need to be more flexible as after 20 years of planning rugby I am not very bendy. The overall aims of all of this training are to improve my triathlon performance and fitness. I currently weigh just under 17 stone and hopefully I can get another half a stone off and get somewhere near 16 stone (which would be lightest I have been since I was about 14).

So the hard work has just begun!

3rd Race : 2014 Blenheim Palace Sprint Triathlon

Map for 21014 Blenheim Palace Triathlon

 Pre-Race

So I had decided to return to Blenheim Palace for my 3rd race but choose to step up a distance to sprint. It was good to return to the scene of my 1st race as I knew what to expect from the course and the organisation. I stayed in the same hotel as the previous year so even knew the route to venue and where to eat the day before the race. The morning of the race dawned fine but overcast and muggy. The weather forecast wasn’t good. Thunder, lightning and heavy rain in the morning followed by sun in the afternoon. With my 11:40am start time anything could happen weather during my wave. I got there early, racked my bike and went to watch the early super sprint wave. At this point it just started raining. By 10am the sky had gone dark and the rain was torrential, I was fearing the worst for the conditions I would encounter. As I decide to go and sort out my transition area and get my wetsuit on the sky was brightening and the rain was easing. By the time I got down to the swim start there was sun poking out from between the clouds.

Swim – 750m

So I was familiar with the swim start and course. I did the same as the previous year and move out to the less busy far side of the swim start. As I was now swimming much better than the previous year I was hoping to swim at a faster speed this time round. The lake is deep and clean which I like as when I don’t know where the bottom is I don’t worry about it. It took me a few minutes to find my rhythm but when I did I started motoring along and really enjoyed it. On the sprint swim course it’s 1 long drag down to the far end of the lake with a single turn back towards the boat house and swim exit. As I exited the water I was very happy with how the swim had gone.
Swim time – 16:18

Transition 1

Transition 1 is a hard at Blenheim as it involves a 400m uphill run to palace courtyard where the bike are racked. I got the top half of my wetsuit off and started jogging up the hill. Almost straight away both my calves started pulling so I slowed down and took it easy the rest of the way up my bike. I found my bike and removed the wetsuit with no problems and was off towards the mount line. My calves were still not happy but I hoped they would calm down on the bike leg.
Transition 1 time – 5:48

Bike – 19.8km

 It’s easy to get going on the bike at Blenheim as the start is downhill. As I got into my cycling rhythm my calves calmed down and I was able to concentrate on going as fast as I could for the 3 laps of the bike course. As fast as could go was not as fast as I wanted to go. My bike training had not been fantastic in the build-up and started to show after the first lap. I got into a bit of a battle with a few other riders on the second lap where they would overtake me on the fast flat sections and I would catch them on the hilly bits. As the lap finishes on a fast flat section they managed to get away from me on the third and final lap. I wasn’t happy with how the bike had gone as made it to the dismount line but later when I looked back at the time it was ok.
Bike time – 47:38

Transition 2

Transition 2 was as smooth as I could have hoped for. I found my rack position, got my bike away and got my running shoes on in no time at all. As I started running towards the transition exit my calves were good and I had no worries (apart from the 2 lap run).
Transition 2 time – 2:19

Run – 5.7km

In my 1st 2 races the run had been where I felt worst. As I had done much more run training I was hoping for this run to be different. My 1st aim was to catch and overtake the guys who had dropped me on the final lap of the bike and hopefully pass them. With it being a 2 lap run I was happy I had plenty of time for this to happen so just ran at my own pace. Within a few minutes I noticed I was catching the 1st of the guys I wanted to pass and was soon passed him. I also passed the 2nd one before the end of lap 1. As lap 2 started I was feeling good and continued to pass other runners. I have no idea if they were from my wave but it was good to be doing the overtaking and not being overtaken. I finished strongly in the final straight and was over the moon with how the run had gone. All that run training had paid off.
Run time – 32:20

Afterwards/Recovery
When I finished I has a rough idea of my time based on the time on the race clock at the finish and my start time. I was over the moon as it was around 1 hour 45 minutes. When I got my text with time on it was 1 hour 44 minutes and 20 seconds! I had been hoping for under 2 hours. I grabbed some food before loading the car up and setting off on the 4 hour drive home. By the time I got home I was knackered and aching a bit but was happy. The next morning when I woke up both my calves felt like I had been shot in them. This lasted a week and was cured by much stretching and massage.

Time breakdown
Swim – 16:18
Transition 1 – 5:48
Bike – 47:38
Transition 2 – 2:19
Run – 32:20
Total – 1:44:20