By Randall Radic
Timex Ironman Race Trainer System: Digital Heart Rate System
Once upon a time, athletes trained by going as hard as they could for as long as they could. When that method proved to be inefficient, the athletes began training regimens based on how they felt on any given day. If they felt good, they trained hard. If they felt tired, they trained easy. In other words, they were guessing.
Then things changed. Science entered the picture. Science is a wonderful thing.
For science determined that the human body has five distinct energy systems: aerobic, anaerobic, maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max), lactate tolerance, and phosphates. And any athlete who wants to be all he or she can be needs to train each energy system the right amount of time at the correct time. Failure to do so results in what is commonly called ‘overtraining.’ Which is a fancy way of saying you trained too hard, too much and for too long.
Overtraining is bad. Why? Because you can’t go fast and have no endurance. Undertraining is bad too. Why? Because you can’t go fast and have no endurance.
The good folks at TIMEX have just what you need to avoid overtraining and undertraining. It’s called The TIMEX Ironman Race Trainer. It’s a heart rate monitor. And it works like this: there’s a chest sensor that straps neatly and comfortably around your chest, along with a watch you wear on your wrist. A signal goes from the chest sensor to the watch. By simply glancing at the watch, you know what your heart rate is. Which means you know if you’re in the correct ‘zone’ or not.
Which means no more guessing. Which means your training is doing what it’s supposed to do – making you faster and improving your endurance.
The TIMEX Ironman comes with all sorts of snazzy functions. It remembers your last ten workouts for you and lets you download them into a training log on your computer. Which means you can adjust your training based on where you are in your season. It also has an intensity timer, which allows you to train at the correct effort level for the correct amount of time. But that’s not all. In addition, it tells you how many calories you burned and it has an automatic heart rate recovery function. The latter function tells you how long your heart is taking to recover to normal. Which means you KNOW your conditioning level is improving.
Great, you say. But how hard is it to use? Do you have to have doctorates in engineering and systems programming to make it work? Nope, you don’t. All you have to do is touch a button or two and you’re ready to rock n’ roll. And get this! The TIMEX Ironman comes with an instruction booklet that was written by real, live human beings. Not by technical writers who have lost touch with reality and only know how to communicate in some arcane lingo having no resemblance to any known language on the face of the earth.
In other words, TIMEX has made the thing easy to use, because you can understand the instructions. Thank goodness!
And don’t let the name – Ironman Race Trainer – scare you off. It’s not just for super-serious athletes training for the Ironman Triathlon or the Tour de France. It’s for anyone who trains on a regular basis. Even people who jog around the neighborhood want get in better shape. And the TIMEX will help them do it for two reasons: they’ll be aware of how hard they are training, and because the TIMEX is simple to operate.
Super-serious athletes can purchase software and a USB device, which allows the transfer of data to the watch without a ton of button pushing. Which means they can train for a marathon without having to first endure a button pushing marathon, while they try to program the watch.
The TIMEX Ironman does a bunch of other cool stuff too. Like recall your heart rate for the last 50 laps. It gives you your average heart rate and peak heart rates. It even has a countdown timer and alarms that let you know when you’re either training too hard or slacking.
All in all, the TIMEX Ironman is a wonderment. Because it does everything you could ever want – and more! And because it’s reasonably priced, which means you won’t have to miss a payment on your BMW to buy it. And – the big kicker! – it’s user friendly, which is techno-jargon for it’s so easy anyone can do it. The reviewer – who is a technological idiot – is well aware that many manufacturers misuse the phrase “user friendly.” More often than not, what it really means is that you will never – ever – figure this thing out, but buy it anyway. Not in this case.
The TIMEX Ironman is so friendly it gives kisses.
So if you want to be faster and stronger for longer, race out and get one of these puppies. You’ll love it. On the Rate-O-Meter, which ranges from 1 star (don’t bother) to 5 stars (can’t live without it), the TIMEX Ironman wins 5 stars.
This product was provided by Timex to the reviewer.
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Randall Radic is a former Old Catholic priest. After a midlife crisis, he spent time behind bars. Today, he has emerged a changed man. As the author of Gone To Hell: True Crimes of America’s Clergy (ECW Press/ Oct 2009), Radic aims to warn the public of the sins committed behind the walls of churches every day. Randall Radic is also author of A Priest in Hell: Gangs, Murderers and Snitching in a California Jail.
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