Timex Ironman ONE GPS+ Review

I remember not too long ago when the hard miles had a ‘7’ at the start of them. When everything felt right, when I was at the peak of my fitness, confidence and ability. It was back when I could sign up for a race at the last minute and feel like I had a good chance at a PR.

Now? Getting out the door is the easiest part of my run. And trust me, with a toddler and a nursing baby, that is no small feat. Seeing a ‘7’ in front of any mile split these days would mean I was being chased by a wild animal. The hard miles are all of them.

And that’s when I met the Timex Ironman ONE GPS+, which was sent to me as part of a sponsored review from Timex and FitFluential (As always, my opinions are my own!).  

Having a new, fun toy to play with definitely helped reenergize my running. As soon as it was charged and set up, I headed out to some trails nearby. It has been a long time since I tried out a new watch and I was impressed with the capabilities of the ONE GPS+.

Here’s a quick overview of what this watch offers:

• Fast satellite response
• Ability to send and receive email without a phone (I know, isn’t this awesome?)
• Tracking capabilities which include an important safety feature
• Full color, touchscreen Qualcomm® Mirasol™ display which gets brighter in direct sunlight
• Easy upload to three different online tracking platforms
• Self-programmable intervals workouts
• 4GB of music storage
• Long battery life

 

A video posted by carlypizzani (@carlypizzani) on Dec 23, 2015 at 1:34pm PST

Let’s start with the satellites: this watch finds them right away. If you’re the kind of person who waits very impatiently while your GPS tries to connect, you will love the speed at which you can just get going. “Waiting for satellites” is always my least favorite display on a GPS watch, but it hasn’t been an issue with this once.

With your purchase of this watch, you automatically have one year of connectivity with the AT&T network. What does a phone company have to do with a GPS watch? Okay, are you ready for this? You can email with this watch! Without your phone! If you’re a techie kind of person, this is all possible because the ONE GPS+ is powered by a Qualcomm processor with an embedded modem. If you’re not techie, all you need to know is you have wireless capability without having to have a phone with you – awesome for when you don’t want to worry about pockets and belts and stashing extra stuff. Anything that lightens the load is a good thing, right?

Not only that, but once you set up your contacts in the address book, you can assign any of your friends to be your ‘angels’ – so they can then track you via GPS or receive an SOS from you if you need help, just by downloading the free Timex ONE GPS+ app to their phone (it’s also emailed to them). As a solo female runner, this aspect is a huge selling point for me. I always carried my phone with me when I was running, but it’s big and bulky and sending a ‘Help me!’ message isn’t as simple as hitting ‘SOS’ on a touchscreen.

When you’re out on your run, you’ll always be able to see at a glance whichever of the three screens of info you want to display, because the touchscreen display only gets brighter in direct sunlight. And once you get home, you can easily upload your results to MapMyFitness, Runkeeper, or Strava.

One thing I’ve always loved about having a GPS watch is how easy it makes running speed workouts like intervals. The Timex Ironman ONE GPS+ makes it even easier because you can pre-program your workout! You just select the number of intervals, pick what length (in time or distance) each will be, the length of your recovery, add in your warm up and cool down and you can just run your workout without another thought. The split alert on the watch is loud enough to hear, as well as a vibration on your wrist – you’re not going to miss an interval start or finish.

We’ve been experiencing the crazy warm winter in Vermont, so I’ve been trying out this watch on the trails and roads in Winooski and Burlington, in capris  – you know, usual running attire for the end of December up here, right? Until, of course, we had our first snowstorm this week. Looks like it’s going to be white out from here on out! 

Since I don’t yet have the appropriate ice spikes for winter conditions, I chickened out on this outdoor run and headed to the treadmill. That’s where the 4GB storage space of music comes in handy – you just need bluetooth headphones to work it (which you can find on my runner’s gift guide here!). 🙂

Finally, the battery lasts a crazy long time. It claims to have a 7-hour life in full GPS and cellular-connected mode. I’m guessing this is right – I’ve been on about 4 runs with the watch now and I have only had to charge it once. I knew I had to charge it, because my watch emailed me. It’s my BFF like that.

Of course there are a few cons you should be aware of, but luckily they can be worked around:

• It’s a Bluetooth only device. You will need to get those wireless headphones or speaker if you plan on utilizing the music capacity of the watch. But who wants wires anyway, right? You’ll also need to pair it with your own heart rate monitor or foot pod if you want to use it for HR training or to record a workout on a treadmill or indoor track.
• After your free year with AT&T, you will have to pay to continue service. I’m loving this watch so much I was scared to research what that would cost. I was so happy to read on the AT&T site that it’s a $40 annual plan. ANNUAL, not monthly. I was pleasantly surprised at how affordable that is, given the capability it provides.
• The messaging feature is kind of clunky. I get it – it’s a watch, not a phone or an iPad, so you’re limited to how much space there is. Basically, if you want to custom type a message, it brings up an old-school texting display, with each box containing 4 or 5 characters and you select one. It’s like the first models of cell phones you could text on. And yes, I remember those. My work around is to either use one of the Timex pre-programmed responses, like ‘Done with my run – see you soon!’ but if you want to get fancy, you can actually come up with your own response to pre-program, so you can choose it as a short cut and never have to deal with the old-school texting.

I would buy this watch in a heartbeat if I was looking for a new GPS watch. It’s on sale right now for $199.95, which is so reasonably priced for the features it offers. I love that I don’t have to worry about where to put my phone for every run, because I know I can contact my husband or a friend immediately if I need to. And even though it’s super humbling right now for this mother runner who hasn’t done speedwork in, oh, I don’t know, a year and a half? I also love the surprise feature it showed me at the end of my first run, with all my personal records:

It’s humbling because I have a long way to go in order to get to where I want to be, but hey, confetti always helps, right?

Have you tried out this watch?

What’s your favorite device for running right now?

 

This post is sponsored by FitFluential on behalf of Timex.