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| The
Polar S 610 - Runners Get It. |
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Remember the good old days when a
downloading monitor cost a small fortune, came with a bulky
chest transmitter, and required an additional and costly interface? |
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Sleek
and cool.
The Polar S610.
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Enter the Polar S-Series,
Polar's top line for endurance athletes. Times sure
have changed.
The Polar S610 heart rate
monitor is the smallest of Polar's new Infrared
downloading models. No more bulky black units for
this runner. The Polar 610 's modern design, cool-blue
color and low profile mean it looks great tooling
around town, whether I'm on the trails or in line
at the coffee shop.
Polar bills the S-Series
as "Serious tools for serious training..."
And these ARE
serious training tools. But don't be intimidated;
the S-series has all the features you want yet remains
easy and friendly to use.
What makes the Polar 610
so easy-to-use?
For one, its communication
abilities. The 610i 's uploading feature is fantastic.
Uploading? That's right. The Polar S610 has bi-directional
communication allowing me to upload and download
my workout.
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No longer do I need to figure out
which buttons on the monitor to push (though Polar's done
an admirable job with that too, all things considered) to
setup my warm-up and cooldown or my heart rate zones. I can
do it all with software.
Both uploading
and downloading are a snap. Just hold set the 610i next
to the small infrared interface (an affordable option at
$34.95*), click the Data Transfer Center in PC Coach and
voila! Your upcoming scheduled workouts are uploaded
to the S610i and your completed workouts are brought down
to the PC Coach calendar.
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| The
Polar S610 in Action |
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Check out how the Polar 610 performed
in conjunction with PC Coach Elite for my Tuesday tempo
run. My workout consisted of 20 minutes warm-up, 25 minutes
tempo running, and 15 minutes cool-down
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| Uploading |
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PC Coach Elite to set up the workout and upload it to the
S610. Uploading my workout was straightforward. PC Coach allowed
me to quickly setup my heart rate limits as well as my warm-up,
tempo and cool-down timers. |
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Step 2 |
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| Exercise |
Next, the hard part —working out.
This may have been a challenging tempo run but ensuring
that I worked out at the perfect intensity, the Polar
610 kept me within my heart rate range the whole way.
When I dipped under 158 bpm, it let me know I needed to
pick up the pace. When I climbed over 168 it beeped again,
helping me to reign in my effort. Throughout the workout,
the large LCD display made it easy to read my countdown
timers and heart rate. The new ergonomically designed
chest-strap was perfectly comfortable.
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| Downloading |
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Finally, downloading my workout data
took just seconds.
The Polar S610 has a mammoth memory
that not only stored my average heart rate every 5 seconds
for this workout, it also stored all my other workouts for
the week. Perfect for when I'm traveling and can't get to
my computer between sessions.
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Storing average
heart rate data every 5 seconds gives me a granularity
in the downloaded data unprecedented before the S610.
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| Sample Tempo Run Graph |
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course, I'll sometimes want to do more complex workouts,
including interval training, heart rate fartlek, and
I have no doubt that the 610 's interval feature will
make that easy as well. |
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| The Runner's
Monitor |
| From the Runner's perspective I
give the Polar 610 high marks. Its form and function are far superior
to older models, and its features for runners, including uploading
and downloading, and its memory capacity make it stand out in the
new S-series line. |
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If you like the S610 but would also like cycling features (speed,
cadence option) and an altimeter, check
out the Polar S720i.
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