New Mio Alpha is keeping me honest.

mojohowitz
mojohowitz Posts: 900 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
So, i have been using my Mio Alpha for about a week. It's a pretty handy continuous heart rate monitor that you wear like a watch. No more chest bands. I had another watch-like HRM but it required stopping, holding two fingers to the buttons, waiting, doing it again, etc to get an accurate read. Sucked.


I've kept myself at a heart rate around 158 when I run and I have definitely noticed a difference. Before, I would pick a distance and try to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Typically 6 miles in an hour. I was not losing weight with this method. However, with the HRM I have to keep a steady pace lest I get the irritating beep telling me my heart rate is below range. It's a bit bizarre to not specifically track my distance but doing so seems to allow me to be a lazy runner. I'm sure all of you real runners are aware of this but i thought I'd share anyway.

Tomorrow is another long run and I plan to track how far I actually run in my allotted 2/5 hour time slot. I am curious to see if it takes me further. I used to try to get 15 miles done in 2.5 hours. However, I am going to try and run for 2.5 hours tomorrow with a heart rate of 150 and see what my distance is. Then I will compare the calorie calculations from MFP and compare them with a HR/Time formulaic calculation.

As far as the Mio Alpha. I'm warming up to it. I haven't decided if it was worth the $199 but I guess its still cheaper than heart surgery. I wish it would show time, heart rate and the stopwatch all on one screen. It's annoying hitting the button to toggle through all three. Overall, however, it's been good with battery life, accuracy, and comfort. It's about as sexy as a casio calculator watch but none of my MFP friends have offered me a Rolex yet. ;)

Anyone else got one?

Replies

Categories