Running Watches Over The Years
A timeline of running technology throughout my running career.
When I first decided to join the track team my freshman year of high school, I went to an informational meeting in the school gym. This meeting was for all of the kids and parents of kids that were going to go out for track that year. I went to a fairly large high school, not the biggest in the state but still pretty large and we had about 200 kids on our track team. With this many kids, we had many coaches, each with their own discipline. We were split into groups depending on the events that we wanted to go out for. Sprinters went with one coach, throwers with another, jumpers with another, etc. I wanted to run distance (because I was the slowest sprinter I knew) so I joined the distance runners and met my coach. In this meeting, they discussed what practice might look like each day and athletic fees to join the team. They also gave us a piece of paper with items we would need to bring to practice each day. The list included: sweat pants and a sweatshirt for warm-ups, a good pair of running shoes, a water bottle, shorts and a t-shirt to run in, and a stopwatch.
My first running watch was a classic Timex running watch. It was a women’s watch. I borrowed it from my mom but since I was a very small boy with tiny wrists it fit perfectly. I soon found out I needed a watch because my coach had us run for time. For example, a typical Wednesday we ran for 40 minutes. This made it easy for runners of all skill levels to get a customized workout in the same amount of time. The faster upper-classmen would cover more distance than the slower, younger runners but everyone would be back at the same time. This watch served me well for a long time, and many miles.
After using that watch for a while, I started to notice some other runners at track and cross country meets had fancier watches than I did. I had no idea what a fancier watch could even do for me and I ignored them for a while. Pretty soon, all of the top athletes at big races had these watches and I thought there had to be something about them. If I wanted to be fast like them, I needed one of those watches. After a bit of research, I discovered a piece of technology that would change my relationship with running forever: the GPS running watch.
I knew about Garmin GPS systems you could buy for your car and I thought it was incredible but I had never used one myself. When I discovered they made ones small enough to wear on your wrist, I was beside myself. I was fifteen and all I wanted for my birthday that year was a Garmin GPS watch. I was lucky enough to have parents that could somehow afford one and I got my first GPS watch.
The Garmin Forerunner 201 was the coolest thing I owned at that point. I believe it cost around $150 — $200. Remember, this was very new at the time. I mean, look at the size of that thing! It was like the equivalent of wearing an iPhone on your wrist. It was kinda heavy and had a huge velcro strap to keep it tight on your arm (it didn’t fit just on your wrist). But, I loved it. This was before the times of being able to click finish on your watch and have all of your data available immediately on your phone. I would log a week’s worth of workouts and then on Sundays I would have to attach it to an adapter and plug it into my computer, then upload the data from the watch into a Garmin software on my parent’s computer. If I remember correctly, the watch itself didn’t have much internal memory so the only way to record a new workout without losing your old workouts was to upload the data to your computer and then delete it from the watch. With this watch, I was able to see not only how long I had been running but also my pace and my total distance. With the size of the numbers on that LCD screen the people with me could see it too. I had to charge the watch every other day or every other run. The worst was when I forgot to turn the watch off before throwing it in my locker and it would die before the next cross country practice. Showing up to run with a dead watch was not cool.
The Forerunner 201 served me well for my junior and senior years of high school. I kept track of all of my workouts and loved to scour the data every weekend and tell people how many miles I ran that week. I really wish I still had the computer that the software was on but all of the data disappeared — after one too many Limewire music downloads but that is a story for another time. Upon graduation from high school, I had the opportunity to continue my running career at the junior college level. At the track banquet (a semi-formal dinner held at the end of each season), the seniors had a tradition of leaving things behind for the younger runners. That year I passed down the famous Forerunner 201 to my long-time running partner who ended up using it for his entire senior year.
My freshman year of college meant that I was going to get a new running watch. Running technology had improved quite a bit but that meant that the price points went up. As a junior college student-athlete, I didn’t have a budget for running watches. My school didn’t have a budget for running shoes or shorts. This was like 13th grade, in all honesty when it came to the college athlete experience. It just felt like a bigger, less intense high school. They even made us return our uniforms at the end of the year. My parents weren’t going to buy me a new watch after I just gave away my old one so I wasn’t able to purchase the watch that I really wanted. However, I was still able to afford an upgrade. The Garmin Forerunner 305 (see above) was definitely an upgrade from the 201, but mostly the same. It was much smaller, lighter, and had a better, more comfortable watch band. The charge lasted a bit longer but you still had to remember to shut off the watch completely or it would die within a few hours. These early Garmin watches were not watches you would just wear around, they were only for running. Not only was the battery life terrible, but they also looked ridiculous to the non-runner. There isn’t much more to say about this watch.
After my freshman year in college, I took a two-year break from running and school to be a service missionary in South America. I did very little running but thought about it a lot and was excited to get back to competitive running when I returned.
My sophomore year in college was about two and a half years after my freshman year in college and running technology was completely different. Almost everyone on my new team had a GPS watch, it was no longer unique or cool to have one. Just like before, my school was in no position to help athletes buy things like running watches (or shoes, or shorts, or more than one t-shirt or anything to help them be a better athlete), so I saved up some money and started shopping. I settled on a lower-end Polar running watch that I bought at Dick’s Sporting Goods. I bought it because it came with a heart rate monitor that you wear on your chest and it wasn’t very expensive. I don’t remember much about this watch but it never really worked the way I wanted it to and I ended up not wearing it very often.
My sophomore year running in college was my final year running collegiately. I finished up my studies at the junior college level and needed to transfer to a bigger school to finish my degree. I considered running but when I saw how expensive it was to simply attend school, and how I wasn’t quite fast enough to get a scholarship without moving to middle-of-nowhere Indiana, I decided against it. This didn’t mean that I would stop running altogether but I did take a long break before running consistently again.
A couple of years later I decided to start running consistently again. I was still in college (another long story about how long it took me to finish my bachelor’s degree) but I was working full time and had a bit of money to spend. At this point running technology had boomed and everyone, runners and non-runners alike were wearing all kinds of fitness watches. Technology had come a long way since my first watch and I had a lot to choose from. I wasn’t sold on the Apple Watch quite yet so I went for the Nike+ GPS watch because it did what I needed it to do, held a charge for a week or longer (depending on how often you utilized the GPS function) and it looked nice. This meant I could wear it all the time. I loved this watch but it was an older model watch and still didn’t connect wirelessly to anything. In order to get the run data from the watch online, you had to connect it with a cord to your computer. I rarely did this because I didn’t really care that much. The one thing I really did not enjoy about this watch was that if you decided one day to run in a new location, one that was away from your typical running route, it would take FOREVER for your watch to connect to a GPS signal. I remember my friends would be chomping at the bit to get going with our run and my watch still hadn’t connected. I didn’t want to start before it connected because then the mileage not be counted.
The next running watch I had (don’t worry this is the second to last one) was another Garmin. This was in 2017. My dad had a friend that worked for Garmin and got me a discount on the Garmin Vivoactive HR. This was my most high-tech running watch to date because it connected to my phone like a smartwatch. Now, this was no Apple Watch but it would vibrate at my wrist with notifications from my phone and it would show my text messages and who was calling but that was it. I couldn’t respond to texts or answer calls from my watch. As far as running goes, it did everything I needed it to. Due to the fact that it could connect wirelessly to my cell phone, it had its own app and would connect to GPS immediately which was great. It also recorded a ton of different exercises like running, swimming, biking, rowing, yoga, paddle boarding, etc. I loved that as soon as I got back from my run I could open the Garmin app and it would show me all the data from my run. This was the first time I had a watch that didn’t require me to connect to a computer to see the full breakdown of the data. This watch would even show me a map of the run I had just completed moments prior! This watch was also the first watch that I had that would try and track my heart rate. When I was in high school I used to wear a heart rate monitor every once in a while but I hated the chest strap and it was just a borrowed one from my school so I didn’t have it all the time. (Funny though how my high school had heart rate monitors for us to borrow but my college didn’t.) The only downside to this watch was that after a while it stopped connecting to my phone. There was a point where I couldn’t get it to connect at all and I spent a lot of time on the Garmin subreddit (very helpful and kind community of Garmin enthusiasts) trying to figure out how to reset it and get it to connect. Eventually, it did connect but then it died again.
Finally, in 2020 I purchased the exercise watch I believe might be the last one I ever buy. I finally jumped on the Apple Watch bandwagon and have never been happier with a purchase of exercise technology. I never wanted to buy an Apple Watch because of how expensive they were. Recently the series 3 went down in price because of the release of the series 5. Thanks to the stimulus check I received in early 2020, I had a bit of spending money and pulled the trigger. This watch was a game-changer when it comes to my running and overall fitness. Not only does it track my running and connect directly to my phone just like my Garmin, but it also does so much more. I love that I can set daily fitness goals that keep me motivated. Closing my exercise ring each day has become a habit for me. It has improved my fitness (and happiness). I love to compete against my friends in fitness challenges and even when we aren’t competing, I love to get notifications when they finish workouts. It is motivating to me and makes me happy. The Apple Watch is so much more than just a fitness tracker. I find so much value in everything it does. Another feature I love about the Apple Watch is I can download music to the watch, connect the watch to my BlueTooth headphones, and run with music without having to carry my phone. No other watch I had in the past could do that — it is a game-changer. I hated carrying my phone so I never ran with music before but I really enjoy it. I love that I can download a podcast or two and go out for a nice long run without my phone and still have something to listen to.
In conclusion, my journey with fitness tracking wearables has come a long way. Starting with a basic stopwatch all the way to the most advanced piece of wearable technology available, I have seen the pros and cons of them all. I hope that this was an informative and amusing piece to read as you took a trip through running-tech history with me. If you have had experiences with these watches or others, let me know! What did you like? What didn’t you like? Do you wear a fitness tracker now when you run?
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