One of the cool things about a Garmin GPS watch is the
ability to create workouts on your PC and then transfer them to your watch.
I have done this with group runs (speed work) and even hill
repeats and it's worked out really well.
Although I use my Garmin at the
track for splits, I had not thought of creating a track workout for the road until
yesterday.
Monday’s are my track days, but my son had a football game
last night and I was not going to be able to make it to the track before or
after. I decided to take the workout
Coach Greg set up for me and convert it to a road workout.
If you think this is starting to sound a
little geeky, you should have seen us transferring workouts from watch to watch
before hill repeats at the Bridge (my inner geek was really coming out).
The workout was pretty simple (5 x 1000's) with 200 meter
recovery (800 meter warm up and recovery).
So I converted the meters to miles and then converted the interval time
to mile pace. This is what it looked
like:
I picked a route that had very few stops and was able to keep
up the pace for the full 1000 meters.
The actual workout was pretty tough, but doable (cooler weather helped).
I had to concentrate on hitting my pace, but
after the first 1000 meters I really didn't have to look at my watch much (it beeps if you are going too fast or too slow - irritating enough that you will do it right).
If you have a Gamin GPS watch (mine is a 405) check out
Garmin Connect. You should have an account set up to download
your workouts anyway. Look under “Plans” to find “Workouts”. It may take a few tries to get it right, but once you have it down it's really cool.
Another great tool from Garmin is their training videos: http://www8.garmin.com/learningcenter/training/forerunner405/
They're short and easy to follow (like me!).
I actually like going to the track, but if you don't have one available or don't have the time to drive to one this is a great alternative.
