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Good, cheap running watch that shows distance

post #1 of 18
6/23/10 at 12:55am
Thread Starter 
I'm looking for a reliable, cheap running watch.

All I need it to do is tell time, allow me to set some kind of timer, and most importantly display the distance I've covered. I don't know if this has to happen via GPS or if it can happen with some kind of pedometer. I went to EMS today and everything was in the $200 range. Surely this can be had much cheaper. So, I look to you for a recommendation. Something that will reliably tell me the distance.

Please no replies about how I should use Google Maps (I like to explore new routes so don't map beforehand) or my iPhone (I run with an iPod Shuffle)

Thanks.
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post #2 of 18
6/23/10 at 1:59am
AFAIK Timex has the cheapest GPS watches.
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post #3 of 18
6/23/10 at 5:03am
Here's a good one for under $150. Much cheaper than that? Good luck. http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Forerun...dp/B000CSWCQA/
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post #4 of 18
6/23/10 at 6:51am
Looks fucking huge on the model's wrist.

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post #5 of 18
6/23/10 at 7:03am
Good, cheap, small -- you can have two.
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post #6 of 18
6/23/10 at 10:09am
.........
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post #7 of 18
6/24/10 at 10:06am
Why is measuring distance important? Measuring everything is OCD.
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post #8 of 18
6/24/10 at 10:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by greg_atlanta View Post
Why is measuring distance important? Measuring everything is OCD.

+1. Go run for 40 minutes. It makes no difference whether you ran 5.2 or 5.4 miles.
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post #9 of 18
6/24/10 at 10:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by greg_atlanta View Post
Why is measuring distance important? Measuring everything is OCD.

If your training for a race knowing distance could be important.
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post #10 of 18
6/24/10 at 10:36am
What kind of phone do you have?

I was able to install Nokia Sports Tracker on my phone (works on any S60 nokia) and it tells me distance/speed and can even upload it to a website and overlay it on google maps. Pretty neat--its clearly centered on the euro market as everything defaults to km and all of the users sharing stuff seem to be in europe (also, AT&T hates packaged software that you don't have to pay for so nobody knows their phone can do this).

iphones have motionx gps and I am sure android has something similar.

All of these are completely free (well motionx has a free and a paid version but the free one can still keep track of a single route at a time).
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post #11 of 18
6/24/10 at 5:30pm
^ +1. Adroid phones have My Tracks (http://mytracks.appspot.com/) which is incredibly useful, it keeps pretty much all data that satisfies any level of OCD
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post #12 of 18
6/24/10 at 5:43pm
By a used, older generation, Ipod nano and the Nike Plus system. That will probably run you less than $100.
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post #13 of 18
6/24/10 at 6:31pm
I bought a nike+ wristband and sensor because I wanted something simple to measure my pace at. While I've only had it for a short while but it does exactly what I want, the only issue is that you have to add the sensor to your shoe. This wasn't really an issue as there a lots of little clips that you can buy to do the job. The pricing on the nike+ products is probably on the verge of predatory to keep other manufacturers out. It's really small as well as being very reasonably priced.
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post #14 of 18
6/25/10 at 1:35am
nike+ is a rip off. It isn't accurate at all. My friend tested his out after calibrating it and it was off by about a mile. If you have an iphone, you should check out the strands app for strands.com, it loads all your info onto a training log and shows you the route and elevation on google maps all for free. For a watch though I would go with the garmin forerunner 305 like someone mentioned above, it is fairly cheap and has everything you need and then some.
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post #15 of 18
6/25/10 at 11:45pm
Regarding the accuracy that airblaster503 mentioned. I hadn't really thought about how accurate the thing was. The guy who sold it told me that it was about 90% accurate. I have just started to get into running so 90% sounded pretty good to me; I was more concerned with learning to control my pace. Tonight I measured out a 8k run with google maps and ran it with the nike+ uncalibrated. Anyway the 8k run measured out at 7.68k with the nike+. That's 96ish% accurate out the box. The thing is I'm not even sure how accurate the google map measurement was. edit to add: redid the route measurement off the nike mapit website. The route distance came out to 7.8km so 98% accuracy by those measurements. Complete accuracy is something that many people desire, and if one is serious about training it's probably needed. I don't think this device would please those people. For me right now it's helping motivating me to run and too keep a more even pace.
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