Gearing Up - The Heavies

The list of mandatory items are scary. There are so many items and to make it worse, my little North Face hydration bag is not able to contain all of them. It was either get a new bag or borrow from someone else. But in the end I settled for using an additional waist pouch to contain the other stuff.

Top of the list is my 3 years old North Face Enduro Boa. Into it goes the Geigerrig Hydration Engine which in plain speak is water bag. The  bag is rather small especially after putting in the 2liter bladder bag, there is not much space for anything else so the add on is the small little Mizuno waist pouch (foreground). The hiking pole gets strapped onto the Enduro bag.

(1) North Face Enduro Boa Hydration Bag (2) Black Diamond Hiking Poke (3) Mizuno Waist Pouch

The rest of the stuff that goes into the bag and pouch.

(1) Strobe Light (2) Wet Wipes (3) Home-made first aid kit comprising spray plaster, heat rub, bandages, plaster, anti-bacterial wipes (4) Luminous vest (5) Money (6) Sunblock (7)Jacket (8) Camera (9) Torch (10) Black Diamond Headlamp (11) Poncho (12) Emergency blanket (13) Gels (14) Bak Kwa (dried preserved meat) Not in picture: phone

Together with the water and the hiking pole, the whole freaking lot of stuff weight 5kg. And even after going through the water, it did not seem lighter. In fact, it got like even heavier after 4 hours of carrying it.  And I haven't even added in the full component of food.

Unfortunately there is no drop bag for the 50km so we will have to carry the whole load throughout the race. Packing the items in is a big hassle. And I will have to take them all out just to top out the water and then pack them all back in again. 

Sighed......... Its going to be a long long day.

Timex Run Trainer

After considering almost every GPS watch available to replace the Garmin 110, my first option was the cool looking Motorola Motoactv. It is packed full of features and most important of all was available in Singapore. But in the end for one reason or another, I settled for a more time tested and reputable watch from an established watch company, Timex and not some pseudo gadget company.

After comparing the 3 models available from Timex, I settled for the Timex Run Trainer. The Timex Global Trainer is Timex's first GPS watch. A gigantic size watch also crammed full of features but  was simply too big for my liking. The latest Timex GPS watch is the Marathon GPS. This was Timex answer to the Garmin 210 and the low end GPS watch. The Run Trainer was right in between. And so it won me over with   the features, size and the pricing. 

Size

First the size. Compare it to the Garmin 110, it is not much bigger. In fact it looks better on my wrist than the Garmin 110. DC Rainmaker has a very nice photo comparison of the various GPS watch here.

Display Mode

Because of its size, it has very big display making  it very easy to read while on the run. This in effect makes up for the very dim indigo blue light that Times uses on its watches which is almost useless. Note the extra big characters in the middle row. This is double the size of the other rows. In fact, the watch can be customised to display 3 or 4 lines of data.

This is the 4 lines display layout. The text are visibly smaller but still quite readable during daylight. Apart from being able to display either 3 or 4 lines of data, Timex allowed for 3 pages of customisation with any one of them being the default display screen.

The setup for the display and in fact everything else can be done on the watch but since there are so many features, it is easier to do it on the Timex Device Agent software. This is the set up for my display.There is an mind boggling list of data that can be displayed that it took me a few tries before I settled on what I want and how to read them.  

Garmin Forerunner 210

On the spur of the moment, went and bought the Garmin Forerunner 210. The 210 is the upgraded version of the 110 which I bought almost a year ago. Back then, I bought the basic set without the heart rate monitor  for $299.00 but now due to the favourable exchange rate, the 210 with the heart rate monitor is only selling for about $260.00.

The 210 looks classier with its all black strap. Other than that, it looks no different from the 110 down to all the printed words on the face.

New Water Carrier

Some runners want to run long distance but for some reason or another, are reluctant to carry a hydration bag or fuel belt. Fortunately, for the majority of runners in Singapore, "refueling" facilities are readily available in most of the popular running routes. However, what do you do when you really need to carry bottle of waters and maybe the odd towel or keys and stuff and do not have a bag or belt?

This innovative lady seems to be got the problem solved: 

Can't see the solution? Have a closer look:

Abductor Machine

Most time I go to the gym, there are 2 specific equipment that are visibly underused. One is the adductor machine and the other is the abductor machine. Most gym rats don’t see the point of this machine. However, if it is occupied, it is usually by the ladies. And when they use it, for some strange reasons, they will sit there and use it for the longest time.

Now I don’t really know what is so great about these 2 equipment that the ladies love it so much. There was one time I was there and I think this lady was on it for at least half an hour. Every time I walked past, there she was opening closing her legs. Can somebody tell me what so great about these machine that we guys don’t know about?

Walkman W252

Someone up there must like me. Just after I talked about having free products testing, got an email from Sony Singapore to 'stress test' their latest product. Talk about coincidence!

From the maker of the original Walkman, Sony has now come up with the Walkman 252, a MP3 player designed specially with the runners in mind. Which makes me wonder, why not call it the Runman 252? Er I guess Walkman 252 sounds better than Runman 252 right?

After a short 1 hour of charging, the Walkman 252 is ready to go for a run but unfortunately I am not so let's look at the features first:

Out of Box

 The most unique feature of the Walkman 252 is that it is 'wireless' but not wireless as in bluetooth or wifi. One of the big bugbear of runners who run to music is the annoying earphone wire and the need to carry the MP3 separately using an armband. The Walkman 252 cleverly overcomes all this by incorporating the MP3 into the earphone so volia - no wire.

It is sleek and looks damn cool. The MP3 comes in 4 colors, Black, pink, lime green and white. The test model I have was black all the better to blend in with the hair. Wait a minute, maybe I should have a white piece since my hairs are all white now! At only 43g, it is light weight and fits snugly in the ear.

The other main feature of the Walkman 252 is that it is water resistant. That should eliminate the perennial problem of most runners that the earphones get ruined by all the sweat from running. The Walkman 252 is supposed to be water resistant from fresh water, tap water and sweat but no swimming though! And no washing or rinsing under the tap.

Switching it on and off is simple - just magnet it together to switch off and un-magnet it to start playback.

Under the Hood

Its comes with a 2GB storage enough for roughly 500 songs. According to the press release, this is due to finding the right balance between the usability, performance and affordability. For this release, the playback is a solid 11 hours on a full charge of 90 minutes. It also has a Quick Charge function which allows the 252 to play up to 90 minutes with a short 3 minutes charging. Unfortunately, it does not come with a separate power adaptor charger so charging is only via the provided USB stand.

Final word on the Nike+ Sports Band

Managed to dry up the Sports Band by keeping it together with a pack of silica gel. So things back to normal? Not yet. Unfortunately now the display is going kaput! Half of the first character on the LCD display has disappeared! So it looks like this is going to be my last say on this product (did I hear applause?) unless the good people at Nike are willing to replace it.

From the forum and my own experience, I think the Nike+ Sports Band was a hastily conceived idea without much thought going into development and even less so into quality control. I believe Nike's objective was to just launch the product, get the people interested, grabbed market share and runners used to it before a competitor come up with a similar product.

So the $99.99 question - to buy or not to buy for those who are still contemplating?

Pro:
Sleek looking time piece suitable for most occasions
Simple and easy to use
Fairly accurate (probably off by about 500metres +/-)
Easy to upload to website
Can be used for all shoes
Very reasonably priced for a product of this nature

Cons:
Poor display - poor contrast, no light
Poor workmanship - not water tight enough; LCD display prone to failure
Incompatibility uploading with certain ISP
Insufficient information gathered for run
Fairly accurate (probably off by about 500metres +/-)

At the end of the day, this is a fairly straight forward simple-to-use gadget for keeping track of distance. At its current selling price, cheaper than some ordinary watches, it is worth buying. It cannot be compared to the other sport watches like the Polar, Garmin, Timex or even Casio which cost much much more. Those are in a different class and serve a 'higher' purpose.

So buy if looking for a basic timepiece just to keep track of the distance ran.

Don't buy if the requirement is to track and analyzes the run information in depth.

Oto Flabelos

I have always see those so called health equipment by Osim, Oto, Ogawa 'no up' believing them to be more hype and sound. Then the MC decided to install an Oto Flabelos in the gym. The machine is suppose to tone and strengthened the whole body and by standing on the platform in various position, it is supposed to be able to target different part of the body.

Of course, being the kaypoh that I am, die die must try and I hooked! Once the darn thing start going and you feel all the loose fat start shaking like a wobbly piece of ter-kar, the sensation - it so hard to describe. Only one word - shiok. Feel like standng on some sort of like a vertical massage chair.

As to whether it actually helps people to loose weight, the verdict is still out although I doubt it will.