Running watches/ bands

[wintersdawn]

I'm just starting to get serious about my running and my husband is off to America on business and has offered to buy me a watch/gadget to help support me (taking advantage of the exchange).

I'm using nike plus to track runs and compete with a friend but the only reviews I've read on the nike plus band aren't exactly positive, and the app is beginning to annoy me as it only seems to track 50% of my runs.

Does anyone have any recommendations on ones that they are using? Or are they not worth it?

I've got a Garmin forerunner 110, which I really like. There are other Garmins with more bells and whistles but I like the simplicity of mine - it just tells you distance, time and pace, which is all I need. It can also be linked up to a heart rate monitor, which I plan to do soon. I paid around £90 for it and it was money well spent.

I have a Garmin 10 which are about 80 pound currently. It's good but not compatible with a heart rate monitor. The garmin connect website where you upload your results is great. My DH has a Timex Ironman. It's pretty poor and the Timex website isn't as good or as easy to use as the garmin connect. Bit of a Garmin fan here!

I've got the Forerunner 10 as well, it's the most basic/cheap Garmin. It's great if you're not after something overly gadgety. It does all the basics like pace, distance, time and calories and then when you upload it you can see your splits and some fancy pantsy graphs.

It also has a pace alarm and you can set up an intervals programme but for some reason you can't have an interval of more than 10 minutes. Also the battery life is only about 5 hours so won't be any good for marathon training unless you are fast. The GPS is reliable but can be slow to pick up satellites sometimes.

thanks for the tips I'll have a look at their website.

another garmin fan here, I had the FR10 but was worried that its 5 hour training life meant it wouldn't record my marathon efforts if am ever sound enough to run one (possibly the world's slowest runner) so I got a 220. I wanted the 620 quite severely but it was £shock

here is a little comparison of the two