Running Watch 101
Cands / 
4 Comments / 
April 1st, 2009 / 
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Last year my mom and I did a swap, my MP3 player for her Polar wristwatch and heart rate monitor. I thought YAY, now I can be all fancy and kick my training to a new level.
WRONG!!
The thing is the watch only has 1 button – yes ONE button which you have to use to get to all the fancy features.
At the moment I only use the watch as a stopwatch which is such a waste considering there are a host of other features I could (and would) be using if it was more user friendly.
Anyone got some tips on how to get over the one-button-mental block I seem to have developed?? Is it really that important to know what my heart is doing while training??
Note: And yes for all of you out there who will be tempted to point out that I am blonde, I know, but something a little less rocket scientist and a little more helpful would be appreciated…
My One Button Watch
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Depends on the version you have. I have a polar 800 series and it was the best christmas present from me to me. I upgraded from Garmin. I can set speed segment slow long runs and tempo. The only downside is that I don’t listen to it in the early part of the race when it’s beeping for me to slow down…and when i burn out I can’t keep up when it;s telling me to speed up. I don’t know how to train with HR s I just don’t review that number. I did a race in Oklohoma and I went out oo fast the polar was beeping none stop people ran away from me thinking I had a bomb! Someone actual asked if I have one straped on me just a way of saying I was annoying everyone.
Hah stop scaring Oklohoma Mwaka. I don’t now about Polar but i bought a Garmin with everything you need (and more)to keep me company running here in winter. Now this has many buttons AND a touch bezel. It’s nice in that it’s not that big. It came with a quick start guide and i took a quick start leaf through and headed out on day 1. Very excited. However I ended up nearly throwing the thing in the lake on that 1st run – it doesn’t make a noise but never mind the fact that i could not get the GPS to work – i couldn’t even get it back to where i could see the time. BUT after much reading and by fiddling i now have it all figured out and i think it’s great. I love running vs the virtual partner + the speed and distances etc etc are all great for information and just to keep your mind occupied. I use the heartrate – more just out of curiosity than anything else.
Hi Candice!
Looks like you have the FS1, which is the most basic Polar we manufacture.
The one button gives you the ability to start/stop the recording and set the high/low target zones. High/Low target zones are a great way to guide you to the “right” intensity to prevent over or under training. Check out this page: http://tinyurl.com/d9dv4b. It houses some good articles on heart rate training.
In regard to using that one button – it does take some time to get use to! It’s all about the timing. If you want to give us a call we can talk you through it ;0) 1-800-227-1314
Hope this helps!
Chris @ Polar USA
Hi Chris, thanks for the advice – I will be giving it another try and will let you know how it goes.
And just to make it clear, I did read the manual in case anyone out there was thinking that I should… I’m going to re-read and see if I can make head or tail of it.