[Sportsandrec] GPS Watches

[Kelly Thornbury]

Justin, 

There are a couple different options for what you are looking for. 

If you don't necessarily need the metrics while you are running, that is, you want and are happy with analyzing the data after your run, there are a number of Garmin fitness products that you can use. The watches themselves are not accessible, you would need someone sighted to help with the initial set up and to teach you how to navigate certain menus, but the download and analysis of the data through Garmin connect are easily accessible. Some of the ForeRunner (FR) watches have GPS receivers, some do not. Those that don't, like the FR 70, do connect to a footpod, which is an accelerometer that attaches to your shoe and pretty accurately (within 95% usually) transmits your distance and steps per minute to the watch, which then calculates pace and distance. In trail running however, where your stride often changes with terrain, this will be less accurate. Other watches (the FR 310XT and FR 910XT come to mind right away as I have these) can be paired to a footpod or can calculate pace and distance through the GPS. What you lose without the footpod is cadence, but what you gain is elevation data (which isn't always super accurate, but then no GPS sport watch truly is). It is however, very close. All of these can be downloaded to a website that is, with a couple of exceptions, very accessible. 

If you want the data while performing the run, you would either need to use your phone, which you said you don't really want to do but VoiceOver does make this data available on the fly, or a "Sport-IIII" (pronounced sport eyes) HUD. I wrote about these a long time ago, and am preparing to do an update with their latest model, but it is a device that attaches to the arm of your glasses and provides audible prompts of your workout metrics. The device is actually designed for sighted individuals, as it is a device with a boom with LED lights in your peripheral vision that indicate which workout zone you are in. It just happens to have an audible feature that gives the actual numbers (instead of just 7 colored LEDs). This device will not give GPS data, nor will it (alone) record data for later (although, it will record data to many apps for the iPhone that you don't want to carry), and it will pair with a footpod to give speed/pace (not distance, again, need the phone for that). If you use a footpod, it will probably need to be calibrated, by running a known distance or a known pace and adjusting the calibration in the Sport-IIII accordingly. Then again, even after being calibrated, it may be slightly off while changing strides on the trail, but not by much as the accelerometer in the footpod should sense shorter and longer strides (I do find my footpods sometimes mistake stumbles for strides...). The Sport-IIII is, or at least is about to be very soon, used by the British blind cycling team, so the company is very helpful and aware of problems when you contact tech support with blind-related issues (they even wrote me a beta app a few months ago to test out new ways of making the iPhone software that can be used to program the Sport-IIII unit...Let's see Freedom Scientific or Humanware write a beta program because one customer was having a problem :). 

I don't trail run, but I do bike, and I use both the Garmin and the Sport-IIII during my workouts. That gives me real world data and a data file to upload and analyze later, but then, I'm an expensive gear geek! In the end, it depends on when you want the data and how you want to use it. 

Kelly
 
On Sep 17, 2013, at 4:02 PM, JUSTIN LOUCHART wrote:

> Hi, Kelly,
> 
> Basically I want to be able to account for my own distances and paces
> while on trail runs. I don't want to need my guide to harbor all the
> expense.
> 
> I imagine there are apps for the iPhone, but I don't want to take my
> phone with me in most cases.
> 
> Justin