Sacrifice

Sure, with a title like that, I could write about the physical and mental challenges of high volumes of training, time spent away from my family, or even something bigger like my gratitude for the brave men and women who put their own lives on the line to protect my freedom. Sorry to disappoint folks—that’s not what this is about. Here’s the top line for those of you who don’t make use of technology to guide your training: things are going well with me. Yup, doing a lot of running and feeling pretty good about it overall. Maybe I’ll write more about that next week. You can stop reading now.

Now for my hard-training friends…prepare for a rant. I want to know why I can’t buy a single piece of technology that will track my heartrate, speed, and distance while running, measure power on the bike, and be suitable to wear in the water. Is this such a crazy idea? Really? Don’t tell me about the new Garmin 405 until you’ve read the part of the user manual that explains that swimming with the unit can result in minor burns to the user. Minor burns! Can’t I buy a watch at Walmart for $12 that won’t burn me if I dare to swim in it?

I had a Polar 625x for many years. As much as a person can “love” a HRM, I loved that HRM. But the battery was running low just before Rattlesnake last year and instead of sending the watch to Polar for a week or more to get the battery replaced, I took it to an excellent local jeweler. I wanted the watch for the race and, despite being told that he couldn’t guarantee water-proof-ness, he’d open it up and make sure the gasket was intact and whatnot. So he gets the watch open and then realizes he doesn’t have the right battery. Everything looks okay so he buttons it all up and says I should send it to Polar. It works fine for a few more days and I wear it at the race. During my swim warmup, I glace at the watch and see no display—oh, and the watch is full of water. Nice.

The following Monday, I order the latest and greatest Polar RS800GPS and have it in time for Harvest Moon. This thing is the ultimate running watch—billed as a perfect solution for a multisport athlete. No bike mounts or anything difficult—perfect! Oh yeah, the GPS unit only goes about 10 hours on a battery and the watch won’t pick up heartrate in the water (which isn’t super important, but the 625x did it—what’s up with that?). Well, Polar didn’t quite get the GPS technology right and after many months of spotty data, I put the GPS pod on the shelf and buy a footpod. By that point, I had a Powertap for the bike anyhow—why not just make the Polar my running watch?

Footpod/RS800 combo is awesome! So while I don’t have a fully integrated solution, I have everything I need on the bike and on the run. Then the footpod suddenly stops working. That’s it—I love the Polar when it’s working—been loyal to the brand since college—but enough is enough. I research my other options. Suunto—expensive and terrible user feedback. Garmin—great but you can’t get it wet. One of their customer service reps told me he has heard of triathletes putting the watch under their swim caps in order to race with it. Of course, he can’t recommend that option. Right. Polar—what does the update to the 625x look like? There isn’t an update? Hmmm.

I ultimately recommit myself to my Polar RS800 and get another footpod. This is also the least expensive option by far going forward given what I've already spent. Works great—I’m in love with Polar again—will send the first footpod to Polar for repair. Go to Ironman Canada. Battery on the watch is low and it won’t pick up the footpod. Whatever. Replace the battery on the watch when I get home. User replaceable battery—what a concept!

Here’s how it worked this weekend. Friday—watch won’t pick up the footpod. Saturday—flawless, perfect. Sunday—picks up the footpod but is off by almost 10 percent. After the run, I recheck the calibration—it’s fine. Monday—watch won’t pick up the footpod again. Thankfully, I had a ride today—don’t have to mess with it. Not looking forward to tomorrow…

So what’s the moral here? Is this really so difficult? Should I just ditch all the technology? I do remember a time when I rode for the sheer love of it, but that was never the case for running—I need the feedback. Now that I’ve invested thousands of bucks into HRMs, PT, and accessories, is someone going to solve this problem, but I’ll have to replace everything? I've convinced myself that having separate solutions for the bike and run is okay, if not ideal. But couldn’t anyone at Garmin anticipate that some wacko triathlete might actually want to swim while wearing a watch? It wouldn’t have to work in GPS mode—just make the stupid case WATERPROOF! Somebody get me in off this ledge—I need to go to Walmart and buy a watch...