Does anyone have a recommendation (or a warning) to share about a swim watch? I'm looking for something to help me count distance and/or strokes. I'm thinking about the Garmin Swim. I have the Garmin Forerunner (for running) and am pretty happy with it.
This probably just means I'm old, but swim watches bother me as a coach. I feel like the swimmers who have them rely too much on their watches (constantly punching buttons and watching their wrist instead of the pace clock) instead of relying on their own brains. I think there is great value in paying attention to what you are doing - knowing how far you swam and how fast because you kept track in your head - and watched the clock. Knowing how to read a pace clock, find your times and pace yourself according to your internal clock are valuable tools. It seems like many swimmers with the watches don't know how to do any of this. They often don't have any idea how far they've swum or what they've done at the end of a practice unless they look at their data. That says a lot to me about how engaged their brains were while they were swimming... Again - maybe I'm just a curmudgeon...
This probably just means I'm old, but swim watches bother me as a coach. I feel like the swimmers who have them rely too much on their watches (constantly punching buttons and watching their wrist instead of the pace clock) instead of relying on their own brains. I think there is great value in paying attention to what you are doing - knowing how far you swam and how fast because you kept track in your head - and watched the clock. Knowing how to read a pace clock, find your times and pace yourself according to your internal clock are valuable tools. It seems like many swimmers with the watches don't know how to do any of this. They often don't have any idea how far they've swum or what they've done at the end of a practice unless they look at their data. That says a lot to me about how engaged their brains were while they were swimming... Again - maybe I'm just a curmudgeon...
