What Watch Should I Buy for Triathlon?

I mentioned a few posts ago how nothing great exists for triathletes trying to capture all of their performance data.  I decided over Christmas and New Year’s to dig deeper into this after spending some time skiing and running with my buddy Chris who uses the Polar RS800CX Multi.  We assumed his was compatible with the Polar Power Meter WIND (not the greatest power meter, but nonetheless it would create the whole package).  Unfortunately after doing more research I determined you would need a CS600X for the bike and then switch watches for the run.  He confirmed and concluded alas still no single solution exists.  That system would make for 2, $600-ish watches and 2 data uploads.

Then I came home from the mountains to find Triathlete Magazine with reviews of systems.  I thought, oh well saves me time since they wrote my blog.  But these were very superficial and misleading, they claimed the above watch was compatible with the power meter.  These reviews were a total disservice to readers.

So first let me define great as far as I can tell.  In no particular order I would say:

Ant+ – this is the gold standard of data transmission.  Think WIFI for your watch, heart rate, speed, cadence and power.

Ant+ Power – the ability for the watch to read a power meter is imperative, however I will investigate other options given the current situation

HRM – Duh!, this is the only thing available on all options

GPS OnBoard – not having a separate pod for GPS is nice, the cost is a watch you will not wear anywhere else, actually that’s not true since Garmin has a sweet running watch with GPS onboard.

GPS Long, Lat, Elev – if you have GPS, you should get all the data which allows you to upload to Maps

Elevation Change no GPS – watches with barometric altimeters can do this, this is handy for just going out for a run and determining normalized graded pace (this may be a trainingpeaks term).

Bike Speed Cadence – Surprisingly some systems rely solely on GPS and won’t give you cadence

Run Cadence – Ditto to the above

Swim HR – This requires more than a basic chest strap, it needs onboard memory and data transfer capability.

Battery Life – I think 30 hours if it is rechargeable will suffice.

Rechargeable – If you’ve replaced those little CR2032 batteries enough (they look like nickels) you’ll know they’re not cheap.

Memory – 30 hours as well, figure an Ironman takes 17 hours and 24 hour races take I think you can figure that out…30 hours gives some cushion.

Cost – with a power meter I think this whole deal should be under $1,500.  This is still a ginormous price tag when you think about it, but we are asking for great, so $1,500 seems fair given that the 3 closest approximations that are NOT great all cost about that much.

So on to the contenders and I am not going to go into too much detail here as I see this getting long already.  Luckily I built a table in Excel so we can see approximately what this whole deal would look like.

Polar – you would buy 2 watches the RS800CX, CS600X a bike mount, S3 Stride WIND, G3 GPS WIND and Power Output Sensor WIND.  If Polar let the RS800CX read the Power Meter you would be close to great but not ANT+ compatible (WIND is Polar’s Beta/HD DVD vs the world’s VHS/BluRay) and no swim HR (which is low on my list of great)

Timex – the Ironman Bodylink with GPS Pod and Data Recorder 2.  The cheapest of the bunch.  Possibly pair this with a Garmin Edge 500 to get power on the bike but you would be missing run cadence, which is still silly at around $1600 with a cadence sensor and power meter for $1,000 (side note: $1,000 power meters are coming out in June 2010 from Metrigear (built into the pedal, so you can use whatever wheels you want) and Brim Brothers (built into the cleat so you can put your shoes on any bike))

Suunto – t6c Triathlon Pack and GPS Pod, this will get you the swim heart rate but would require the Edge 500 and Power Meter like Timex and set you back closer to $2k…yikes, but Suunto does have sweet heart rate monitors.

Garmin – first buy the Forerunner 50 from Costco for 80 bucks, it gets you the HRM, footpod.  Cadence and the Forerunner 310XT get you to the closest contender with a watch you will not wear anywhere but triathlon.  One thought I have on this now after writing this is to pair a Forerunner 405CX with the Edge 500, this is probably the best solution with a wearable rechargeable watch and better scree, but will be close to $1,750 and no real swim data, lowest on my priority list.

Some other swim options include a sweet swim “watch” Aqua Pulse you could buy that measures heart rate from your earlobe and tells you in your ear (jawbone technology) but is not uploadable to a computer and would set you back $140.  The Aquameter counts laps and strokes and time but is also not uploadable and is $120.  For a triathlete these are probably overkill and based on TrainingPeaks training load methodologies you can get pretty close once you know your 1K Time Trial pace to figuring out how hard you are working with a stop watch and counting laps in your head.  Neither of these would do much for you in an open water tri anyway especially by themselves and certainly don’t seem worth $260 combined.  I’d suggest an MP3 player instead from H2Audio since swimming in the pool is pretty boring.

So the results based on my definition of a great watch are below.  Prices are from Amazon for what all you need.  Green means it’s got it, red sorry not so much.  Some footnotes are included too.

So from the above what I conclude is that the Garmin options are the best.  But they are also the priciest.  What is the difference between Garmin 310XT option and 405CX option?  Well for $275 you get a wearable watch, a dedicated bike computer with better screen, better data recording of bike performance and you don’t have to fool around with moving the watch to the bike and back.  You also have 2 data uploads, but that is no longer a problem thanks to trainingpeaks.  I train with trainingpeaks and they will now accept multiple files and merge them.  Another example of software solving a hardware problem, which also solves using the CS600X and RS800CX from Polar.  Comments on missing info or experiences are more than welcome.

Happy Training!

Tri Obsession: Data and the Droid

It is an understatement to say that triathletes are data obsessed. For the most part we are right up there with the best of them, baseball fans, gamblers, general fans of statistics and probabilities. Triathlon for the most part generates relatively simple data points. However the volume of training and racing creates infinite environments and sets of circumstances for this data. Couple that with the ongoing to desire to improve against the always moving against us clock (both in races and as we age) there is a strong need to see lots of data and how it is progressing.



The data mainly exists in swimming as time and location (so you can calculate speed). Heart rate monitors don't work well in the water. There is no decent way to measure power. In cycling we have time, location, cadence, power and heart rate. Cycling has the holy grail of data. Running is the same as cycling sans power. Though I am hearing that accelerometers which currently determine cadence on the run will soon give power readings.





Interestingly nothing great exists for capturing all this data in a single device. Swimming just needs a stop watch assuming you know the distance you are swimming, very easy in a pool, relatively easy on a marked open water course. There are some devices that count laps and such but not a big deal. Biking has some slick power meters and cadence computers, those coupled with a good heart rate monitor provide data but it's not all easily accessible. Running is a little better since you don't need to pair a heart rate monitor.





The best product out there (which I don't own and can only report on based on my shopping research) is the Garmin Forerunner XT310. This is similar to the Garmin Forerunner 305 except it is compatibly with power meters with the ANT+ technology. However 3 major complaints on this deal. Like the 305 it is like wearing a small brick on your arm. 2 the GPS doesn't function in the water to deliver anything meaningful. Lastly it sets you back 350 bucks and you don't have the power meter (a grand) or a cadence sensor (1oo bucks for the bike and the run) and that is the price without a heart rate sensor.





Now you can go way down the spectrum to the Garmin Foreruner 50. If you buy it at Costco you get a run speed/cadence sensor, a heart rate monitor for $79.99. For $40 more bucks you can pick up the bike speed/cadence sensor. So you have a good portion of data sans power and gps for $120. This is a pretty good deal and it comes with the upload antenna for you PC too. In fact when you compare what you get here for what you don't on the higher end stuff you'll understand why I am still using it. I have Timex Ironman with a heart rate monitor, GPS, and data upload for the computer. No cadence capability (let alone power) on the run or bike and I have to wear a big GPS monitor on my arm and carry the data recorder in my pocket (though I believe Timex finally put the recorder in the watch, not so with the GPS). My wife bought me this for my birthday several years ago for several hundred dollars and it still costs this much with the GPS on your arm and data recorder in the watch. Again not much for the money. So best value in my mind the Forerunner 50 especially since it is the size of a normal watch.



http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/ci.Motorola-DROID-US-EN.alt

This brings me to my Droid phone made by Verizon/Motorola and the elephant in the room Google. The phone as is has a compass, accelerometer, GPS and level built in. If it could read a HRM and bike Power Meter it would be 99% of the way there and those two things are probably programmable since it has bluetooth and wifi. It's not waterproof and not a watch but my point is that a phone is probably already closer to the holy grail of triathlon data collection (it probably needs to store 24 hours of data too) than what the big companies in the biz, Garmin, Timex and Polar (not to mention Suunto and some others) already put out. Google also has the mapping capabilities on its website with Google Earth to allow you to visually "see" your data. Heck people are giving away an app to calc your exercise using the GPS and accelerometer already. So why doesn't somebody step up and deliver the product that triathlete's and endurance enthusiasts would gladly pay a reasonable price for? I have no idea. But I'd love to see Google shake up this market (admittedly much smaller) like it is doing in the mobile phone market along with Apple and the iPhone. Competition is good for these types of markets.





Happy Training