Summary: Top end kit from the respected Garmin. This watch is colour, has a touch screen and connects to the Garmin Connect community. What makes it stand out is the combination of speed, cadence, breathing and ground contact time to improve your technique and performance… all in a smart looking watch too. Big discount for this one at the time of writing at amazon.co.uk, see this product page for details.
The forerunner 620 is the next step up from the fantastic Forerunner 610. This watch is in a class of its own though. The 620 is for serious runners and is practically your personal running coach – available to you 24 hours a day.
The 620 has the technology on board to figure out your VO max – the maximum capacity of an individual’s body to transport and use oxygen during incremental exercise. This is a great indicator of your overall level of fitness, which you can watch improve over time. Based on your history and heart rate data the 620 can figure out exactly when you’re fully recovered and ready to go again for that personal best you’ve been after.
The downside to a lot of GPS watches is that they’re useless when training indoors on a track or treadmill. The built in accelerometer in the 620 fixes that. All of your indoor running can also be tracked and used in determining your running form and recovery time. Your data can be uploaded onto Garmin Connect and shared and analysed by the massive fitness community there.
The 620 is super-fast to find satellites, the heart rate monitor provides accurate and smooth readings and the new running dynamic metrics like cadence, ground contact and vertical oscillation are really useful – a genuinely top-end running watch.