On Friday, I got a Garmin Edge 500. I was sick of waiting for the Polar RS 800CX PTE to arrive, and I knew that the Garmin unit was a good deal. Total price was around $330 with an HRM. (Send me an email at asteriskcycles at gmail dot com if you want one, we’ve got them in stock)
I was itching to try it out and promptly did my usual Xindian River loop. I completed the run in 50:51 and my average speed was 24.7 kph. The time is slower than my previous efforts, but that’s because I was timing the whole loop. Before, I had a few recovery areas that I didn’t time. Anyway, it’s just easier to keep the timer going.
All in all, I’m pretty impressed with this little gizmo. It tracks your cycling route very accurately. It’s also very easy to setup. I had no idea what I was doing, yet it took me a few minutes to figure it out, this being because the instructions that I go were in Mandarin not English.
It also shows me how out of shape I am. I’ve been off the bike for a few months and I haven’t really started running. Nevertheless, it’s also very motivating. You can check out my Garmin Connect data here. From what I can tell, it was a good workout. My heart rate was high, so I burned off 708 calories in that amount of time.
I have a soft goal of riding 300 km in the next week, so I’ll be going out quite a few times. Ideally, I’d like to ride at least 50 km a day. My guess is that it will take me quite a few weeks before I’m there. My weight has dropped to 85 kg.
* * * * *
Running
weekly km count: 0
monthly km count: 0
yearly km count: 0
Cycling
weekly km count: 20.8
monthly km count: 45.8
yearly km count: 120.8
