The Most Thankful Training Tool

Hey y'all it's been awhile! So Thanksgiving just passed (All triathletes get on your knees and pray to the anti-weight gain gods) and I got to thinking about things that I'm thankful for. And I came up with one thing that has been one of my most useful training tools ever since I started triathlon!

My Timex Ironman watch.

It was a birthday gift from my wife right after we got engaged and I fell in love with it! A lot of people have tried Ironman watches with varying results (the father-in-law prefers Garmin for its GPS) but I have always loved my entry-level $40 Target watch.

Ironman watches have a lot going for them. For one thing, if you grab one with a water-resistance of 100-meters, they're virtually water-proof. I can vouch, I take mine in the pool every time I swim to time my splits. Which is probably the watches most amazing function. (Quick tip here: Don't submerge the Ironman watch while you press the buttons; most people who encounter watch failures do so because of ignoring this. The watch doesn't have internal gaskets to protect the components from water penetration so make sure your wrist is out of the water before you go mashing buttons!)

Mine is an excellent Blue-Orange coloring that matches my race kit and looks fairly stylish too! So here's everything you need to know in quick-bullet format about the watch, Good and Bad.

1. If you don't press the buttons underwater, it's virtually water-proof. I've taken mine in the pool countless times and timed countless splits in an effort to improve my abilities and it's never failed me. Ever. Never fogged, never sputtered. As a firefighter, I rely on my watch to time pulses and let me know how long I've been in, and this thing has survived extreme temperatures and had thousands of gallons of tank water dumped on it and it's still kicking. I've gotten grease and oil all over it, buttons still function even when a tad grimy. I've dropped it from ridiculous heights. I have yet to break it. Which is a miracle.

2. The screen has decent scratch-resistance. For all I've put it through, I've never scratched the display. Also phenomenal as my last watch scratched on it's first trial run (a generic Wal-Mart brand.)

3. The biggest complaint you hear is that the strap breaks down from chlorine. Knowing this, I rinse my watch after every swim to get off any excess chlorine and I've never had a problem with the strap. It still looks new with no issues.

4. The next thing you hear is that the battery craps out as soon as you buy it. I've had mine almost a year and the battery is just as good as the day I bought it. Maybe I'm a lucky one, but I have a hard time believing that a company like Timex would make a watch that died so quickly after purchase.

5. The watch does have Indiglo (essential for night-runs) and the stopwatch, splits, and recall functions work great. In races like Ironman, where the course is usually lapped, you can time each lap and bring the data back up later for logging and evaluation.

6. The only downside I can personally say is the expense. $40 is a bit steep for a watch, especially for a blog about triathlon budgets, but you pay for what you get. It's more like an investment than a purchase.

If you can't tell, I love my Timex Ironman. Personally, I use it as a backup for my Strava data for those rare occasions when Strava malfunctions and I lose my times for a run or ride. I've never had any problems with it in any condition and I highly recommend it for anyone needing rugged performance out of their equipment without loss of functionality.