To Garmin or Not to Garmin....

I have to say, I truly enjoy the warm weather, however, it makes it entirely too difficult to sleep when:

1. You live above a bakery...heat rises, just like dough.
2. The air conditioner for said bakery is directly below your window(s).
3. It is April, no reason to get the window AC unit in yet.

Don't get me wrong, this is great weather. I have been able to put in a lot of time on the bike lately and enjoyed being able to drive around at work with the windows down, but, there comes a time where a guy wants to get some sleep. Usually for me it is conveniently between 1am and 9am. It is extremely difficult for me to sleep though when you have an industrial sized air conditioner going on and off, a refrigerator that sounds like it is going to die out and a fan all going at the same time. I used to think I was a pretty heavy sleeper, but apparently things change.

Anyway, enough nagging. I am thinking of getting a new HR monitor/training tool and am conflicted on what to get. I have been training the past few years with the PowerTap, from Saris. The PowerTap I have is a wired version, and I am not going to place this on my new friend Tatiana. I was thinking of perhaps getting the Garmin Edge 500. It has the ability to read power numbers from a PowerTap. The issue here would be I would need to find a wireless PowerTap hub for my rear wheel. So, even though the Edge is $249, I would need to probably spend another, at least, $500 bones on the hub bringing us to the grand total of $700(ish) dollars.

Another option would be to just go with the PowerTap wireless set up. This is certainly more expensive, and could be ridiculously more expensive if I wanted it to be, but this limits me only to use it while cycling.

Which brings me to the final option, and possibly my own conclusion...the Garmin Forerunner 405CX. A teammate of mine purchased this little product this past winter to use it for skiing and says he has found it to be super accurate on the bicycle as well. I tend to do a multitude of activities and if I were to be able to ski again next winter, this could possibly be a valuable tool to allow me to see how much energy I am using to suck at XC skiing. If I were to keep the wired PowerTap on my other bike, I could ride that bike when I wanted to get an idea of power numbers. The PowerTap does have a HR feature, which would allow me to monitor where my HR is at during certain efforts and corresponding wattages. Then, when I am riding Tatiana and using the Forerunner, I can judge what my power is based on my HR...I think I may have just gotten my solution.

There are a lot of schools of thought on how to train...by using gadgets, based on feel...etc. My brother has been very successful at doing it based on feel, though now he is using a lot more numbers based training. I would tend to agree with him that the body will tell you when it can give/take more and when it needs a rest. Currently mine is screaming it needs a rest, but, I think a slow, easy ride up to REI might be in order.

Well, thanks for reading...if you did...and following my crazy man's logic.

Ciao!