Things I love: Garmin Forerunner 410

I think that I've mentioned on here before my GPS watch.  I totally love this thing!  It's a little expensive for a cheapskate like me, but if you use it as much as I do, it's totally worth it!

I have the Garmin Forerunner 410 with the chest strap. 

Are you guys familiar with these devices?  If you are a runner or a walker, getting a GPS watch is a must have IMO.  You start it when you leave and it tracks your exact distance.  It also tracks your heart rate (if you have the chest strap) as well as calories burned.  

The chest strap is really comfortable and you wear it just under your boobs so it can get your heart rate.  I don't even notice that it's there.

This watch has SO MANY features, that I'm not going to list here, you can read up if you are interested.  But let me point out some of the things I like about it.

I hear so much from people wanting to know exactly how to track how many calories they are burning during exercise.  It's just not an exact science.  But if you are wearing a chest strap, it tracks your heart rate and can give you a good idea of how many calories you burned.  And if you're not walking or running, you can turn the GPS OFF and track calories burned for things like doing a DVD or doing a class.  If you are at a gym and think you are ok, because the bike or whatever tracks your calories, you are WRONG.  Calorie counters on machines are TERRIBLY inaccurate.  The only way to know is to wear a heart monitor.

This device has a "virtual partner".  If you are like me, when I'm walking, I start out at a good pace, but if I'm not focusing, I tend to slow down.  If you put on your "virtual partner" it will "walk with you" and you can set it to keep a specific pace and it will let you know if you need to speed up.

Garmin has a website where you can upload your date.  When I come home I set my watch near the computer and it takes just seconds to WIRELESSLY upload to their website.  I can see at a glance how far I went, the time, the elevation change and all kinds of other details.  You can also download this information like I do and put it in runkeeper.com - a exercising website.

Garmin is kind of the standard for GPS watches, so I highly recommend them.  You can find cheapo watches but you're not going to get the same features or accuracy.  Sometimes you have to splurge and get the good stuff.

Now for me, it's time to get dressed, put on the watch and head out for a run!