Who doesn’t love gadgets? This nifty little nugget came in the mail, today. It’s a Bluetooth-enabled heart rate monitor chest strap. With this little puppy, I can get far more accurate caloric data from my workouts, find out just how hard I’m working, and do some of that oft-cited “zone” training that’s at the heart of so many performance improvement programs.
I tested it out today on the mountain bike, during my season-opening ride at MoMBA. I was initially disappointed that the app I’ve been using to log my runs and rides for years, MapMyFitness, currently doesn’t support Bluetooth HRMs, because of some tiff with Google over driver software. Dumb. So I downloaded Endomondo instead, and I have to say that my initial impressions are pretty good. It’s a little more restrictive within the app than MapMyFitness was, but the functionality and ease of use seems pretty well executed. If I use it as much as I think I will, I may even pay for the Pro version.