Over time the watches improved and you could actually keep multiple sessions in your watch. This was great as you would keep track of your entire session and actually break it down rather than try and commit it to memory. At about this time I found my Casio, this was a bloody good watch. I could keep 50 session in it and when I started do sets I could plug in some pre-set times . In the case of a Mona session I st it to beep every 30 seconds. This required a bit of maths while you ran but noting over taxing. Every now and then the band would break, but hey, I'd duck to the jewelers, or even the newsagents at times, get a new band, change it and Bobs your uncle.
The watches have improved even further now and you can actually record heart rate, calories burnt, pace, distance, pre- program entire sessions and then map where you ran. Some watches . like Skippy and Lassie, can probably run home and get help if you ever find yourself trapped in a cave and all this is great, BUT if the strap breaks you are knackered. I have a draw full of watches that look fantastic except for snapped straps that then require me to send them offshore to be repaired because the average punter can't simply swap the band.
Now these watches are generally not cheap, some are just shy of a kidney to purchase so you would think that they could at least make a watch where the strap lasts a bit longer than 4 to 5 months. I note with the Garmin a small change, it looks like I could, if push came to shove, knock out the pin and change the strap but this is not the case with all the watches. It is something that is annoying because I don't like going without a watch while I wait for the bloody thing to have the synthetically moulded wrist strap heat shrunk by a dwarf who lives in inner earth off -shore while they wait for the next installment of The Hobbit.
Anyway , I'm sure Ill get over it.
Barrel on wombats...
I too have seen the development of watches over the decades, and I finally gave in and bought a forerunner 10 from TRC for 150 bucks so I could do strava.com segments, leaderboards etc. Plus its easier checking distance than using a piece of string and a mapbook or a car speedo like I did in the 80' and 90's, before online mapping, and online training diaries. Public access to internet was unheard of in the 80's... Even in the early 90's it was unusual. Agree re the broken straps, what I have done sometimes is use a piece of string to tie the strap back together so the strap remains functional and the brokenness is fixed. Have had trouble getting signal before races with the Garmin, so I carry a good old basic stopwatch ($10 at the shops) as a backup watch on my other wrist in case the garmin doesn't get GPS signal early enough. I can remember when the TIMEX Marathon watch was the most advanced thing around back in the early 90's... Its amazing what they can do now... However I think we sometimes need to get back to running by "feel" and stop looking at the watch too much... My coach once told me to take my stopwatch off, and focus on racing...
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