Five years ago this news would have had me rushing to the expo, never mind collecting my race number, I would want to get my hands on the latest piece of ‘essential’ training equipment – but my excitement at the news of the latest member to the Forerunner family is rather subdued after my experience with the Forerunner 405.

My first experience of Gamin came with the Forerunner 301 and I quickly became obsessed with it. Downloading and analysing all my training and races, sharing my training routes with club mates and also using it when travelling to record where I had been exploring. I think that a clear indication of how much I loved and relied on my Forerunner was when I lost my watch during a weekend away and in spite of being a poor student, I ordered a new one with two days of exhausting all search options.

Fast forward to January 2008 and the news came out that of the launch of the Forerunner 405. Instead of the bulk and size of its predecessor, the 405 looked like a watch, so could be worn all the time without weird looks form colleagues at work and if you don’t have to take it off after running I have less chance of losing it. But for me I had to get it for the ‘HotFix satellite prediction, which means it locks onto satellites quickly so you can be out the door and on with your run in no time. It also has a high-sensitivity GPS receiver to stay locked onto satellites, even near tall buildings or under tree cover.’ As I was living in New York at the time I often lost signal running around Central Park with my 301 so was eager to get hold of the new 405. With delay after delay the 405 was finally release in May 2008 and after playing with it in a few stores I decided to part with my $349 plus tax. It was the worst $349 I have ever spent.

I don’t know where to start with my hatred of this gadget. I don’t think I have ever hated any piece of equipment so much and far from being a method of relaxation my runs with my forerunner 405 leave me frustrated and more wound up than before I left the house. The Forerunner is so unreliable that I wear both my 301 and 405 when training or racing with the 405 purely to record my heart rate.

To summarise the differences I’ll describe my experiences with both. The 305 is charged by plugging into a standard USB cable into the watch which can be attached to your computer or plugged into the wall. The screen tells you when the battery charging process is complete and you can unplug it and leave it in your training bag. One month later when you go back to the watch if you haven’t used it then you will still have 13 hours of battery life. Also if it says you have 2hours charge left then you know you actually do have 2 hours. If you get to work and remember you need to charge your 305 or are away from home for a weekend then you can use any standard USB cable to recharge it. When you go to use it if you are in a new area then it can take a while for the signal to pick up but never more than 10 minutes. The screen is large and the most important feature being the large chunky buttons that can be activated when wearing gloves, in the rain, with sticky gel covered fingers and without accidentally pressing adjacent buttons. Its major flaw is that in built up areas you can lose signal but this flaw is more than acceptable when added to the ease at programming the watch with a virtual partner and audio training alerts for distance or pace. Laps are easily recorded by pressing the large lap button with the large red stop button easy to see, no matter how hard the rain may be blowing into your eyes. Finally to download the data to your computer you simply plug it into your computer using the USB.

The Forerunner 405 requires a provided clip to charge the battery. Again this can be plugged into a wall plug or computer, but if you find you need to charge it up away from your home (believe me that is a lot of the time) and if you haven’t carried around your charger with you then you are stuck. The other aspect is you can’t just plug it into the wall to start the charging you have to press a button to activate the charging process. Sounds like a simple process but it is frustrating when you go to use the watch at a race and realise it never charged overnight. The other annoying aspect is that if you are charging you and you have a power cut or a light bulb blows you presume that when the power comes back on it will restart charging but it doesn’t. Many times I have returned to my watch after a day of charging to find it has a blank screen. Don’t assume that because you have had it charged for 16 hours that it will be fully charged when you go to use it. Often I unplug it with 100% charge to step out the door and be greeted with the low battery notification and a blank screen before I have reached the end of the road.

A further issue with the battery is how quickly it gets used up trying to find the GPS signal. 30 minutes before a race starts I switch on my 301 and try to get my 405 to pick up a signal. By the time the race starts my 405 will still be searching but helpfully telling me the accuracy of the satellites (so much for the Hotfix satellite prediction). For all this effort I find that my battery life is now 87% fine I think 100% is 8 hours so I must still have around 7 hours left, plenty of time to finish the race. But whilst the 301 picked up the signal within 5 minutes at the start line the 405 waits a further 2 miles before I get any data from it. Things then work well scrolling through my predetermined screens of heart rate, pace, virtual partner, distance.  As I approach the next mile marker I try to press the lap button, and again, and again, in the end I give up it’s not too important I can read it off my 301 or I can distract myself with some maths as I run to calculate my pace. 6 miles in everything else is fine. I have locked the bezel so I can’t accidentally catch it with my clothing, a fellow competitor or passing motorist but my screen starts randomly scrolling not with pace/heart rate/time but with the accuracy of the GPS satellite and battery life and compass directions. Great I don’t know how fast I am running but I do know that I have 10% battery life left. 10%?? How did I use 77% of my battery in less than 1 hour. Before I can check the screen again the battery life warning appears on the screen and the bleeping begins.

‘What’s that telling you?’ asks a fellow competitor ‘are we going too fast?’.

‘No, my battery is low’ I reply

‘Ah, forgot to charge it did you?’

Getting back home I want to download the little data my 405 recorded but unlike the 301 the 405 needs a handy ant stick for wireless transfer. That ant stick that you have to remove when carrying your laptop and fell down behind the drawer or you left plugged in your work computer.

One of my major issues with Garmin is that they know that the Forerunner 405 is flawed and have done nothing to rectify the problem with their customers. I am on 405 watch number three. I cannot fault the friendliness of the customer service people at Garmin. After getting to my uncharged watch again as I set out for a 22 mile run I ring up the customer service line ready to rant at them yet the clear English speaking operator is so understanding I can’t shout at them anymore. Although really I should. Every time they ask me if I have the most up to date software, I say it was down loaded last week, they say there was a new update yesterday I should try that to see if it solves the problem. I hang up happy then a week later conclude it isn’t any better. Occasionally the operator tells me what I am experiencing is a known problem and will send me a replacement. The first one was a brand new 405, the second one exactly a year ago was a refurbished model. Refurbished so well that on its first wear the strap fell off and I had to rush to the London marathon expo to get a new strap fitted before the next days race.

As I said Garmin know there are many faults with the 405 that they quickly released the 410. Comparing the specifications they are identical although the improvements to the Forerunner 410 include:

• Added device shutdown feature to the System menu
• Added banner that notifies customer when the device will be entering low power mode
• Added enhanced touch bezel

There is also the option of two additional wrist straps which allow a more comfortable fit for us thin wristed females. I am not the only person who has experienced problems with the 405 as many online forum users have discussed although the 410 appears to still have issues in the wet. I wish Garmin had offered replacement upgrades to those of us who have the flawed Forerunner 405. I would love to train with the Forerunner 610 with its new touch screen and new functions such as the Training Effect which measures the impact of an activity on your aerobic fitness, but I don’t have the money to risk on a product which may have as many problems as the 405 did when its new bezel was launched. My loyalty to Garmin disappears further with every frustrating run I attempt with my Forerunner 405 and with new GPS watches coming on to the market such the Nike+ sportwatch with GPS provided by TomTom at half the price of £179. Maybe it is time for a change.

Thank you for allowing your lovely dog to join in my training run this week. I felt it very beneficial to have the extra weight, as your beloved fur ball jumped up to my hips and sunk her teeth into my jacket, biting down as I tried to force her off, whilst you just watched. She may have been only playing or being friendly but it’s not the sort of friendly game I like to play mid run. It may have also been nice for you to see how I was, instead of a quick ’sorry love’ then hurriedly rush off down a side road and leave it to a passing motorist to stop and offer me a lift home.

I don’t want to tarnish all dog walkers with the same criticism. In fact scary dog owners and owners of scary dogs in the main are always considerate to passing pedestrians and runners. The dogs wear muzzles and have leads less than half a meter long which they use to pull them to their side or they wait in a driveway as I pass by. My problem is with walkers who I feel are auditioning for a live version of Trumpton to play the part of Miss Lovelace with her uncontrollable trio of  Pekingese dogs Mitzi, Daphne and Lulu.

I was running on the kerb to the left of you, the walker, on the two meter wide pavement with your dog to your right walking on the grass verge. The fact that the dog was able to cross the pavement and jump up to my waist was because you use extendable leads and so not in control of your dog. In fact normally you have more than one furry ‘child’ with leads that span two driveways, causing pedestrians to move into the road to avoid getting tangled up. I don’t mind extendable leads at full length in the right location, such as in country parks and on the beach, but not on a suburban street.

Anyway you will be pleased to know the friendly play resulted in only superficial injury and bruises although my hamstring is still a bit sore from suddenly having to pull up during my tempo run. However, your dog’s next playmate may not be so lucky. My waist is about level with the neck of a child walking by, or playing on a scooter, which you may wish to consider next time you use such a long lead with your agile dog on the street.

Regards

Strenua

Last year the Ministry of Sound released an album which smashed expectations selling over 150,000 copies and became a must have fitness product. Now they have released Running Trax 2, 3 CD’s described as the ‘most upbeat and energetic tracks to spur you towards the peak of physical fitness.’ Click here for Track Listing.

The 3 CDs will certainly keep your heart racing during a rigorous fitness regime with tracks by Calvin Harris, Eric Prydz and Dizzee Rascal. However, I would have preferred there to be a change in tempo between the CD’s for different runs. It is described as specially selected tracks to guide you through any style of training you choose, whether it is a Sunday morning jog or a rigorous fitness regime but I found that most of the tracks, whilst probably would keep your heart pumping, are more suited to a spin cycling class or an intense session on the cross trainer. The tracks are not ones I would choose to run to, maybe for high intensity interval training, but I would have preferred more contrasting speeds for warming up, recovery jogs or Sunday long runs.

There is no doubt the 3 CD’s contain some of the most upbeat and energetic tracks you could choose to exercise to, I am just concerned that if you try to run at their pace you may injure yourself. Admittedly, The Nightcrawler’s Push The Feeling On is suitable for a Sunday morning jog, but I find The Unicorn Kid’s Wild Life is way too fast to run to, yet other tracks such as Example’s Kickstarts changes the rhythm so much during the track it is hard to run at a constant pace.

To justify the Running Trax title the CD’s also include a 12 page booklet giving advice on how to start training for your own race and tips to keep you feeling confident up to race day and beyond. Some tips are helpful such as how to avoid injuries and how to be motivated. But suggesting that on a race day you need deodorant and to carry spare £1 coins to make emergency phone calls kind of feels that were running out of useful advice, when a few more diagrams of how to stretch may have been more helpful.

Overall

A good value 3CD selection of energetic tracks to exercise to but if you plan on running to them you will need to invest some time in selecting suitable tracks for each style of training run.

Release Date 28th December 2010

Available to buy as a boxset from Amazon.co.uk, Sainsbury’s, Play.com and other retailers. Also available to download from Amazon or iTunes.

Running Trax 2 Track Listing

Everyday we’ll suggest original stocking fillers for the active person in your life.

Today technical essentials for the modern athlete.

In the past we were quite happy to go for a run or a cycle, time ourselves with a stop watch and guesstimate how far we travelled using a road atlas and a ruler. We entertained ourselves on route by admiring the scenery or chatting to our club mates and we were motivated by self satisfaction of our achievement when we got home.

But now going for a simple run or bike ride has got technical. So here are some technical ‘essentials’ for the modern recreational athlete – All perfect gift ideas whatever your budget.

First of all we now need music for entertainment and motivation. Personally I prefer to listen to music at the tempo I’m aiming to run at, whilst others like to listen to music with a running in the title such as Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. If you can’t decide on your own running playlists then there are enough readymade playlists and podcasts to buy and download from  or iTrain.com giving you motivation whatever the sport.

Next we need the mp3 player. iPods have become the staple accessories for the recreational athlete. You first begin with an iPodto listen to music. Then you think you can’t run without the Nike Plusattachment to measure your pace and how far you have travelled, with the added excitement of Paula Radcliffe congratulating you at the end that was your longest ever run.

But why just measure how far you have cycled or ran, why not map it? Subscriptions to online services such as MapMyRun.com allow you to map your route, measure the elevation, record your training in a log, suggest alternative routes from fellow athletes in your area, and calculate the calories burnt.

Then we have the iTouchwith all the great sporting apps. Measure the distance to the hole in golf, download a free weight program for the gym, monitor your calorie consumption, and use the GPS in the iPhone to go geocaching or use the adidas MiCoach app to record your training run.

Whilst it is not really an essential, I would love to have this piece of sporting technological kit by Oregon Scientific: The world’s first HD All Terrain Action Camera with G Sensor and GPS. The New ATC9K HD  is described as being specifically designed for extreme sports enthusiasts and professionals who want to capture every high action moment, on the slopes, on the waves or on the road.

Not only does the camera capture 1080p professional quality high definition video and takes photos of 5MP, its built-in G-sensor can also measure the force of gravity during acceleration, deceleration and hang time. This makes it perfect for extreme sports enthusiasts, sport trainers, professional sportsmen and those who wish to record and review every detail of their performance. Additionally it’s the only action camera water proof to 20m without external casing making it ideal for scuba divers, the self-contain design is also shock resistant.

A built in LCD screen and laser pointer help you line up the camera , with the LCD screen also allowing you to play back the videos where ever you are. The camera also comes with a full set of mounting accessories that enables users to mount it on any handles, bars, and helmets and use it for a wide variety of extreme activities. Simply mount it onto anything such as you bike, car, helmet or attach it arm, strap or sleeve. Recording straight onto a Micro SD (up to 32GB) the all in one design is the ATC9K is you perfect companion, hands free, shock resistant, water proof tough enough to follow you into the most extreme conditions.

As a special offer to celebrate the beginning of the Ski Season Oregon Scientific are offering a free GPS unit worth £50 with every ATC9K.

I love linking my Garmin Forerunnerdata from my running races to Google Earth and so my favourite part of this bundle is that it comes complete with a unique GPS plug-in that enables you to map your location, speed and distance travelled using Google Maps or Google Earth. While watching the video clip playback on a computer, you will also see your corresponding location, acceleration and altitude on Google Map. Keep track of each trail and race with this useful tool designed for trainers and sports lovers.

The ATC9K including free GPS unit is available for £249.99

Of course the essential piece of equipment to make use of these programs and gadgets is a computer.

If you already have a home computer chances are it’s already overworked with school projects and research, or filled with holiday photos. If you have a laptop for work, your IT department probably won’t allow you to download so many non-work related programs and software. So you may have to invest in your own laptop or notebook and there are lots offers available this Christmas before the VAT increases.

So there you go. My Christmas wish list technical gift suggestions, all essential, I think you would agree, for the modern recreational athlete.

Or are you looking for an original personalised Christmas present for an exercise lover?

Then look no further, shopping for the perfect Yoga Mat has just become easier on CafePress. You can now buy personalised Gaiam Yoga Mats on CafePress, making you stand out from the Yoga crowd!

Online retailer, CafePress has launched its unique range of custom yoga mats, ideal for Yoga classes or Pilates. They measure 24” (wide) by 68” (long) and 3mm thick and roll up easily, perfect for slipping into a gym bag or carrying under your arm.

The mats are Eco friendly, durable with a non-slip skidless surface and have a lightweight, cushioned feel. These factors are what attracted me to them. I’m not a yoga devotee but I am often sitting down stretching before or after a run and the cushioning did work well when I placed it in the car park and the non-slip surface was easy to wipe down afterwards.

It was also a excellent non-slip surface for exercising in the carpeted living room when following an exercise DVD or Wii fitness game. And if you are going to have to store it in your living room then it’s great that you can customise the colour to coordinate with the room.

No matter what your age, people love personalised products that look different from everyone else’s either for identification or to express their personality, interests or views. On the CafePress site you can browse through a large variety of personalized designs and find the perfect custom printed yoga mat for you. Styles for Adults, Men, Women, & Kids are available. The range of designs on the site is endless with 1000’s of ideas from pop culture to Sci-Fi, holidays to humour, hobbies to pets – but of course, the best thing is that if you don’t like any of the designs up there, you simply create your own.

To design a Yoga Mat on the CafePress website, users simply select from 5 available mat colours (green, blue, pink, beige or grey), chose either a pre-loaded design template or upload their own image, photo or graphic, then insert text into the design if they want to. The final design is displayed in all its colourful glory before you place your final order. All mats cost £22.00.

If you are looking for any other personalised gifts from T-shirts, to coffee mugs, sweatshirts, posters, audio CD’s, books, tote bags, flasks and more then visit CafePress – the world’s leading marketplace for user generated products.

The challenge, which was a charity running and walking marathon, saw over 530 participants sign up for the event with the option to run or walk either 13 or 26 miles. Although this was my 15th Marathon length event it was my first trail marathon or indeed my first trail event and after hearing stories of trail events from my fellow club runners I was concerned I may get lost on route.

As we started from outside a foggy Lincoln Cathedral it was clear that a lot of participants were out to enjoy the views rather than see it as a competitive race. As I found a few people who were running a similar pace to me I was able to enjoy the lovely warm autumn day and the spectacular flat countryside. By utilising the event as my final long challenging training run I was able to not risk pushing myself too hard by getting caught up with the faster pace of a larger event.

Whilst I ran solely in my running gear and carrying a drinks bottle some people did concern me on the start line with their camelbaks, and ruck sacks with spare clothes and first aid kits but I was assured the course was well signposted and marshalled and I don’t need to carry a map. I now know that carrying a map or directions on a trail race is a good idea.

As the Arts and Heritage Trail is an established route following public footpaths and bridleways allowing followers to see beautiful artworks and church architecture along the way as well as taking in a variety of Lincolnshire villages and countryside, at lot of the route is well signposted. I also imagine that if you are walking you have a chance to consult a map at junctions were the signs are not so clear. Unfortunately we got lost a couple of times, once accidentally cutting off a corner and the second time due to the farmer ploughing his field on Saturday afternoon. What has been an obvious pathway had become a ploughed field and a steady stream of runners followed each other round the edge towards the church on a main road. Only when we found there were no more signposts did we end up having to knock on the door of a local house to discover which village we were in and how far away from the next checkpoint we were. This detour more than made up for the first short cut and we ended up running nearly 27 miles in total but it added to the novelty of the event.

In spite of this I came third lady home and was welcomed home by a good crowd of supporters at the finish, T shirt, certificate, and a free massage by local professional sports therapists. Along with the great camaraderie between all the runners and fellow walkers you pass on route I recommend taking part in it next year in training for a winter marathon and will certainly be looking for more trail events as part of my marathon preparations next year.