Best value devices for tracking running distance

Hi Everyone

I've finally made the transition from running on a treadmill to running outdoors and was wondering if anyone knows what is the best devices for tracking distance?

I've used Runkeeper in the past but was looking for a watch to invest in.

I've had a look online but the majority are in excess of £150.00 (I'm a beginner so only need something basic)

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Forerunner 110 - just over £100, or go 2nd hand. Some use their smartphone but I've no experience of that.

Other option, just get a normal stopwatch - we all used to use them perfectly well before GPS!

You can team that up with websites such as mapmyrun, or fetcheveryone, and get a pretty accurate measurement of your course either before or after you run. If you regularly run the same rout, you won't have to plot them out so often. The only downside is that you don't get "on the fly" pace feedback, but I just used to have a watch which recorded multiple laps, and just had set points on each course where I pressed lap, and so knew whether I was on pace or not.

forerunner 205 - bloody brilliant for the money

I am hoping to get a Garmin at some point but they're pricey as you say, so I use a stopwatch and a website called walkjogrun to map out routes. I have my favourite routes mapped and memorised, along with the mile markers along the way and if I go off route, I'll just take a guess at what sort of pace I'm doing per mile and use the stopwatch to roughly gauge the distance. Then, when I get home, if I really want to know how far I went, I plot it on the website.

Bit of a palaver but it does the trick for the cost of a cheap watch with a stopwatch (I got an old school Casio for about £7 off Amazon) and if you stick to a lot of the same routes, which I do, it's pretty easy to record your distance.

one of the major advantages of the garmin is measuring distances for interval training. e.g. i couldn't get to the track but i wanted to do 4x800m with 90secs rest then 3mins rest; 4x400m with 60secs rest then 5mins rest; 4x200m with 45secs rest. you can programme it to time all your distances and rest intervals so once you hit start you don't need to press another button until you've finished your last 200m rep.

impossible to do that without a GPS watch really unless you're at a track. you can't just do long, slow and steady runs all the time, you'll be a long, slow and steady runner otherwise! 

I could say Nike Sportsband (£40.00) but I found it absolutely pants though there are people getting on with them so may be for you if you don't mind calibrating it.

you can just draw your routes out for free on a website such as mapmyrun or runkeeper, you wont have live data when you're running, but you'll be able to track your distances etc,

just an FYI, i know runkeeper syncs with garmin devices too so you can continue using it after you get a garmin in the future.

If you don't have a GPS you can still do interval sessions with a stopwatch. Just do it based on time. Set an interval timer to go off after a set time and then repeat. Run hard, then jog when it beeps and repeat until you get to the end of a normal route. If the watch has multiple countdown timers you can get more creative.

Thank you for all your suggestions.

Nick Windsor 4 wrote (see)

NLR - deffo a Knob!! ha ha

you're strange and rather immature. if you've nothing positive to contribute, don't contribute at all.

I second that!

Three accounts? Why?

OK so it's not cheap but it is under £150 and I reckon if you've never had one before you'll wonder how you did without one. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-Forerunner-Sportswatch-Heart-Monitor/dp/B0046BTK14/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1337001260&sr=1-2

205 not available for that now - been kicking myself for not grabbing one. As they are an old model they've just become very difficult to get hold of without paying stupid money.