Tired of GPS Watches

When I first started running, the watch of choice was the Timex Ironman Watch. Even though we weren’t Ironman triathletes, we appreciated the simplicity and durability of this watch. The watch had a chrono mode, took splits, was water-proof, and even had a special Indiglo feature that allowed you to see it in the dark. For high school athletes, we also found that it was pretty much indestructible. I know the battery had some sort of lifespan, but we never saw one that died. What a watch, and it was fairly inexpensive!

Timex Ironman Classic 30, AKA The best running watch ever still available on Amazon.

When I first started coaching high school athletes, the GPS watches were bulky and looked more like someone had an old-school iPod attached to their wrist. They were also expensive, so very few athletes owned these watches. I didn’t own one and thought they looked ridiculous.

Nothing beats strapping a brick to your wrist before a run.

In 2008, our booster club purchased five Garmin watches, which I assigned to each of our running packs. It was a good way to check their distance and pace as they ran around Flower Mound. The kids hated the bulky watches and thought I didn’t trust them while running on their own. That may have been true for some of our more mischievous runners, but for the most part, I was interested in the data. For a long time, we were in the dark about the exact distance of a loop and the pace of our runs. We had a rough estimate, but I didn’t take my car out and measure all these running loops.

This new data was interesting to look at, and I felt it gave me another opportunity to coach up our kids. Run too slowly? I was ready to inform them on the importance of being consistent in their work ethic. Have you been running too fast? I was ready to tell them how important it was to be patient and recover on easy runs. It’s easy to see why, after a while, the kids grew tired of wearing these watches. The watches and their coach were taking the fun out of running.

I had to remind myself that kids are not robots. They are going to have days when they need to run slower and days when they want to run faster. Other factors such as heat, cold, wind, and hills should also be taken into account when looking at their pace for the day. Like many things, the GPS watch is a tool that, when used correctly, can help athletes improve.

And now getting to the title of the article, here are five reasons I’m tired of GPS watches.

1. Cross Country: I’m not a fan of obsessing over distances in cross country. The distance for 6A in Texas is supposed to be approximately 5 kilometers. Many kids wear their GPS watches in races, and the biggest complaint I get afterwards is that the course was too long. I almost never hear about a course being too short!I just don’t care and still think cross country should be focused on placing. This past weekend was the World Cross Country Championships in Australia. The best runners in the world competed in this race, and I didn’t hear one thing about their finishing times. I do know which individuals and teams won the races.
2. Battery: If an athlete has trouble keeping their iPad charged for school, I can guarantee their running watch is going to be dead for practice. Of course, their phone always seems to be charged at 100 percent. It’s hard to get any information from a blank screen.
3. Functionality: When on the track, our athletes have trouble getting splits. They can tell you how far it is around a 400-meter track or how many steps they have taken for the day, but they have no idea what their time was on a repetition. This is where the previously mentioned Timex watch from 30 years ago outshines the new GPS watches.
4. Obsession: We have athletes that obsess over every little detail. They look at their watch constantly and adjust their paces by slowing or picking up the pace throughout the run. I had to tell our team a few years ago that they were supposed to run slower on the hills and faster on the downhills. Our girls’ packs were surging up the hills and then plodding down the hills to maintain the exact pace. I’m also not a fan of the built-in heart rate monitors. They seem to be inconsistent, and it’s another thing that our athletes can stress over.
5. Not Robots: As I briefly mentioned earlier, athletes are not robots, and they shouldn’t stress over a watch. It’s important that they listen to their bodies and run faster or slower depending on how they feel. I also want them to enjoy being runners and what running has to offer. Look around and enjoy being outside and hanging out with teammates.