When Runner's World readers were asked to list their essential kit last year, heart-rate monitors came out on top. Unfortunately for the female runner, using a heart-rate monitor is usually an uncomfortable experience, requiring 10 minutes before

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

information to be useful for runners who simply fancy giving heart-rate monitoring a go. It has a simple stopwatch – start, stop and no lap function – but you can keep a check on your current heart rate, your maximum and your average

or intervals; and enough memory to store the 42 kilometre splits of a marathon – if you decide to run one. You'll certainly find plenty of other functions: multi-segment countdown timers (to time efforts on speed sessions) and multiple alarms are common

though, it does the basics well enough.Contact www.timex.comTimex BodyLink Trail Runner £180 Tested by Big KevFeatures Simultaneous display of heart rate and speed distance, 2 linked interval timers, latitude, longitude and altitude, navigation

You have to pity race organisers. They go to great pains to have someone ride round their course measuring it with a Jones-Oerth counter, then 200 runners turn up wearing wrist-mounted GPS computers and claim the route is 300 metres too long. Speed

to at least 10mph (even if you’re not a fast runner, you’ll need this for sprint intervals), and a decent warranty length.Home models have certainly come on since the last time RW looked at them, two years ago. For a reasonable outlay of £1,000- £2

(JBSurrey)In Short: A must have for the serious runner!Strengths:Comfortable and simple design, very accurate data, instantaneous downloading and the ablilty to not only display your runs on a map or Google Earth but to analyse your performance in depth