On Sunday 22nd of March I ran my second 10 miler of the year “Mallow 10”. It was a perfect day for racing, sunny with a light breeze.

In this race I had the company of the Garmin 620 GPS watch. I normally don’t wear a GPS watch training or racing but since getting this watch last week I can’t seem to go on a run without it.

The first 2 miles of the course were hilly which meant we went out a bit slower than usual. It quickly picked up in mile 3 and 4 on the downhill section of the course. The Garmin was great for this part of the course when I really needed to be cautious about controlling my pace.

The second half of the race was much tougher with long drags and stretches of straight roads. The Garmin 620 has a auto lap feature which allows you to set a distance and it then vibrates or beeps at that point each time. I set it for 1 mile and it accurately indicated at each mile marker on the course and what I ran for it. You can also edit the screen to have four different displays at once. Mine included distance, lap time, pace and overall time elapsed which was very useful rather than having to flick between screens while running.

I finished 2nd in the race in a time of 49.53. The race was very well organized and is one I would definitely recommend. The feedback from the Garmin 620 was amazing. Some more features included Vibration Alerts, Auto Lap®, Auto Pause®, Personal Records, Post-run Summary, Virtual Partner®, Wireless Uploads & USB Connectivity, Training Plan Support are to name just a few. I could analyse my cadence and look at the elevation/pace on the Garmin App after which was interesting to see.  For more info on this watch visit our website www.johnbuckleysports.com and check out our Twitter and Facebook page for news of my next blog.

Happy Running 🙂