My new toy

Everyone loves a new toy. It's shiny and fresh and provides hours of entertainment. I received a new toy this weekend. 

The newly released Garmin 910XT. Ohhh....ahhhh. Why am I so excited about the new Garmin? Because it now provides swim metrics from an indoor pool!


Now keep in mind when you first open your 910XT, you will receive 12 different manuals each in a different language. 

I set up my user profile, set the default length on the pool for 25 yards and drove over to the Riverplex with Awesome Cheryl. I completed my first 50 yards and obsessively looked at my watch. Right on! Next I did a few drills some which did not use a freestyle arm movement and found the distance on my watch was not correct. Was it because I didn't use the freestyle stroke? I did a few more laps and looked and it was right on. A few later...off again. I was feeling a little bit frustrated. It seemed to only count half of my lap not my full length. WTF? If you spend $500 on a toy, you want it to work. 

I came home and did some googling. My favorite blogger for product reviews is DC Rainmaker. He did his product review of the 910XT last October.  He did note in the review the new Garmin watch measures distance using accelerometer data. Because you are inside, the watch cannot necessarily identify that you have switched directions. You need to push off the wall strongly in order for the watch to identify the change in acceleration. 

So I guess my new watch is going to take a little more play time, but I am anxious to check out the new swim metrics such as stroke/length & stroke efficiency. I'm hoping my new watch will help me learn even more about my swim demons.