Heart Rate Monitor Misfortune

Yesterday was kind of a bummer…

I got my polar heart rate monitor back yesterday. It’s one of those super techie gadgets; a combined heart rate monitor and a foot pod. It could tell your heart rate, as well as measure the distance you've run. it was a great tool that I used in my training. For me,the biggest benefit was to see the effects my BG had on my heart rate. There were times when i was running way slower then I usually do because of a high or low BG, but my heart rate would be at the same mark as if i were running the faster time. To be able to use heart rate as the training goal as opposed to a time was ausome. It was a combined birthday – Christmas gift from the better half. I really did love it. (With an emphasis on the ‘really did’ part.)

Anyway it wasn’t working so I sent it back to get looked at for repair. They sent it back along with a list the size of my groceries (and that’s a big list) of things that were wrong with it. Bottom Line? It was going to cost about $220 big ones to get it fixed. Yea that’s right, about the same price it would cost to buy a new one.

They did say I could ‘upgrade’ and pay about $250 for a new improved model. (Yea, sure i can.) When you don’t have $220 to fix the one you have, you sure as heck don’t have $250 to upgrade it (even if it does measure your speed on the bike).

So how am I going to train? Well, it won’t be as scientific as I’d like it to be, but I can still put the miles in. I might have a little trouble knowing when I’ve pushed too hard, but it could be worse. I could be signed up for the Ironman without a decent bike. (Wait a minute – I don’t have a decent bike…..)