The Garmin Vivosmart 4 is the first activity tracker that I see tracking descent as well as ascent. It is yet another fitness tracker and in theory I had no need for it as my Suunto Spartan Wrist HR Baro and my Apple Watch Series 4 do almost the same thing....
Posts tagged “fitness”
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Thoughts on the Garmin Vivosmart 4 — Jan 22, 2019 -
A theoretical Seven Minute Workout a day — Jan 9, 2018Seven Minute Workout for 36 days...
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The SUUNTO SPARTAN SPORT WRIST HR BLUE — Mar 18, 2017I have logged 799 activities with my Suunto devices. This includes hikes, via ferrata, climbing, swimming and scuba diving. I like Suunto devices because their battery life is good enough to last through entire days of hiking and the battery lasts for weeks between charges when used as a simple watch. I like to track my heart rate but I often feel self conscious about putting the heart rate monitor belt on. With the latest Spartan watch I no longer need to worry about the belt. At the same time as I start the activity I will be able to keep track of the heart rate. This is especially good for group activities when you do not want to keep people waiting and in winter when you’re wearing layers of clothing. I like that devices like the Fitbit Charge 2 can be worn at almost all times and track heart rate effortlessly when at the climbing gym and during other activities. I look forward to the same simplicity with a Suunto device. I especially like that Suunto devices survive swims and showers. I like that the Suunto Ambit 3 tracks how many steps I take during the day. It’s a shame that the step count is not logged and visible on Movescount. I like to see how energetic or lazy I have been on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. It’s not unusual for me to go from a 21,000 step day to a 6000 step day. It depends on weather, work and other factors. If you go for a bike ride your step count will not be high. I will wait to see whether they apply this technology to the Suunto Ambit watch collection. If they come out with the Suunto Ambit 4 Wrist HR then I will be tempted to upgrade. With 799 tracked activities I believe Suunto devices have demonstrated that they are reliable.... -
Running Again — Jan 23, 2023At the start of this year I started running again. This wasn’t a new year’s resolution. I just decided that I wanted to start running, so I did. For five years I have been walking around in circles. Some take me above the A1 motorway and others take me below it. The walks are all familiar and I do them so regularly that I see the changes from week to week.... -
Rest and Recovery Apps — Dec 31, 2022Either you can buy a collection of casios that each have different functions or you can download apps that have a niche purpose. I have been playing with Gentler Streak and Training day. One looks at heart rate and training. The second looks at resting heart rate and heart rate recovery.... -
Playing with StatsHunters — Apr 24, 2023Today I saw a link to Stats Hunters on the Google App so I clicked through on a laptop, once I was sitting at a computer. This is an app that looks at Strava data and gives you a summary of how many activities you’ve done as well as how far you have travelled.... -
My Lack Of Interest In the Apple Watch Ultra — Feb 7, 2023I see people are training for ultrarunning events, scuba diving and more with the Apple Watch Ulta, but I feel no interest in such a watch. The first reason for my lack of interest is that the watch is stupidly expensive for something that lasts just 30 hours on a single charge. I would expect a watch to last at least three or four weeks between charges, and at least a week with daily use. The Ultra does neither.... -
The High Tech World is not making us weak and weird. — Apr 25, 2016The High Tech world is not making us weak and weird. I believe that the opposite is true. According to Patrick Mustain in his article “Welcome to the Devolution: The High-Tech World Is Making Us Weak and Weird” for The Daily Beast he worries that modern technology and conveniences have taken the physical aspects out of our daily routine. We don’t need to clean clothes by beating them against a rock and we no longer need to clean dishes manually. We take the car from point A to point B and we take a lift to go up a floor or two....
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Getting Back Into Running — Jan 12, 2023I am getting back into running at the moment. I have run several times recently, irregularly enough not to feel pain in my knees or other articulations so this is a good sign. The advantage of running, over other sports, is that it’s easy to catch a bus, car, train, parapente or other form of transport and start running. The second advantage is that it is twice as fast as walking....
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Garmin Connect and the Daily Step Goal — Feb 19, 2019Yesterday I took over 16,000 steps. Some of those steps were during a short run from Eysins to Nyon and the rest were during the walk around Nyon and back to Eysins. By the end of the day I had manage to accumulate the step goal of 15300 steps.... -
Finger Strength and Climbing. — Jan 24, 2019The more often you boulder and climb, the stronger the muscles that pull the tendons to your fingers become, and the stronger those muscles become, the higher the grade of your climbs. Hand holds are not the rungs of a ladder or via ferrata. Sometimes you can use your entire hand but at other moments you will use just the fingertips of one hand.... -
Cycling from Nyon To Geneva and Back — May 26, 2023Catching the train to Geneva and back to Nyon costs about 14CHF per day, depending on whether you have paid 180 CHF for the half fare or not. In contrast two Continent GP 5000 tires cost about 110CHF and you can go to Geneva and back a few hundred times.... -
Battery Powered Transportation And Fitness — May 15, 2023Every time you go for a walk, bike ride or run you encounter people being moved along by something using electricity. The most common of these forms of transport are the electric car, the electric bike and the electric foot scooter. People want to be more environmentally friendly in their way of getting around but they use something that has to be recharged.... -
An Outdoor Workout — Aug 25, 2021We are in the middle of a pandemic and governments see no urgent reason to end it by rational means like soft lockdowns. As a result of this we can pay 1100 CHF per year to go to an indoor gym, rebreathing the same air as other people, using the same machines, and the same washrooms or we can go for the cheaper 49 CHF per month option but run the same risk. I found Option three. Some Freetness machines were installed in Celigny by a children’s playground.... -
An Easier Run — Jan 28, 2023Since the start of the year I have been running regularly. Yesterday I went for a run and I found it easiser than other runs. It might be thanks to the audiobook, on the one hand, and to consistent training on the other. I am not pushing hard. The training program is a 5k programme over twelve weeks. I don’t need twelve weeks for this. I was a runner before. I don’t care about beating distance records or other things....
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An Adult Playground Near a Children's Playground — Jan 20, 2020When in Geneva we can easily walk by the lake, or through the city when we’re not looking after children but when we are walking might be more of a challenge. I am not looking after children in Geneva but as you might there is an opportunity here.... -
Amersports and Sports tracker — May 5, 2015Today Amer Sports announced that it has bought Sports tracker. Sports Tracker is an application that I have been using since I had the Nokia N95 8GB. I used it on symbian, iOS and Android devices over the years. What I love about this app is the way it displays information about the work out. It gives you several screens while you are exercising with the option to select which information you want to see most. [gallery columns=“2” ids=“2305,2306”] Once you arrive home and synchronise the workout with the web interface you can see the information displayed above. You can choose whether there is a topographic map, a normal map or satellite imagery. It is simple and intuitive to read. Suunto make devices that I like using. I have used the Suunto D9 diving computer, the Suunto D4i diving computer, the Suunto Ambit 2 and the Suunto Ambit3. Suunto dive computers are small diving computers that you can wear in day to day life. When you are passionate about diving this is nice. The Suunto Ambit family are more interesting for people who do land based sports. I used the Suunto Ambit 2 and 3 when doing via ferrata, hiking, cycling and other sports. The advantage of these fitness watches is that they have long battery life. This means that you can be active for two or three days before worrying about the battery dying. In this respect they are far better than mobile phones for fitness activity tracking. Suunto products and Sports tracker do not communicate natively. Suunto products synchronise with movescount. From movescount you need to export the GPX workout files and import them to Sports tracker. I would like to see Suunto devices communicate directly with Sports tracker. In my eyes the best option would have been for Sports tracker to buy movescount and for them to take over the web interface for Suunto. They both provide interesting web interfaces and combining the two would have been mutually beneficial. Time will show whether Amer Sports with links to sports tracker, precor and Suunto will come out with an interesting amalgamation of the three products/services. I look forward to finding out....
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A Frosty Morning — Jan 10, 2023Despite having a frosty morning today I still decided to go for a run in the morning rather than the afternoon. I mention the frost because I noticed that one velux had the usual frost fractals but the others were clear. This is curious.... -
100 Move Day Goals reached — Nov 18, 2018I have 100 move day goals reached. The difficulty of this goal depends on how high you set the bar. If you set the bar at two hundred calories a day then the goal is easy to achieve. If you set the goal at 500 or 600 calories then the achievement is slightly more interesting.... -
The Sunrise Run and Croissant Loop — Mar 19, 2026Naturally we think of doing group activities in the evenings, after work, or over the weekend, when we’re free for the entire day. Some people take the opposite approach. They wake up early to go for a morning sunrise run or a croissant loop bike ride.... -
The Runna Paradox and Social Comfort — Feb 25, 2026It’s ironic that since I started a Runna fitness plan my “fitness” has been going down rather than up. The simple reason is that although the workouts are challenging, they’re challenging for a short time.... -
A Run to Blue Sky — Dec 16, 2025Yesterday we were under the clouds for the entire day. Low lever clouds or fog kept us away from the sun. I noticed that someone on Strava had managed to get above the clouds by going for a bike ride. I decided to try to do the same thing, eventually, by running. This is the longest distance I have ever run. It was uphill for the first part.... -
The Garmin End of Year Summary — Dec 4, 2025The Garmin Connect End of year summary is currently available, and updating daily. The stats are quite interesting,... -
Garmin Connect, Explore 2 and Instinct 2 Experimentation — Nov 16, 2025Garmin connect isn’t as smart as I thought. I thought that if I used the Explore 2 with a heart rate belt, that I would get training status and training readiness. For a week I was tracking with the Explore 2 as my primary tracker. Data is missing.... -
Strava - How to Upload Manually — Oct 8, 2025Since Strava has decided to sue Garmin, and since Suunto has decided to sue Garmin as well, for different reasons, I feel now is a good opportunity to remind ourselves of how to upload to Garmin and Strava manually....
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Cycling Uphill Faster — Sep 19, 2025I have been up the Molard climb four times this year, and each time I sped up by a little. Twice my time improved by two minutes, and when I tried yesterday it improved by only a few seconds. With an average of 2000 meters of climbing per week I can feel the effects.... -
On the Irony of Expensive Cars — Jul 14, 2025A few weeks ago two individuals in a car yelled abuse at a group of us who were cycling. They were mad that a cyclist did not pull in for them to pass easily. At this point I thought "Despair is not sat on a bench as in the proverb, he is sat in a car.... -
Ignoring the 80/20 rule with Group Rides — Jul 11, 2025Yesterday I rode with Group 2 rather than Group 1 with TDC. I believe I could keep up for a second time. I also believe that when you’re cycling hard three times a week it takes a lot of energy.My experience last Saturday showed that I was pushing myself too hard by riding by cyclists stronger than me three times in a week, especially after riding close to my max on Wednesday, Thursday and then Sunday....
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Of Suunto, Garmin and Apple — Apr 15, 2025For years I wore no watch, and then I took up scuba diving, and then I wanted to wear a watch when climbing, and then it escalated from there. Now I have Garmin, Suunto Apple, Casio, Xiaomi and other watches. It’s easy to justify wearing the Apple watch because it’s a smart watch so it has a niche. It’s harder to justify the Garmin, Suunto, Xiaomi and Casio watches because they overlap each other.... -
Strava and Our Data — Nov 20, 2024A few weeks ago Strava decided that it would add AI functionality to it’s app. It is for this reason that I decided to restrict which apps talked with Strava. Now Strava is doing the reverse. It has blocked access to its API so that other apps cannot use its own data.... -
Apple Fitness Training Load Thoughts — Nov 18, 2024The Apple Fitness App now has Training Load data. It looks at the workouts you have done over the last 7 days and compares it to the last 28 days. In theory this is interesting but in practice I find it frustrating.... -
Ankle Fitness Trackers — Nov 4, 2024The automatic reflex is to wear a fitness tracker on the wrist so that it may measure heart rate but also so that we may look at the data that it is capturing without using an app. The issue with this habit is that we need to stop wearing a classic watch, as a result.... -
Epix Gen 2 Continued — Oct 30, 2024Today I went for a run and the Garmin Epix Gen 2 labelled it as unproductive. Yesterday I went for a 5k run and I wore the Garmin Instinct Solar with the HRM-Pro Plus and it was just marked as a wrong. I was curious to see if I would get more running with this belt and the Garmin Instinct Solar and the answer is “nope” so the heart rate strap is not an Epix Gen 2 replacement.... -
A Knackered Feeling — Oct 12, 2024For two days I rode twenty five kilometres, which, by my standards, are quite small rides. Today I rode with a group and for a while I was fine but then, when I climbed from Nyon towards Duillier I began to feel that I was fatigued. I slowed down and I couldn’t keep up with the group, or more accurately, the group had better acceleration and once you’re dropped you have to make more effort....
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Practical Thoughts on Publibike — Oct 7, 2024Yesterday I finally tested Publibike after years of considering these bikes. There is a paradox. I think nothing of spending three francs, for a coke, rivella, hot chocolate or coffee but the idea of paying 3 CHF to use a bike for a six minute ride is disturbing. I didn’t pay for six minutes, because that was my first ride. I paid 3 CHF for 11 minutes....
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Strava and the Fallacy of Quick Edit — Sep 29, 2024Two days ago Strava came out with their “Quick edit” feature that is actually nothing new. They claim that it will simplify renaming activities to get more likes but that’s not what the “simple edit” is about. It’s about renaming activities to train AI....
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On Rest Days — Jun 18, 2024Doing the Via Ferrata(VF) on Sunday, and then hiking down was physical. For a start, I was doing a Via Ferrata, something that I have done once, before, within the last six or seven years. The hike down was also quite physical. Combined the VF and the hike tired me.... -
Playing with the Xiaomi Band 7 — Jan 7, 2024I have had the Xiaomi Band 7 for a while but I didn’t wear it properly until the start of the new year. As a silly concept I thought that I would try to wear it for the entire year and so far I have kept to that resolution. Sometimes it’s worth trying the cheapest device that you can find to see how it differs from the flagships by Suunto, Garmin and Apple.... -
Shovelling Snow and Playing With Plex — Dec 5, 2023Yesterday it snowed for several hours and that snow was covering the path to my house. When I saw the ground turn from asphalt black to grey, to white I decided to go and start clearing the snow. It’s easy to clear snow when you have three or four centimetres, rather than more. At first it was light and easy to move so I cleared the path once, and then a second time, and then a third, and by the third I decided to stop. It had become a sisyphean task. It was falling as fast as I was clearing it.... -
The Habit of Walking — Oct 15, 2023This morning I decided to go for a benchmark run for a new Garmin training plan. After I ran the required 5 minutes and four minutes of walking I continued with my walk. I had a route that I wanted to walk but because I saw people, and dogs on the paths that I was thinking of walking down I took a bigger loop once, then again, and then a third time. In the end I walked 12,000 steps this morning. I walked from Nyon to Cheserex to Borex to Arnex and back towards Nyon.... -
A Good Run — Sep 23, 2023It’s good to vary between walking, cycling and running. I even threw in skateboarding but I am not confident at that sport yet. The beauty of walking, cycling and running is that these are sports that you can do straight from home, without getting into a car, and without having to put up with other drivers. The one drawback is that dangerous drivers endanger you on every outing, but that’s another topic.... -
Cycling With Different Levels of Fitness — Jul 15, 2023Originally I wanted to write about following route 50 from one village to Romainmôtier. I changed my mind as I createdd thetitle for this post....
