- Morning Trainiacs.
One of the most commonly asked questions
that I get is, what watch do you use?
Give you a spoiler alert.
Garmin 935.
Give you a little bit of disappointing news,
I did not chose this because I think it's the
absolute best watch that everyone needs to get.
I'll explain today why I chose this watch,
how I use this watch,
and what watch I recommend for, yo
I gotta wait a little bit
before this side of the pool opens.
So we got time.
(Upbeat music)
So this is the watch I use.
This is the Garmin 935 XT.
Now, I'll start by explaining why I purchased this watch
instead of any other watches.
When this was on the market,
it was kinda like this and the Garmin Fenix 5 series
were the top of the line watch.
It was the top of the line multi-sport watch,
specifically for runners, cyclists, triathletes.
Could be used for anything,
and it had basically the same software features
as the Garmin Fenix series,
but it was a little bit smaller.
Now I don't like wearing a lot of jewelry,
besides wedding ring, which is now the aurora ring,
and this watch.
That is all that I wear,
so I wanted basically the top of the line watch
that was in the smallest form factor.
Another reason that I went with this top of the line watch,
isn't because I use it for all the different
bells and whistles and features
and I believe that everyone has to have
the top of the line watch.
Couple of things.
Number one, I believe in purchasing things
that are fairly future proof.
I don't like buying something that is cheap,
because I feel that if you buy something
that is tremendously cheap,
in the end it's actually going to cost you more.
So I want to get something that I knew was going to
last quite a while.
I think this has been maybe a year or so,
and totally usable.
Also, I believe in buying things personally for me
that kind of future proof myself.
In this case, because so many people ask me
questions about watches and data and metrics
and things like that,
I believe in a at least,
personally for me,
being able to get something that
if readings, metrics, features, updates of this come out
or new gadgets come out that have to tie into
something that's a little more high end,
I'm able to do that.
So that's really the only reason
that I bought this watch specifically.
But as far as all those bells and whistles
and all the potential readings that I can get from this,
let me explain how little I use,
and I actually do use this.
Okay, so let's talk about how I use this first in the swim.
Cause that's where we are.
Now, this has the ability to track everything
from your distance per stroke to your swim goal score,
to your stroke per length,
your average pace per hundred meters,
or hundred yards.
I really don't use any of that.
Frankly, if none of you followed me,
all I would use is,
the pace clock.
The only reason that I use this in the pool
is because all of you like to follow along
with what I'm doing on Strava,
see how long I'm swimming and
Instagram photos of my watch when I do a big or a fast swim.
They tend to do fairly well.
So the only reason that I really use this in the pool
is for all of you.
The only feature that I do use this for,
in the pool,
is if goggles fog up by the end of the swim set,
and I can't quite see the pool clock,
I'll use this,
for the interval times.
That's it.
That's all I use it for.
And you look at elite swimmers,
that's all they use.
Rarely will any elite swimmer use anything but a pool clock
and swimming with this,
it ends up being a little bit more of a nuisance.
Now why do I end up posting some of those times
that I take from this on social media
and talk about how there's progress.
Well, because I think a more important thing to measure
in the pool isn't your average time per hundred yards
in a swim based off of this,
because you can fudge that by stopping and starting
in between all of your sets by doing
more or less drill sets.
In my case,
I don't really worry about stopping/starting
when I'm at the wall.
Sometimes I will, sometimes I won't.
Sometimes if Jerry coach of tower 26,
the swim program that I use,
prescribes, hey with this part of the swim
I want a time that you need to report in,
I might use this but I also might use the pool clock,
because when it comes right down to it
those generalities of the swim golf,
the distance per stroke,
the average time per hundred meters or hundred yards,
all of that pales into comparison to
how are you actually preforming.
And the only way that you know
if you're actually making performance gains
is by doing standardized test
parts of your set that you can track
over a period of time,
and this just gives way more information
than those specific performance times that we need.
Now let me do that swim
and I'll get to how I use this for the bike and the run.
I've got 5 more minutes to wait.
(soft synthesizer music)
(water splash)
That was a pretty awesome milestone there.
That was 3, I don't know why I'm looking at this
because, turn it off.
3000 meters, 50 meter long course.
Huge milestone.
Never swam it that fast, in my life.
Go to the Instagram post that I did on February 20th.
You'll see how fast.
Alright, cycling.
Alright, so as far as using this watch
on the bike is concerned, I do not.
Ever.
But that doesn't mean that I wouldn't.
The reason that I don't use this watch is
because I have this Wahoo Elemnt bolt.
In custom triathlon terrain red.
Yeah, that's right.
But what I put on this is I put cadence,
I put heart rate,
I put power and oh depending on the ride maybe ride length,
depending on things like that.
Now the reason that I'm using this
instead of my watch is because it's just
so much nicer to be able to mount that,
look down and have a nice big screen.
It's kind of like the cycling standard.
Whether you using this or,
Gracie, what're you eating?
Hey.
Gravel.
Whether you're using this or another bike computer,
you need a head unit if you're going to start
using a bunch of metrics when you start cycling.
Now, to save yourself some money
what a lot of people end up doing
then they first end up getting that metrics and the data
on their bike, is they use their watch.
So if in the case that lets say,
I've hopped on the bike last summer,
and this has been dead,
well I have the watch paired to the power meter,
paired to the heart rate monitor,
paired to the cadence
and I just store everything there,
keep it off to the side and not really look at it
but if you want to look at it,
there's a lot of mounts that you can get
to end up mounting that watch,
this watch, whatever watch you have on there.
So it's not like the watch itself is the specific thing
that I'm using, it's the power meter,
it's the cadence meter,
it's the heart rate monitor,
it is all of the peripheral devices
and this is just a way to display it
and capture all the data.
Notice that I'm not saying this is a critical watch.
You're gonna see that in another form in a second
when we talk about running over here.
So when we start getting into running
there are a few metrics that I've started
looking at depending on what type of run I'm doing.
If I am doing base mileage in the off season,
in the base building season,
at the start of the year,
I end up doing a lot of that training by heart rate.
So I use the Wahoo ticker as a chest heart rate monitor,
because what I find is that
even though this has wrist heart rate sensing
what that little flashy light that I showed you,
it's not very accurate,
when you start moving around a lot,
when you start sweating a lot,
this very accurate,
this might be as much as 30 beats off a minute.
So not a really big fan of it.
But, I will use this heart rate monitor
to capture the heart rate
and then I will stream that and display it here.
When I start introducing little bursts of speed
in the base building phase of the season
I am not really looking at pace.
I start by long runs,
just kind of fastest average without a
significant drop off,
so I start feeling that out.
So I'm not really looking at my watch for that.
When I'm doing track efforts,
I am looking at splits,
so all I need is time.
I don't need this to tell me that I'm running
at a 330 per kilometer pace.
I'm just looking for a split
and I'm doing it on a track or a treadmill
where everything's measured,
so again, this is not really very critical.
At the time that this does become critical with power
is right now.
Right before the races start happening
in the course of the year,
I want to start dialing in race pace.
So if I'm going to run outside,
I will display my pace per kilometer.
If I'm running inside
I'm going to use the stride power meter
for the foot pod
because it is more accurate,
like way more accurate than the treadmill pace detection
on this or the treadmills actual pacer.
So I will stream the pace from that to that.
So notice again that I'm not really using this
as the critical device.
Which is why when people ask me
what watch do you recommend,
I don't really even answer,
because it's kind of just personal preference.
Let's wrap this up.
So notice that really the critical aspect of
what watch I've chosen really has nothing to do
with the actual workouts.
As far as workouts go,
essentially I just want a little bit of time function,
and I want it to be able to pick up pace,
sometimes but not all the time,
and I want it to be able to connect to the peripheral.
So that's the bigger thing.
Do you guys want to come up?
Come up.
I know this isn't your side but you can do it.
Come on.
Grace.
(Pats couch)
So instead of stressing out about what watch you get,
think about what you want to have as far a peripherals
in your training.
Are you going to be using a power meter?
Are you going to be using a foot pod?
Are you going to be doing a lot of track running
and just need splits?
Are you going to be training by heart rate?
All of these things matter a lot more
than what watch you get.
From the watch standpoint,
it really doesn't matter.
However, I will put affiliate links
in the description below to 3 watches that I would
recommend at a beginner, an intermediate and
a high, premium price point.
And I'm going or recommend those watches based off of
their interaction with other devices.
Not this watch itself is a great watch.
I'll be looking at value,
and I'll look at how is it going to fit with all the rest
of the training that I would recommend.
So it's less about recommending the watch
and it's more about recommending what training I would do.
I'm sorry but this isn't the answer I sure a lot of you
want which is like this is the best watch
or that is the best watch,
or Suunto is better than Garmin,
or Garmin is better than I don't know,
for all that stuff go check out DC Rainmaker.
He compares all the features of everything.
I am more about the training.
And from the aspect of training,
this is basically just a screen.
Alright trainiacs.
Check out these affiliate links in the description below
if you are interested in getting a watch.
But don't stress up about it.
Later trainiacs.
Right Grace?