Shanghai Running Magazine Volume 3 | Page 36

only one in stock at the Decathlon
store when I was there). The watch
sells for 499RMB.
The watch has one feature that I
love, the ability to upload runs to
MyGeonaute.com and compare the
intensity of your workouts with other
runners worldwide. For the month
or so during which I was using this
watch, I had to work hard to stay in
the top 100 users worldwide and
although I didn’t personally know any
of the other runners, I was definitely
motivated to hang on to a top 100
spot.
Sadly the watch has two fatal flaws
1. It displays only time and
distance. There is no pace
information available. The
only way to get pace information is to upload your data
to My Geonaute, but even
then only average pace is
displayed
2. Battery life is about 5 hours,
but if the battery goes flat,
you lose all the stored information on the watch. In my
case I did a great 45km trail
run in Ireland and I wanted
to upload the run to see
exactly where I had been
(and I needed the points to
stay in the Top 100!). The
battery lasted for the 4 ½
hour run but died on the way
back to the house (the watch
displays time even when off
so there is always a slight
battery drain). When I went
to upload my run I discovered
it was gone and was irretrievable.
The watch also had a charging
cradle that was tricky to use.
Several times I plugged it in and
thought it was charging only to
come back later and discover the
watch had no charge at all. While
I’d consider another Geonaute
product I feel like this watch was
not very well thought out and

36

overall I can’t recommend it to all
but the most casual of runners.

Garmin Forerunner 310XT
By now I am far enough into my
marathon training plan that I
know exactly what I need from
a running watch. It must display
time, distance and pace on the
same page, it must hap a lap time
and pace function and it must
have decent battery life.
Throw all of that into Google and
the answer is the Garmin Forerunner 310XT. This is a watch
that has been on the market
for several years but then again
GPS technology is not changing
much. The watch has a list price
of $299 US but can be had online
for much less (at least if you have
someone from the US that can
order it and bring it to you).

There is a lot to like about this
watch. It gets a signal quite
quickly, measures distance
accurately, displays all of the
information any serious runner
could want including my precious
lap times and an accurate lap
pace. You can customize several
screens to display whatever information you like. I particularly
like that the watch can vibrate
on completion of each lap. If I’m
listening to some tunes at high
volume trying to eke out a little
extra performance, I might not
hear a quiet beep but with the

© Shanghai Running 2014

vibration I know another km is
complete and can glance down
for the lap time.
The battery life is also exceptionally good. Garmin claims 20
hours and I have used it continuously on a 10 hour ultramarathon
after which is still showed 66%
remaining. With this watch I plug
it in about once a week and there
is no problem with it lasting for
the 100-120km weekly mileage I
am doing.
The only drawback is that the
watch is a little bigger and
heavier than the others reviewed
here. I’m also concerned that the
charging contacts on the watch
are in contact with my skin which
means they spend 1-2 hours wet
with sweat each day. I’ll have to
see how long the charging system
works.
Conclusion
My “Run Faster” training program
has gone well and my goal race is
rapidly approaching. There are
five or six different types of run in