Already wrote before that I have upgraded my external heart rate monitor to Polar one. And I would treat the as kind of moving away form Suunto towards another bigger player on running devices market. Previous monitor was from Scotsche. Independent company which producing almost just heart monitors. So, moving to Polar was a big deal already. And now that… Fenix 6 Pro from Garmin. This is a big change. For me and for my pocket đŸ˜‚ Actually for my Wife’s pocket as this was very early Christmas present.
I needed a new one cause I have an old one…
The new – Polar Verity Sense, heart monitor. The old – Suunto Ambit Peak 3, multisport watch. I have this watch for ages now. Even when I wasn’t running it was on my wrist. Like it so much cause battery lasts for days. Few years back, running Connemara 100, and still battery level was there on 40% and that was over 18 hours. So, haven’t changed this watch. Disadvantage of this is: there is no webapp to access your runs (Suunto discontinued Movescount), mobile app is not easy and you can’t get all needed details. Yes, you can sync this with Strava but need premium to get all stats… So, maybe time for new watch? Neh, not now. But most annoying thing about this watch, one which I had to address from the beginning was lack of build in heart rate monitor…
Heart is not a servant
When I was using TomTom GPS watch I had HRM chest strap. But that wasn’t best solution for me. Never liked anything on me which could in any way interfere with my movement. And when next TomTom arrived, cardio one, I was very happy. It was using optical sensor to read heart rate from wrist. That was great solution for me. But there was small flaw with TomTom watches – battery life. Watch is ok for activities up to 8 hours, so any longer ultras that wasn’t good enought. TomTom had to go giving room to badass Suunto Ambit 2. Long lasting battery with more functions but no HRM again. Cause it is supporting ANT+ just and I don’t like chest straps my options were really reduced. Option 1 – Mio (two models from which one was old and confirmed to be not accurate), option 2 – Scosche rythem+ (first model wasn’t great this one apparently not so bad). Mio you are wearing on the wrist where as Scosche on the forearm or arm…
Now I’m in the phase of testing it and it is looking very promising. Used it already with watch and mobile. With watch it is working via ANT+ and to sync ok it should be on the same hand. When used on the treadmill with Endomondo on mobile device there was no problem at all either via ANT+ or bluetooth. During couple days of testing I learned a little bit about myself. What is that new info? It looks like I’m almost whole the time working in the high level of heart rate. When checking graphs for my runs I could notice that almost 95% of length of my run my heart rate is above 155 bits per minute with average of 150 – 151. Even when running about 8 minutes mile.
Looks like I will need to learn how to relax more during running and to get my heart rate down. That should allow me to be faster in the long run. Now I have the tool to do that. Thanks God for Canada and US. You can get here equipment for resonable price.