Gear - GPS Running Watch
Do I really need a fancy watch to run???
The short answer is no! All you need are some running shoes. But if you're training or like to keep an eye on your mileage, heart rate, pace, etc then yes you need a fancy watch.
What Do I Buy?
Well that's a loaded question. How many bells and whistles do you want? You can go basic that will tell you how far you ran, your watch can have a built in heart rate monitor or chest strap that connects to your watch, you can do live tracking where your watch connects to your phone and sends out a live feed, it can track you elevation, tell you how many calories you burned, the list goes on.
Before you buy
Think about what your needs and goals are. Maybe you swim and bike as well so might consider a watch that can track that too. Do you run on the treadmill? Do you want to train by heart rate? Do you like going over the data after your run?
What's You're Budget? Wants and Needs..
A basic running watch can cost as little as $99.00 or you can get ALL the bells and whistles for about $1,299. My current running watch tracks everything I need and was $299 The only down side is it doesn't track my heart rate without buying an additional heart rate chest strap, which I tried but didn't like as it rubbed me the wrong way.....literally.
Brands?
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There are lots of brands and models of watches to buy. I'm not saying to buy a particular brand but what we have experience in using are Suunto and Garmin
Both of these brands have a wide variety of watch models to choose from. A great place to start is to ask your runner friends what they have and like or dislike about their current watch. After that go online and figure out what brand /model works for you and needs. I know there's wants too. For example there's a watch that you can program to tell you after your run how many beers, donuts, bacon, etc you earned!!!
