Mad rush called duathlon - Brandywine Duathlon race report

This morning I completed my first ever duathlon and as Craig said these things hurt. They actually hurt like hell. If you think triathlons are hard I have a surprise for you - duathlons are harder. But they are a lot of fun as well. In case you never raced duathlon or even did not hear about the format. It is almost like triathlon only the initial swim is a run. Actually some triathlons may be turned into duathlon if the conditions for the swim are not optimal and race director decides that it is unsafe to swim. But back to the duathlons.

The race I did - Brandywine Duathlon - is 5k run, 13.2mi bike and 3.1mi run. The course for this race is quite hilly both on the run and bike. The run is on mix of road, train and packed gravel (which I don't like too much). First half a mile is nice paved road that then turns to trail with bunch of stones and path without stones. At about 1.75 miles you are back on road running all the way to the transition area. The run is kind of interesting - the loop is T-shaped so it is pretty hard to gauge where you are in the second half of the race (not that it would make much difference this time).

The bike is 13.2 mi loop around the lake with mix of long gradual hill climbs, few flats and many steep descends. Great course to test what you can really do on the bike and how well you can climb. It is hard course to race especially if you pace the bike incorrectly your run will suffer quite a bit. The descends are good to get your HR down and I reached peak speed of about 40 mph on one section so it is comparable to Anthracite Tri. Only on Anthracite Tri there is one or two climbs and the rest is pretty bearable. This course seems like always uphill with few short steep descends. Very nice course.

The second run is on the same course as the initial run with finish line just slightly below the transition on downhill slope so if you still have some energy left you can finish strong by just keeping your legs turning.

The duathlon is totally different animal than triathlon mainly due to the fact that you need to be careful to pace your first run to get to the bike and still be able to ride.

Craig suggested changes to my original (overly optimistic plan) and I was to go out at 7 minute mile for the first 1.5 or 2 miles and if I felt strong or there were enough downhills to pickup the pace to 6:50 before the end. The run course was pretty much up and down all the time. Not many long downhills to pickup speed. I passed the second mile marker at 14 minutes and was quite happy with pacing. I probably lost few seconds on the last mile as there was much more climbing than on the first part. I finished the run at 22:40 which is slightly off pace, but good.

My T1 was just OK. It took me a little time to get my helmet and shoes on which gave me 1:06.

The bike starts on flat and downhill soon turns to steep climb to a curve after which the climb continues into downhill, and so on. Basically all you need to know about the bike is that there are very few flat sections and we had the pleasure of riding into the wind on those sections. I passed quite a few people on the bike, but I did not count them as I would on little easier course. Also I had to pay more attention to drafting violations as the course speeds-up and slows down everyone pretty equally and at times it was on the edge to keep the distance between the bikes. Two or three times I just pushed the pedals little more to pass the folks before the climb to prevent any penalties. The worst part of the bike ride came at around mile 4 or 5 on the flats when I got cramp to my left calf shortly followed by cramp to right calf. I had to pull to the side, slow down and stretch it out. The cramps came and went away in waves for another 3-4 miles and were quite annoying. Not too bad to prevent me from going, but bad enough to slow me down. I guess if you do duathlons it is good idea to do some reverse bricks to get used to this type of stress. One other thing I did on the bike was to try to follow the power zones plan as closely as possible - stay under 265 for most of the ride and not go much over 300 on climbs. Which on this course means sitting on the climbs and spinning them. I was riding granny gear on all longer climbs and interestingly enough was riding as fast as folks that stood up on their bikes. I got passed by about 3 folks on the bike that looked really strong. One guy that passed me on the longest climb had a jersey that read 'US National Duathlon Champion'. I kept up with him pretty well on the climb and noticed that he stayed in his aerobars and was in easy gear. So there is something about keeping the gearing easy on the bike leg and spinning it up to save legs for the run. The bike leg was relatively short and the 13.2 miles were over soon. I got to the bike dismount and braked with my front brake little to harshly after I jumped off the bike. The bike was in the air, but I just lifted it and kept running to T2. T2 was fast and I was on the run course in no time. Well in 43:31 of biking and 40 seconds in T2.

The second run plan was to keep at 7 minute mile for the first half and then pickup the pace if I can. The first half a mile was fairly good although my legs felt like jelly - the usual bike to run transition. I was also running close to red line. At the aid station I tried to get a sip of water - that was a mistake. I had to slow down to about 20 seconds walk to keep it down. Then I gradually picked up the pace and at that point my watch stopped to show my pace. Earlier in racing I would freak out, but not these days. I just decided to run the redline - basically run as fast as you can without throwing up (sounds gross, but that is pretty much where most people race). I got passed by 4 or 5 people in the next 2 miles and passed 2 or 3 folks - you lose some you gain some. Just shortly after the last turnaround on the road back to the finish (about 750 meters before the finish) the last of the 3 guys passed me. I decided to keep him in my sights and if I had enough in the tank before the finish to sneak-up on him. I was getting closer to him and closed the gap he built to about 10 meters before the descend to the finish line. I started sprinting, but he also had enough fuel left so I ended-up finishing behind him by one second.

It was a great race. It is definitely a mad rush as the HR gets pretty high up on the first run and stays elevated during the entire event. I had mine drop to 129 on downhills on the bike, but most of the time I was pretty high and the sprint to finish line on the downhill I was 4 beats away from my max. And yes the event hurt as well as the rest of the day (and also today). I guess that means that I gave it all I had. I'm very happy with the results. You can check out my time and few official photos on the Piranha Sports website. By the way I did not grow gut between the first bike and end of the race - the gut is actually my gloves and hat that I stuffed under my shirt during the run as I was getting warm. I have the great photos in this post thanks to Ivana who accompanied me to the race as the cheerleader and official photographer. Thanks Ivana for the support.

Random items

I haven't been keeping up with this blog lately. It has various reasons that can be summarized as family, work and training keeping me crazy busy. I decided to post a summary of random items and thoughts related to training and other mostly sport activities I did or plan to do in the near future.

Let's start with training

Training has been going real well. Craig and Erica keep me on my toes and I must say that the training makes me feel like I'm building a solid engine to carry me through this season. I may have mentioned it here before, this year I focus on longer races and will be doing quite a few 70.3 races. Actually 70.3 is my focus for this year and I plan to do a long course aqua-velo race in late September as preparation for full Ironman in 2010.

Weather has been turning nicer in PA and running outside is going well. Today was my first day on the bike outside and it was a blast. I did little under 3 hours ride in the neighborhood and enjoyed every bit of it - even the climb to South Mountain. It was a fartlek ride so I did some fast climbs, easy riding, fast descends, long steady segments - had it all on this ride. Tomorrow is long run and I wonder how well my legs will carry me in steady state run with 20 minutes tempo and pick-ups to 5k race pace thrown at the end. Should be fun. Next week is my very first duathlon on Sunday. Still need to sit down and think through the race plan. I seem to do better when I have solid plan preferably with backup going into the new race format.

Quakertown 10 miler

Few weeks ago Dasa and I ran races in Quakertown. Dasa did the 4 mile run and I did the 10 miler. If you are not familiar with the area where I live let me describe it to you - fairly hilly. Locals call it PA rolling terrain. People from flat lands would probably call it bloody hilly. In any case the 10 miler was on fairly hilly terrain and it is one of the races that tests your pacing strategy. Dasa did very well in her 4 miler even though she was not happy with the hills and had to walk parts of the course. I did quite OK in the 10 miler and recorded a new PR - well I kind of expected it as last time I ran 10 mile race was 10 mi South Mountain race and that is just one hill - all the way up and back down. This Quakertown 10 miler is little easier and sports more varied terrain (not climbing up for 3.5 miles and then running back for 3.5 miles as on South Mountain). In case you want to check the terrain and my race log you can look at the Training Peaks for details.

New products from Polar

I have not been checking the Polar product pages over the past few weeks, but I remembered seeing a new add in Triathlon magazine - something about 3D training. The watch in the add looked new so the other day I browsed through the Polar running and multisport computers and noticed few new things. The S625X seems to be phased out from the product line (at least it no longer appear on the polar.fi pages. The S725X is still being offered and effectively can be used instead of S625X if you add the foot pod.

But more interesting is the new watch for recreational athletes - RS300X. It looks like a replacement of the RS200 watch, but it adds the ability to work with G1 GPS sensor for speed and distance. It seems to be geared to runners, but I assume that it can be used for cycling, walking and other activities if you use the G1 GPS sensor to record speed/distance. Looks like a nice basic no frills watch for people that want to keep their training simple and still get the benefit of speed/distance and heart rate. Polar sells the watch in few packages - base watch without any speed/distance sensor, second is bundled with S1 foot pod and third option comes with the G1 sensor. Each package contains the HR Wearlink+ belt with T31 HR transmitter. The watch comes in black or orange color (just like the RS200 used to be offered in black and red). The pricing in the US is very reasonable 170 USD for the base watch and 250 USD for one of the packages with either S1 or G1. You can actually get them for about 20 bucks under MSRP from most dealers. I hope I can get my hands on one to provide more details.

Another big news that I have not touched on is the availability of the CS600X which is an upgrade of the CS600 bike computer that enables GPS location recording (just like the RS800cx does). I have not seen the unit yet, but expect that it provides the same capabilities as CS600. From the manuals it looks like it has larger memory and few minor differences. But the core functionality is very close to CS600. Just like CS600 Polar offers the CS600X in two boxes - one without power and one with power. If you already own CS600 with power you can simply swap the CS600 head unit for CS600X (and sell the used CS600 on eBay). All sensors should work fine with the CS600X as they also use the W.I.N.D. technology. I do not believe there is an upgrade program offered by Polar in any country.

Suunto X10 and Geocaching

I have got the Suunto X10 ABC watch few weeks ago and really love it. I do not use it for running or biking (well I may take it on some bike rides or runs when I plan to get lost and use the track back home function). But I started to get my feet wet with geocaching. I'm just getting started and attempted to find only two caches. One successfully one was hidden very well so maybe next time. It is an interesting way to explore the neighborhood - I never knew there are about 20 caches in 20 miles radius around my house. What I like even better is that Ian likes it too and seems to be interested in finding the caches. We have yet to find one where we can take something (and put something of similar value back). It seems like a good fun and great way to get out of the house for a walk in the park. If you never heard about geocaching you can find more info on the geocaching.com site

Scuba diving thoughts

Few years ago when we went to Dominican Republic for vacation I got certified in open water diving by PADI. I have dived on subsequent trips to Caribbean and enjoyed it a lot. But in the past few years I have not done any diving. Last year when Erica and Craig organized open water swim in Dutch Springs I envied the groups of divers getting ready to go under. I'm thinking about taking refresher course this year and doing some diving on weekends when weather gets warmer. I'm sure I can enjoy the diving even in the colder water of PA. Obviously trip to Caribbean would be nice, but I do not believe it will happen any time soon... Any triathletes out there that also do diving? Any tips for getting started again?

Mac support for Garmin Forerunner 50 and 405 released

Yesterday I received announcement from Garmin that the Forerunner 50 and 405 are now supported on Mac. Little later during the day there was a post on Garmin Blogs that explains little more about the level of support in this first release. As you may suspect there are some limitations. The current version supports upload of the workout results to Garmin Connect site. But it does not yet support updates of firmware from the PC to the watch and does not allow uploads of courses from computer to the watch. So the Mac support is there, but compared to PC users the 405 owners with Mac will still lack some critical features. The Forerunner 50 users will be happy with this release as the 50 does not have firmware updates or courses. Here is copy of the official announcement I received earlier:

Forerunner® 405 is now Mac-compatible

If you're a Forerunner 405 owner with a Mac, you'll be glad to know they are now in sync and you can transfer your workout data from the 405 to your Mac. The data transfer happens automatically via the wireless USB ANT Stick™.

Before the USB ANT Stick can start talking to your Mac, you'll need to download new software. Visit our "getting started" pages for the Forerunner 405, which will step you through the process.

Once you've completed the setup, your workout data will automatically transfer to your Mac and to Garmin Connect. On this site, you can store, analyze and share workouts with a community of fitness enthusiasts.

Few new HRMs from Garmin, Polar and Timex

This is just a quick post about some new HRMs that either already hit the market or will be released in upcoming weeks. There are some exciting new HRMs in the line-up of manufacturers that will make the 2009 season pretty interesting.

Garmin - leaving the GPS out

Let's start with the recently announced line of Garmin HRMs that are not sporting GPS capability. The FR60 that will come in mens and women version is HRM with ability to connect with ANT+ heart rate belt, foot pod, bike pod and cadence pod from Garmin. The watch will have standard set of features including ability to record up to 15 hours worth of workouts and capture 100 laps. Just like the Forerunner 405 this watch will connect wirelessly to your computer and transfer data to Garmin Connect site. According to the materials available on Garmin Blogs and Garmin site the watch will not support Training Center and programmed guided workouts. The watch should hit the market in Q2 of this year.

Polar - pushing the GPS to cycling

Polar just yesterday announced release of the CS600x cycling computer which is an enhancement of the flagship CS600 cycling computer. The CS600x integrates with the G3 GPS unit and captures the location information just like the RS800cx unit that was released late last year (and extensively reviewed on this site). The unit is sold in two packages - one with power and one without. It is very same packaging as with the CS600. None of the packages comes with the G3 sensor, but you can get the G3 sensor as an accessory. Other difference that I noticed from the comparison tool on Polar USA site is that the CS600x comes with the IR USB stick (just as the RS800cx). There are probably other differences, but they are not immediately apparent from the product description and feature list. Also I expect that Polar may make minor adjustments to the information on their website just as they did after the release of RS800cx.

Timex - focusing on the basics

Another addition to HRM line comes from Timex. The Timex Race Trainer Kit provides a good starting level HR monitor with ability to transfer data to ad from the computer wirelessly. What is interesting on this product is the fact that you are not only buying the watch, but also the access to the Timex Ironman online training site that is build on top of the Training Peaks engine. The watch integrates with the training site and according to the information available on Timex site there is ability to download workout data from the site to the watch and send the workout results to the site. Sounds like an interesting HRM for focused training. The training plans are designed by Dave Scott and Gale Bernhardt two large names in the triathlon world. You can find more details about this package on Timex site. Unfortunately I can not provide any more details on how well this package works as I have not used the watch or the Timex site yet.

Lehigh Valley Superbowl 10k 2009

Like every year this past Superbowl Sunday I lined-up with 500 or so crazy runners to do the Lehigh Valley Superbowl 10k road race. The race is held in beautiful Lehigh Valley Parkway, but due to snow and ice cover on the trail the race is run in the neighborhood above the parkway. And that means hilly course. This year the race organizers needed to make last minute change because parts of the regular route were still covered with packed snow and ice. The last minute change added two pretty good hills to the course in mile 1 and mile 5 (on the way back).

Last year I finished in the top 60 and ran the distance in little over 43 minutes. This year with much better weather, extra two hills and significant patches of snow and ice I clocked in just below 44 minutes. The course was more challenging because even tough I finished about a minute slower than last year I moved up in the overall ranking to 41st place out of some 475 participants. This year the top 100 finishers got a nice black Brooks cap. I'm sure to sport it when the weather gets better.

I'm happy with the race results even though originally I was aiming to better my last years time and hoped to keep 6:55 pace. At first I was little disappointed with the result, but then I had chance to look at the run log in detail (course profile, my HR and cadence). I was quite pleased with what I saw. Compared to last year I slowed down by about 7 seconds per mile, my average cadence was very nice 94 (thanks to Newtons I wore) and most importantly my average HR was 10 beats lower than last year.

Little explanation why that is. Last year I was doing weekly VO2max work leading up to the race - for 12 weeks to be exact. The VO2max work is now completely absent from my schedule so far as I am still in the beginning of base and focus on other limiters (like muscular endurance and technique). Being only few seconds slower and keeping HR significantly lower makes me look with promise to the rest of the season. Especially to time when Craig puts some speed work to the training mix as we approach the key races. This season I aim not to peak in February or March, but rather keep the peaking for the key races in July and November. I have full trust in Craig keeping me from messing up my season by early peaks (like I have done last year).

In case you were interested in the run log - here it is as a screen shot from Training Peaks - click on the graph to see interactive log on TP.com site.

I have met at the race with fellow Endurance Multisport athlete Leah and we did part of the warm-up together. We did chat after a race for a bit, but then Leah got little chilly (I hope she warmed up in her car on the way home). I also had a great chat with Craig after the race as we were waiting for the results (no love for me - I was way down in my AG somewhere between 6th and 8th place). But I may be adding some TT bike races to my season if they fit with the key races. Still need to look at how they are scheduled and which ones I can fit in considering family commitments and my key races for 09.

Swim breakthrough

Just a short post about the progression of my swim training. Erica looked at my stroke last year in September and fixed few things I discussed in earlier post. Working on these swim stroke issues helped quite a bit. Well the fact that I was in the pool 3-4 times a week since September probably plays role as well.

The more I swim the more I'm understanding the term - 'getting feel for the water'. I can now actually feel when my hand does not move efficiently or when I tilt my head or kick in the wrong way. So things definitely improved. And I also have some stats to back this claim up.

We have done testing on approximately monthly basis. The test protocol is fairly easy. After warm-up I swim 300 yd during which I build up to a pace I think I can sustain for the whole set. Then take 20 seconds breather by the wall and do 3x100 yd with 15s rest followed by 300 yd. The total time from the start of the first 300 yd to the finish of the last 300 yd counts as the test time. Here are the test results of the past tests from October to just few days ago.

• Oct 18^th - 15:55
  
• Nov 13^th - 15:50
  
• Jan 4^th - 14:39
  

My 100 yd and 200 yd splits have been coming down consistently and I feel very fast in the water. Although only until there are two swim team members swimming in the next lane. Obviously doing an easy warm-up while I struggle to keep up with them. But I'll eventually get there. I met with Erica just before Christmas and she suggested few more things to work on. I'll get faster in the water. I'm sure of it.

By the way the bike and run training is moving in the right direction as well. Craig had me doing some serious bike and run tempo work on the weekends. I feel that this is going to make me fast this season. I can't wait for the first tri race which will actually be the Black Bear half ironman in late May.

Polar RS800cx or Suunto T6c that is the question

How is that for controversial title? I have just recently received few question from people trying to decide between the two monitors. As you probably know I own both of them and do not plan to let one of them go any time soon. In fact I find both good at what they do, but if you have money just for one what should you do? Well you will need to decide for yourself, but this post will hopefully provide some information that make the decision easier.

I'll use the same format I used in the other comparison article in June of 2008 - Q: Garmin Forerunner 405 or Suunto T6c?. I made few changes to the T6c text reflecting my longer use of the watch. But most of it remains the same as 7 months ago. Note that I ultimately sold the Garmin Forerunner 405 on eBay after I got tired of it. I'm sticking with the RS800cx and T6c for now.

Training planning

Polar RS800cx - it will be of little surprise to readers of this blog, that I like the abilities to program variety of guided workouts in this watch. It offers so many options to structure workout that I have yet to find a workout I can not program in it. You name it - ladder intervals, sessions with various interval length, phases focusing in cadence, pace or HR. You can do it all. Do you need to workout for specific time or until your HR raises to specific HR, etc. So in training planning I really prefer the flexibility and functionality you get in RS800cx. You can define workout in the watch, but I prefer to use the Polar Pro Trainer 5 software to plan my training sessions.

Suunto T6c - has some planning capability in the software, but the guided workouts are to be defined directly in the watch. You can define warm-up duration, countdown duration (in case you want to do warmup, but not include it in the total exercise time), then there are two time intervals or you can use distance intervals (again only two). You can define how many times to repeat the intervals and that is it. I find this fairly good for less structured training sessions. So I use the T6c on simpler workouts - like tempo runs or recovery runs that are easily fit into the format of warm-up and two interval timers. (In June I wrote that I felt the RS800 was more robotic way to do the workouts - I do not feel that way these days. Perhaps I was on the edge of overtraining and needed to step back. The switch to T6c certainly helped that. These days I train with both and as I wrote above the RS800cx is for more structured sessions and T6c for sessions that have little less structure). The T6c is very similar in training planning abilities to S625X from Polar in terms of interval workouts.

Training

Polar RS800cx - what I like in RS800cx is the ability to define up to 3 pairs of shoes with different calibration factors. So you do not need to mess with the CF before each run if you decide to wear different shoes or just switch from road to treadmill. The actual execution of the training session is very well supported by the watch. It has very clear and loud beep when switching from one planned phase to another. Also the limits alarm beeps loud enough to hear it if you exercise with headphones. The watch provides information about many parameters of your session from overall perspective or individual laps. After each lap watch briefly displays the summary for the lap and if if is changing from one phase to another it shows the new phase title. This is very useful when you have multiple phases and in the middle of the exercise forget what is next - the watch will remind you. I also like the little repeat calculator in the right bottom part of the screen that shows you how many repeats of the phase or phases are remaining. It is very useful especially in case of interval training when you may miscount - yeah it happens to me all the time. Another great thing on the watch is the display. It shows bunch of data which can be overwhelming at times, so I tend to stick to 2-3 displays that I configured to provide the key information I need (jut FYI the watch has 6 displays you can configure yourself, one multi-sport display which is discussed later in this text and one display for count-down of the current phase). The count-down display shows the counter of the current phase with time remaining and information about the limits - e.g. HR, cadence, etc. Other stuff that you may like in this watch is the recording of your location if you use the G3 GPS sensor, recording of cadence both in cycling and running. There is more about this unit in the three detailed articles I wrote last year after I had the watch for few weeks. I will not go back to that discussion here.

There is doubt that this watch provides the most functionality out of any HRMs I owned so far. The only missing piece is the automatic switch between the sensors - like from bike to run. But the watch manages that OK. You can stop the exercise, switch to the other sensors and start a new session. The watch will prompt you if you want to combine exercises and if you do so it shows a new display for multi-sport workout. The display shows overall time, distance and calories burned in the combined session. You can combine multiple sessions into one and then review them later in the software.

Suunto T6c - works like a charm for running and biking (and with memory belt also OK for swimming). The watch is able to automatically switch between sensors (pods) if you use multiple in one session - bike pod, foot pod, GPS pod. Like in the triathlon race. The comfort HR belt is very nice - I find it even more ehm comfortable than the Polar WearLink+ and it works very well once you figure out which part to moisten. The watch has configurable screens - 2 screens 3 lines each and the last line can show multiple items that you can switch between. Other that that the watch displays the EPOC and TE on the fly, but I find these values less accurate than what you get later on the computer.

The really cool feature of this watch is the automatic switch between the sensors. I did a brick session and it recorded my bike speed / distance (as 18mph), then I did a lap for transition and headed out of the house for a short run. Before I hit the street it was already switched to my foot pod and was showing my pace 18:30/mi as I walked and soon 7:45/mi as I started running. It is pretty cool to see this working after struggling with this with Polar, previous Suunto and Garmin. This may not be as important for single sport athletes, but quite nice for triathletes. Especially if you want to have one less thing to care about in transition. That is also one reason T6c will remain in my collection. I plan on racing with it again this season.

Evaluation of training

I guess this sentence from original article summarizes it well: "Well compared to Polar software both Garmin and Suunto have a long way to go."

Polar RS800cx - Polar Pro Trainer 5 offers certainly the software with most bells and whistles for analysis of single workout or reporting over a defined period of time. I love the ability not only to define own sports, but for each to set the speed/pace units that I want to see in the graphs, different HR zones for each sport and the ability to define my own reports and customize how they look. You can easily take any set of HR zones and synchronize them to your watch in case you wanted to switch between them for cycling or running session. The calendar view and summary for the week is also quite useful and shows you actual vs planned - number of exercises, training time, distance and actual burned calories.

I also like the way Polar stores the log files in individual text file. I can modify the logs if I need to correct data from the session. Like this past weekend when I had an occurrence of CS600 not connected well with my HR belt. After the session I had all HR data in RS800cx log and all the power, cadence, speed data in the CS600 (but no HR). I simply took the logs opened them in text editor did one large copy/paste and saved the log. Everything was saved and I could do the analysis I needed to do with HR, power data. While I had few cases when CS600 did not capture my HR data I never had issue with RS800cx. If you are interested in R-R data analysis the RS800cx can capture the data and you can later analyze them in the Polar software (which has very limited analysis functions) or load them to other R-R analysis tools like FirstBeat Athlete or Kubios HRV.

Suunto T6c - the biggest difference between T6c and other HRMs is the analysis of your workouts to provide EPOC and TE. The standard STrM software does the basic analysis and shows you the data recorded by the watch - R-R data, HR, speed / distance and all the parameters the software calculates based on the R-R. I use also the FirstBeat Athlete software mostly to help me look at my EPOC load during the week and month. The STrM is not as flexible as PPT5 and while it allows definition of multiple sports it supports only one set of HR zones. I find the analysis capabilities of the software little limited compared to PPT5. The only exception is the TE and EPOC that Polar does not provide in their software. But if you use the FirstBeat Athlete you can get the EPOC and TE post workout if you load the R-R files to the software. I found the fine tuning of the parameters for the accurate EPOC/TE calculation somewhat complicated when I first got the watch. But that is no longer the case since Suunto published the manual from Eddie Fletcher that describes how to best setup the watch. Key is to determine your activity class based on your weekly training load and your VO2max either via lab test or based on field test or race result. The manual provides great examples and makes setting-up the watch much easier than before it was published.

Daily use as a watch

Polar RS800cx - I wore the RS800sd on daily basis for over a year and the RS800cx is the same 'format'. It fits well under shirt and can be used as daily watch. It is just a tiny bit smaller than the T6c, but it is hardly noticeable. The alarm of this watch works fine and can be snoozed for 10 minutes if you want to get more sleep.

Suunto T6c - It is a watch that you can use daily. It fits under the shirt and goes with pretty much any outfit (especially the black version that is not as flashy as the Fusion). I pretty much alternate between T6c and RS800cx as my daily watch. I do not mind wearing either one of them. You may prefer Suunto if you need multiple alarms to get out of the bed - T6c has 3 of them, but does not offer snooze.

Cost

Note that this section reflects the situation as of January 2008 and that I looked at prices on US market. The prices are likely to change over time so do your research, check sites that sell Polar and Suunto watches. I also strongly recommend to only buy from certified distributors and resellers of Polar and Suunto to prevent any warranty repair issues. Both Suunto and Polar confirmed in telephone that they honor warranty from Amazon.com where I made most of my purchases in the past few months of HRM shopping.

Polar RS800cx - the watch alone is now about 400 USD + tax. You can also buy a package with the watch and either S3 sensor for running (470 USD), multisport package with G3 sensor for 470 USD or bike package with bike speed sensor for 430 USD. The additional sensors go for 140 USD for the S3 foot pod, 130 USD for the G3 GPS sensor, 55 USD for cadence WIND sensor and 55 USD for bike speed sensor WIND. Do your math before you buy as certain combinations of packages and additional sensors could be less expensive than others.

Suunto T6c - The watch sells for 335 USD for Black version and 350 USD for Fusion version. The foot pod for 80 USD, bike pod for 50 USD, the road bike pod for 57 USD and lastly the GPS pod for about 150 USD. Suunto also offers various packs with T6c - Triathlon pack with all you need for triathlon including memory belt for 660 USD, Running pack with T6c and foot pod for 470 USD and Multisport pack with GPS sensor (does not capture location) for 530 USD.

Conclusion?

Well you will need to make one for yourself. If you can go look at both models in the store or at the race expo and test them out before you purchase. They are both very good HRMs and will help you structure your training. As for me I'm going to keep both of them on my wrist as I train. One at a time to be exact. I will cotinue to use the T6c for less structured sessions and RS800cx for sessions that are more complex. I will continue to run road races with RS800cx and do triathlons with T6c. Let me know if this helped a bit in your decision making.

Update (13/1/09): In case you want to read more about the RS800cx you may like to review few earlier articles on this blog:

RS800CX - more detailed review of the functions I.
RS800CX - more detailed review of the functions II.
Analysis of training data (part 3 of RS800CX reviews)

There are also few articles about Suunto T6c that I published earlier.