Getty ImagesThe conundrum: push yourself too hard and run yourself into the ground. Don’t push yourself hard enough and never improve. The answer: start listening to your heart, not your head, by using a heart rate monitor (HRM). What does a HRM do?Training
it succeeds. There’s nothing like glancing down at your arm and realizing your band is still in the red and you’ve missed your target for the fifth day in a row, to get you into your kit and out the door. It’s not the cheapest beginner-targeted gadget at £139
Heart-rate monitors vary hugely in price and functionality. For less than £20 you can pick up an HRM that simply measures your pulse, while parting with £150+ will give you a monitor that will set training zones for you, tell you how many calories
Whatever type of runner you are, you should give serious consideration to investing in a heart rate monitor. From as little as £40 you can add a whole new dimension to your training. Strap on a heart rate monitor and you’ll never run too quickly
Gone are the days when runners would rate our efforts based on the colour of their cheeks after a run. Heart-rate monitors are now so easy to use, affordable and accurate that there's no excuse for skipping the science bit in your training. Most
Training with a heart-rate monitor may no longer be the preserve of the elite, but choosing a model perfectly suited to your needs and budget can still be a minefield of technical jargon and seductive (read expensive) features if you’re uncertain
patterns in your training can help identify mistakes too: do you set off too fast and tire quickly? Just how steep was that hill? There’s a huge variety of kit available, from add-ons for mobile phones and iPods, to powerful wrist units with footpods
www.1000mile.co.uk US Olympic marathon runner Magda Lewy Boulet uses one of these in her training and it is probably fast, experienced runners that this pack is best suited to. Unnecessary weight has been stripped away, and the fluid-flow mechanism
of it's weaknesses, the RS800SD is a serious bit of kit that will definitely help your training. You can keep it simple and just use a basic mode to record your run data. Or if you are prepared to put in the effort, create customised heart rate training
