Garmin 610 review

A few weeks ago I treated myself to an upgrade of my GPS training watch. There was nothing really wrong with my old watch, just that the new model is shiny and has a few rather cool new features. As with my last watch, the new watch is a Garmin. There are several manufacturers selling these type of watches, but Garmin are kings when it comes to GPS. It's their core expertise and if you're buying a GPS watch then you want the GPS to be good. Otherwise you only need a stopwatch.

 

My new model is the Garmin Forerunner 610. One of the obvious physical differences compared to my old Forerunner 305 model, is that the 610 looks and feels exactly like a normal wristwatch. You can also use it as a normal wristwatch with a screen which shows, time, date, etc. That's pretty cool. It runs off a rechargeable battery so you will have to remember to charge it up like your cellphone if you intend to use it as a daily watch, probably one to 2 times a week.

 

The 610 is the first of the Forerunners to use a touch screen, with earlier models using buttons to display or edit the various functions. The touch screen is a little tricky to master at first. My model is quite sensitive to finger pressure needed to scroll through the screens or to select items. I think I probably prefer the button system but I suspect that touch screen will become the normal for all future models.

 

When you first start the watch you are asked to enter in certain personal information, such as age, height and weight. The watch uses that information to calculate energy burnt during training. It's not a function I have ever used so I don't know how accurate it is. Once that's done, you're good to go. I found the 610 to be faster when it came to locking onto satellites when compared to my 305. It found the satellites in my area in under a minute with the first attempt. The Garmins are clever in that they remember those satellites and so future startups times get faster. I usually set my watch outside while I'm tying up my shoelaces so it's all locked on and ready to go when I pick it up.

 

The watch allows you to view a wide range of information while you are out training. Things such as time, distance, current speed, average speed, and so forth. On the 610, these are shown on Training Pages. The 305 did the exact same thing only then they were called Data Fields. You can have up to 4 Training Pages which you can customise to your personal tastes. I usually have one screen which for Time/Distance, another for Average Pace/Current Pace, and a third giving Time/Distance/Average Pace. You flip through the various screens by simply swiping horizontally across the face of the 610 watch with your finger.

 

If you are going for a simple walk or jog, then that's pretty much all that you need. Hit the Start/Stop button on the side of the 610 when you head out and come home, and then press and hold the LAP button to save your training session data. If you want to do something more specific, then you have a few choices in front of you. With the Garmin watches, you can choose to select from a list of Workouts. A Workout is a training session that you have designed for yourself. Maybe you want to walk one kilometer, jog one kilometer, walk one kilometer, etc, for an hour. No problem. You can enter the desired information directly into the watch or, as I would do, use a computer programme to write your session and then download it to your watch. I never used the Workout option very often with the 305 as it didn't give you a lot of feedback about how well you were following the schedule. It simply flashed up "Speed Up" or "Slow Down" on the screen, but you never knew by how much. An improvement with the 610 is that it shows you in both Time and Distance if you are ahead of , or behind, your desired tempo. It incorporates the Virtual Runner screen which I'll go into in more detail late. That's a big improvement and enough for me to use the Workout function more often.

 

The 305 had a Workout option which, for some reason, has been severely diluted in the 610. A shame because it's one I used almost constantly. Called a Quick Workout, you key in a desired Time and a desired Pace. When you hit the Start button, you get an instant comparison as to how far you are ahead of, or behind, your desired Pace. You are essentially racing against your watch which is running at a fixed tempo. With the old 305 you had more options than just Time/Pace, you could also choose to select Distance/Pace or Time/Distance, with a number of preprogrammed selctions to choose from if you wanted. Often I would just hit Marathon/5:00 which meant I wanted to run a Marathon distance at 5:00 minutes per kilometer tempo. Two clicks and I was done. Of course I wasn't running a marathon but it meant that the watch would keep counting up to 42 kilometers. The 610 has lost some of those functions and I think it's a little worse for that. Instead of hitting "10k" and "47 minutes", I now have to calculate what pace that would be. Not something I'm keen on doing every time.

 

If you want something a little more realistic, then there is the "Courses" training option. With Courses, you can retrace a previous training session which you or someone else has completed. Following the extact same route as before, the watch will "Race" by using the exact same tempo that you ran previously. If you sped up or slowed down in certain places, then the watch timer will also do that. That is different from the Workout function where the watch races at a fixed tempo the entire way. With Courses you are challenging your current self with your former self.

 

Virtual Partner is a cool function on Garmin watches. With Virtual Partner you get an extra screen to view which shows you how far in front, or behind, of your goal. That's the function I was talking about earlier. The VP screen is split into 3 rows. One row shows the distance between you and the watch, one shows the same information in time, while a little graphic in the middle shows 2 stick figures racing each other. If you are ahead of yourself, then the screen will be white with black lettering, if you are behind then the screen will be black with white lettering. A simple glance will tell you if you need to speed up or slow down. A black screen means you need to step it up a bit. In addition to the VP screen, you still get to see all your normal data screens. With the 305, the VP option could be used when running a Quick Workout (fixed tempo the whole time), or when running a Course. With the 610 they have improved VP by allowing it to read a normal Workout. No more annoying and unhelpful "Speed Up" flashing as was the case with the 305.

 

A brand new feature with the 610 is the Virtual Racer option. It's a little bit of a gimick but I can see some merits to it. With Virtual Partner, you can race against a previous session, travelling on the exact same course. The watch uses the GPS information from your previous session to race against you. Virtual Racer does the same thing, but it ignores the GPS information and uses only your previous speed and distance. It speeds up when you sped up, slows down you you slowed down, and will stop when you stopped. So why would you want this ? Not often, admitedly. But lets say that you live in Stockholm and have a friend who lives in Sydney. Your friend runs a 5km race in Sydney. He then sends his race data to you and you can "race" against him, following his exact tempo, in Stockholm. That's kind of cool. You couldn't do that with Virtual Partner as VP requires you to travel the exact same route as your friend in Sydney. For a more practical application, you could take a half hour walk around the park and then try to beat your earlier time when walking around a different park. To be fair to yourself you would have to choose parks of a similar terrain otherwise you might be giving yourself an unfair advantage.

 

I have decided to give the Virtual Racer a practical test. I want to run a 10k race in Stockholm with specific speeds for each kilometer, not running at a fixed pace the whole way. And I want the watch to help me keep to the pace schedule. What I did was a write up a race split schedule and head dwn to my local gym. I have a Garmin Foot Pod which is a small button you simply attach to your shoe. When the Foot Pod is active, the watch will calcuate data using the Foot Pod instead of GPS positioning. This means that you can record a workout whilst indoors. Anyway, I ran my 10k "race" on the treadmill, increasing or decreasing the treadmill speed to follow my race plan. Actually running allowed me to feel the different tempo changes and get a direct indication of if they were reasonable or not. Treadmills are not terribly accurate so I followed my progress on the 610 and adjusted the treadmill speed as needed. The Food Pod was surprisingly accurate when measured on our local athletics track. Anyway, now I have an actual race to compete against which I can use in Stockholm without me having to first travel to Stockholm.

 

A change with the 610 over the 305 is the iploading and downloading of training data onto your computer for storage and viewing. The 305 requires a USB cable connection, whereas the 610 can work wireless. An advantage ? Not for me, but other people might think it worth it. Uploading is automatic, direct to the Garmin Connect website. With the 610, Garmin have moved away from the Garmin Training Centre software which came with the 305. TC is still compatible with the 610 however. Now Garmin want you to use their Garmin Connect, which is web based. Garmin Connect allows for you to share your training sessions with other users as well as storing and analysing your sessions. I find myself still using the Training Centre as my prime resource. It can do a few things which I haven't yet been able to do with Garmin Connect. With TC I was able to save my treadmill race as a Course, which Virtual Racer needs. Garmin Connect didn't allow me to convert the treadmill session to a Course as it looked immediately for GPS information which was lacking.

 

The verdict. If you're buying a watch for the first time, go for the 610. For the nicer look and feel, and for futureproofing. If you have a 305 or similar, it's not a huge upgrade with the 610 and you could do just as well in holding on to your current watch. I like the new watch, or I will once I properly master the screen swiping process. It has dropped down in price from the initial launch price, which makes it good value when you consider the extra bells and whistles. Garmin make great GPS training watches and they obviously put a lot of thought into what the End User wants. That sets them apart from some of the other manufacturers who rely on product brand flooding to push their product to the front. It takes a bit more than a flash swoosh to impress me.

Kitchen resolved

First day back today after our official summer holiday break. We only took 3 weeks of our annual entitlement, which means I'm alone in the office. I've been dealing with any email crisis that have popped up during my break, but it's good to have some peace and quiet to get things properly organised. And to deal with the important task of updating this blog of course.

 

Our summer break was pretty low keyed this year, which was kind of nice. A chance to catch up with stuff around the home, eat a few good dinners out, and generally unwind. Speaking of stuff around the home, our IKEA kitchen crisis has all worked itself out rather nicely. As a quick recap, we had been buying a few kitchen cabinets as we got paid, over the course of the last year or so, with the view to completely replace our existing kitchen. That is where IKEA is great because it offers the flexibility to purchase in this fashion. Unfortunately for us, just as we were about to purchase our final cabinets, IKEA completely changed their design of kitchens. In their defence, they had been selling the current model for the last 20 years. We just happened to get caught at the end of that 20 year cycle.

 

As one rocket scientist noted earlier, we could have bought everything at once and not had this problem. An absolutely brilliant idea and one that we could never have thought of for ourselves. I guess we can't all be that clever. Anyway, if we all used the 60,000 kronor we carry around in our back pockets to purchase a new kitchen all at once, that would rather negate the major marketing point of IKEA.

 

Back to reality. When we spoke to the head office at IKEA about our problem, they told us that if we delivered everything we had purchased (unopened) back to the store, they would give us a store credit for the purchase value. This sounded a little too good to be true, especially as some stuff, such as whiteware, had been purchased nearly 2 years ago. But we decided to take the punt, loaded everything up into a trailer, and wandered on up the road to our nearest store. The thought was that we would try to give them everything, and see what we came away with. We could not believe our luck when they happily told us that they would accept our entire trailer load of kitchen goods, with full credit on the purchase prices. The whiteware was the biggest bonus for us as it meant that, by purchasing brand new again, the 5 year warranty period would be reset. As I said, a couple of items were nearly 2 years through their warranty period. In theory they "should" have fitted the new kitchen model, but it would have been a risk. Thankfully it's a risk we no longer have.

 

So now we have a new kitchen system which is at the start of a 20 year manufacturing cycle, rather than being at the end. That gives us a lot more security with regard to sourcing replacement parts in the future, and futureproofs the value of the kitchen. Win, win. Now, you would think that it wouldn't get much better than that. But it did. We had purchased maybe 90% of our kitchen previously. With a few cost compromises along the way. Before going to the IKEA store with our old kitchen, we had priced out the total cost for purchasing an entire new kitchen, including new whiteware and a few extra "bling" bells and whistles. After comparing the quoted cost to our newly acquired store credit, we discovered that the new kitchen was actually going to be cheaper to purchase than our 90% purchased old kitchen. In short, we were able to buy a new kitchen, and still have store credit left. Enough to completely remodel one of our spare bedrooms.

 

You don't get a lot of wins in life, at least I don't. So I'm going to savour this one for a while. I'm also going to give a major plug for the good people at IKEA. They didn't have to take all our stuff back and treat us as well as they did. That certainly wouldn't have happened in New Zealand, it simply would have been written off as tough luck and bad timing. IKEA went well above and beyond the call, and I guess that the care they showed towards a repeat customer is part of the reason behind why they continue to be so successful. Well done, IKEA, you've got my vote for life.

Work Ethics

Today is a big day. It's the last day of work for me before I head off on summer holidays. It's been a while coming and I fully intend to enjoy every lousy moment of it. The holidays, that is, not the few remain hours before. The other big event is that today is the last day at work for one of my co-workers. I'm using the term "work" very loosely here as I have struggled to make his time here fit into the definition criteria for the word. I know more than most how hard it is to start out again in a new country where no one knows anything about your professional background and, even if they did, it carries very litle weight in your new country. Anyone who doesn't understand that concept must be living in a bubble. I understand all that. But what I can't sympathise with is how a person can arrive into a new country, spend the best part of 2 years there, and never make one attempt to adapt to a different culture with different attitudes and expectations. That's tough to forgive. It's one thing not to know stuff, it's another matter entirely simply not to try. It not only makes for a miserable existance for the person concerned, it also drags down the morale of the people around them. I could see that the people around me were getting increasingly pissed off with this free loader. Office doors were being closed when they had always been open. At the same time I got the feeling that no one wanted to say anything about it to me, as I was also an immgrant from the same region and maybe I would take offense. To I took it upon myself to address the issue with the group, to let them know that not all immigrants had the same corrosive attitude. It was obvious early on that this person had only come to Sweden in order to abuse the social support systems which are so generously provided by Sweden. As so as those were exhausted, he and his family would be straight back to the country they came from. And that is exactly how it has turned out. Maybe it was a generational thing, I don't know. I do know that it wasn't a cultural issue as I know that his work attitude displayed in Sweden would not have been tolerated back in his country of origin. No, it was straight out abuse of a country while giving nothing back in return. That stinks. From today we will be one body less on our team, but I can guarantee that we will be one body more effective as a result. No longer having to concern ourselves with carrying another person who had no interest in contributing is going to be a huge weight off our shoulders. I can't wait to come back to a positive fresh environment again.

Plane sailing

It's a while since I've had a good bitch and moan about Swedish societies and cultures. I think I've been pretty good about that I have to say. So time for another lash about the same old, yet frustrating, theme.

 

I'm talking of course about the worldwide knowledge of the Swedish ideal of self-importance. Let's be fair, I'm not talking about arrogance, which is what one ususally associates with self-importance in other countries. It's more of a naive sub-conscious state of self-importance. An almost childlike state where the rest of the world exists somewhere else. That just made no sense at all, but I know what I mean.

 

This state of being is a central part of the Swedish psyche and is quite unique. It's not something that you can prepare yourself for, and it's not something that the average Swede is so aware of that they can warn you about it. It's simply ingrained into them not to have their own personal needs trampled over. The background reasoning is sound. You are as important as the person next to you. That's a brilliant message and something we could all take a little bit from. Unfortunately the Swedish education forgot to include the second part of the message, that the person next to you is equally as important as you. And that's where the system breaks down into chaos.

 

Usually it's something that you can work around and, being aware of the weakness, you can take proactive steps to ensure you are not adversly affected by the wave. Occassionally it spills out to affect third parties and the classic example is with air travel.

 

All things considered, Swedish pilots work miracles in the air. They manage to, against the greatest of odds, get to where they are going on time. All this in spite of the best efforts of the Swedish air passenger. I've flown a lot and the one thing you can set your watch on is that, if there is a plane load of Swedes going anywhere, the plane will be late in leaving. The air crew can plead with the rabble, the captain can chime in with threats or consequences, it's all water off a duck's back to the Swedish traveller. They are going to take as long as they think they need in order to wander slowly down the aisle, find their seat, stow their bags, fold and stow their jacket, check their purse or wallet, think about what they might need during the flight, go back to where they stowed their bag, drag it down, open it and retrieve what they want, check that the item is working, stow their bag again, refold their jacket, see if there is a newspaper coming, wander back to their seat, and sit down. At this point, Passenger Number 2 is now free to board the aircraft.

 

As a result, Swedish flights are notoriously late for leaving. Over Swedish airspace it's not a huge problem (which further encourages the practice) as air traffic over Sweden isn't huge. And, as I said before, the pilots manage to step on the gas and get the plane where it needs to be on time. So on the surface there is no harm done and the impression is given of an efficient airline. No, the big problem is when a large number of Swedes board a flight at a busy international terminal. International Air Traffic Control can be very unforgiving. A plane which is not ready to leave on it's scheduled departure time (give me a wave, all you happy Swedish tourists) is promptly dumped to the back of the queue. I have been sitting on a loaded plane on the tarmac for between 30 minutes and 2 hours, due to the flight missing it's departure slot. I've heard the pilot screaming that if everyone is not on board in the next 5 mintues, we would be stuck on the tarmac for the next 2 hours. A pretty clear message to all. Not a problem for our happily self-aware Swede who blissfully continues to stand in the middle of the aisle and mull over it is going to be too warm or too cold on the plane to wear their cardigan. Living in New Zealand, you have to fly if you want to go anywhere, so I've had a bit of experience with air travel over the past 5 decades and I have never, repeat NEVER, struck the problem of passengers continually delaying flights until I encountered large groups of Swedish travellers. Cabin crews must cringe when they read the passenger lists prior to boarding time.

 

The final irony surrounding this unique phenomenon is when the plane lands. Something happens to the travelling Swede who, just a few hours earlier, was giving a great demonstration on what happens when you smoke way too much pot. When it comes to getting off the plane, it's like the Charge of the Light Brigade. Pause to take a breath in the aisle and you'll get run down without a second thought. Any chance that they could shift just a little of that excitement to the boarding process ? Possibly, but then they wouldn't be the Swedes we know and love.

Kitchen Wars

As some of you may be aware we have been slowly modernising our kitchen at home over the past couple of years. We had decided to go for a modular IKEA kitchen. Several reasons for the, we liked the look of their kitchens, flexibility of design, and our local store was not much more than an hour up the road. But the big factor in their favour was that we could buy a few pieces each month when we got paid. That way we would have a new kitchen without putting any major strain on our finances. We could still travel, do pretty much what we wanted, and have a nice new kitchen to boot. A perfect solution.

 

As you will also likely be aware, my life never goes that smoothly.

 

We have now gotten so close to our purchasing finish line that we were thinking for who would do the installation work, and how soon could they do it. Only one more cabinet and a couple of doors left to buy. You can picture the look on our faces when we discovered a couple of weeks back that, after 20 years of sales, IKEA had decided to change their kitchen cabinet range. Completely. The system we had been painstaking collecting, was now instantly no longer available for purchase at any store in Sweden. To cap off a perfect plan, their new system was not compatible with their old (our) system. Cue panic stations from our end.

 

Definite information was pretty hard to come by, so we headed up the road to our store in order to beat some information out of their staff with a blunt instrument. We came away with a couple of alternatives. While I'm still technically pissed off, I don't yet wish an untimely death on all things IKEA. We have the choice to complete the purchase of our kitchen. While we can't buy through the stores any more, we can purchase via IKEAs head office, for as long as their stocks last. That would hopefully get the job done and would solve our immediate problem. The downside with this is that, should something go wrong with our kitchen in the future, we would be screwed when it came to buying new hinges, doors, etc. We would have the kitchen we liked, but would have to wrap it a little in cotton wool. And you know our luck.

 

The alternative offered to us by IKEA is quite generous. If it turns out to be completely correct on the day. We can return all our kitcken cabinets, providing the cartons are unopened and we can show proof of purchase. There is no time limit on how long ago we purchased any of the cabinets. Again, this is only verbal from them. If we do that, they will give us a store credit equal to the total value of our purchases. As we bought 99% of the stuff longer than 30 days ago, we don't get the option of cash back. That's just fine by us, we want our new ktichen.

 

After chewing it over for a while, we think we'll go with the upgrade option. The main bonus is security of future supply. If something goes wrong during the next 20 years, we know we are covered. It's going to be a major execise as we have to physically take everything back to the store, and we're probably talking about a couple of hundred kilos of kitchen furniture. But when has my life ever gone smoothly ?

Here comes Summer

Summer holidays start in about 26 hours, possibly a bit sooner if I can fill in more time by spinning around in my chair. It's been a while coming, you might say. Ok, we had our trip to New York and, while that was a whole heap of fun, travel holidays don't give a lot of time for rest. Usually we go away somewhere for our summer holidays. This year, having already been away, we'll be staying at home for the first time. I'm really looking forward to that. Not that it will be a complete rest mind, as our balcony installer has just announced that they will be coming to install the glass system in about 2 weeks. Before they carry out the install I have to lift the existing flooring on our balcony. It's just a little too high and nearer to the underside of the door if we want to fit mats after the balcony has been closed in. So there will be something to do.

 

I have never thought about it before, but the glass installer guy told me that they always work right through the summer and then take winter holidays. For the now blindingly obvious reason that no one fits new windows in the middle of winter. Logical when you think about it I guess.

 

I have put myself down as taking 3 weeks holiday this summer break. Annually I have 5 weeks holiday. I typically take 3 weeks over summer and then a week over Christmas and New Year. That gives me a week left for odds and sods or to save for a rainy extra holiday. Our New York trip came from my previous saved holiday fund so it didn't dip into my annual entitlement. I'm glad that we have such flexibility in our workplace system.

 

We had a taste of summer holidays last weekend when we spent the weekend at the family cabin. It's a lovely spot by the lake and very popular with all the family. As a result, last weekend was the first time in our 5 years of travelling there, that we had the cabin completely to ourselves. It was quite luxurious. We just lazed around, ate what we wanted when we wanted, and generally didn't have to give a stuff about anyone else. You need times like that once in a while. On Saturday we decided to take a run around the perimeter of the lake. We figured it was about 10k and it ended up being just on 11km. We didn't take it too hard so we had time to enjoy some scenery which neither of us had seen before. Sprinting back into the cabin site I had the brilliant idea that we should keep on running straight into the lake. It always looked great in the movies. In hindsight I'm suspecting that none of those movies were filmed in the north of Sweden where the lake water temperature was still lucky to be as high as 20 deg C. Any thoughts of a romantic escapade shrivelled and died once the water passed thigh height. On the positive side, it did chill down our tired leg muscles nicely. We capped off the experience by hopping straight into the wood fired sauna at the cabin. I'm getting really good at saunas now. At first I would go into a semi panic mode but now I've learnt to let my body relax and enjoy the benefits that only a good sauna can provide.

 

I think that the cabin is empty again this coming weekend. We're thinking about heading up there again, it's only a 90 minute drive. But then there's the hassle of packing stuff together for 2 days. Not sure if it's really worth the grief. It was rather depressing to note last time that our medications, potions and lotions bag was larger than our clothing bag. A sign of the times.