Howdy!
I’m baaaaaa-aaaack. At this time I’ve had my Adidas miCoach Pacer for a hair over two weeks and have used it, according to the history I get from the official page, for 6hours, 28 minutes, and 15 seconds, and a total of 31.34 miles. Is that enough time to make a thorough assessment? I don’t know. It is enough for me to find out just how well it does what I need it to do and that, yes, there are a few bugs in it. First things first, since the coach has a voice, it seems like it also needs a name. The most obvious name for a miCoach seems to be Michael, and because I’m a huge Supernatural fan, I’ve come to think of mine as the Archangel miCoach. I’m sure I’m the only one to find that amusing, but anyway, there you have it.
Now for the review.
Shall I start with the pros or the cons? I think I’ll start with the cons, because I don’t want to add on a negative note when, overall, I’m thrilled with my purchase and would definitely recommend it to others. However, it’s not perfect.
Let’s start with basic accuracy. The stride sensor as a tool for measuring distance and pace is reported to be about 97% accurate out of the box. I found that to be true. I took it out straight out of the box and hit all my known distance markers at about the exact same time that the Archangel miCoach said I did. Con: It doesn’t tell you when you reach a marker. You have to ask it by pressing the button, which can be a hassle if you’ve got on layers or gloves. The only actual coaching it gives you automatically is “Speed up,” “Slow Down,” or “Maintain.” Of course, it gives you way more information than that by pushing the button, and giving minimal instruction reduces the amount of time your music is interrupted, but again, layers and gloves... pushing the button isn’t always the best option.
The first real accuracy glitch reared its ugly head the first day I used it. Time. I started my Mio wrist heart rate monitor at the same time I started the miCoach workout, at least within four or five seconds, anyway, and by the end of the workout, there was a 20 second discrepancy between the two with the miCoach taking 20 seconds longer to hit the required workout time. I don’t know if maybe it loses time when it’s reporting or what the problem is. That’s not a huge deal, but I’m not entirely sure how it calculates pace, so it’s likely that the faulty time-keeping could also affect the reported pace. For training, not a huge deal, since it’s designed to be used as a heart rate zone trainer more than a distance/speed specific trainer. But if you’re really anal about these things, you’ll definitely notice the discrepancies.
Second accuracy glitch: I changed the stride sensor to a different pair of shoes on the third run, and for some reason, it took forever for the Pacer to detect it. Then, when I went out for a run, I noticed a huge discrepancy between the distance miCoach reported at my first marker and the distance I knew I had actually travelled. Okay, so, by huge I mean, it should have reported about .23 miles, and it reported over .3 miles. Which is a lot of ground in just a quarter of a mile. Now, in the device’s defense, I was taking the route past my neighbor with the biting dogs that day, and I might have done a great deal more zigging and zagging than I realize. In which case, it was probably right. In either case, it’s extremely easy to re-calibrate it if you think it’s inaccurate. After you upload your workout data using the miCoach manager, you click on the Edit icon next to the distance reported, and type in the actual distance you travelled, which you figure out by using one of the online satellite based mileage sites like MapMyRun.com. That’s about as accurate as you can get without going to a track and running laps.
Third glitch. I was starting out on a custom workout that I had added to my site-designed Plan, a 10mile blue zone (easy) run. It all started out just fine, gave my workout description as I started, “10.0 miles, blue zone,” then instructed me to “Speed up to blue zone.” And as soon as I hit my target heart rate, it told me, “Maintain blue zone,” and then, “Workout complete.” Wow, 10 miles in less than 2 minutes. I’m awesome! But wait, nooooooooo. I have no idea what happened there. I was all set to stop and restart the workout when the device reminded me that it keeps on recording workout data until I stop working out, so I just decided to leave it on in, essentially “free” mode for the duration, and just checked it manually for distance and heart rate info. I still got the workout in and all the data recorded, but I didn’t get the handy little reminders when I went out of my target heart rate zone. As a result, I was only in the blue zone for 37% of the time. :/
Final glitch. I consider this one to be the most frustrating. Yesterday, I had an awesome run. It was supposed to be 30 minutes in the blue zone, and then 30 minutes in the green, with a 15 minute blue zone cool down. My green zone goes from about 150 supposed to be just above lactate threshhold, which for me, is about 166 bpm heart rate. I was cruising along quite comfortably at around 155 to 160 bpm. (Don’t ask me how that fits into Daniels’ pyramid. It’s quite possibly junk mileage, but it felt good, so whatever.) I didn’t pay too much attention to my blue zone pace. It’s usually between 12 and a half to 13 and a half minutes/mile. When I checked my pace during the green zone run, I consistently got reports of below 11 minutes/mile, and quite a stretch where it was below 10 minutes/mile. I was pretty pleased with myself.
However, when I uploaded the data and looked at the graph, which you can view second by second just by sliding the slider at the bottom, it did not show a single instance where my pace was less than 10 minutes/mile, and only a few where it was less than 11 minutes/mile. I don’t know why it would have reported one thing during the run and then reported another on upload, but I know what I heard when I was running, and it didn’t add up.
The last thing isn’t really a discrepancy or a glitch, more of a ‘huh’ sort of thing, and that has to do with how miCoach determines overall pace. If I plug in the distance and the time it took me to complete it to almost any other site, I get a different pace than what the miCoach reports. I’m guessing miCoach does some sort of a median reading instead of an average, using the second by second or minute by minute pace recordings. I haven’t quite figured that out yet.
One thing I’m kind of on the line about is their website. It is awesome that you can see the graphs and share them on Facebook, etc, but often you get an error when trying to create a viewable page to share, and it will tell you to go out for a run and come back again later. I’d let that bother me if it didn’t happen on just about every site, on occasion. It’s just frustrating when, for instance, I want visual aids to write a product review, like now, and I can’t get the visuals I want. Of course, there are ways around it. On the Print, screen, you can select, instead of a printer, Save to One Note 2007, and the image will save to a file. And you can upload the file. Or you can just print it out and then scan it back in again. But hey, I’m not getting paid for this. LOL. That’s an awful lot of trouble.
ETA: And wouldn't you know, as I was typing up this post, the technical errors worked themselves out, so go here to see the graph of my last workout.
Now for the stuff I love about the Archangel miCoach.
First thing: the Assessment workout. Okay, I actually hate that workout. LOL. But I love the concept and it is an excellent assessment. It’s not a VO2 max test, exactly. In fact, you’re instructed to only go up to a level 9 perceived exertion during the test, but let me tell you, level 9 seems to go on forever. The test is only 12 minutes long and starts with 2 minutes walking, then 2 minutes at a perceived exertion of 4 on a 10point scale and then two minutes each at five six, and I think, seven. Only 30 seconds at level 8 and 45 seconds at level 9 before walking again. The device measures your heart rate at these perceived exertion levels and uses that information to customize your target heart rate zones. (Base zones are determined by age and resting heart rate when you register with the system.)
This is great. I loved looking at the graph from this workout. There were instances when I got up to a sub 6minute/mile pace. Of course, it was only briefly, but good to know that I could hit that in my old age. LOL. However (and there’s always one of those) the accuracy of the test is based entirely on your ability to assess your own level of exertion. I’m fairly certain that I was definitely at a level 10 exertion when I was doing the Level 9 sprint. Once you get to a certain level, it’s pretty hard to split hairs, and if I’d designed the test, I’d have gone from a 4 to a 6 to an 8 rather than bothering with 5 and 7. Again, hard to split hair. I suppose those levels are included for the purpose of wearing you out sufficiently to get your heart rate up in the final levels for accurate measurement, but I can’t honestly say what level of exertion I was working at past level 4 until I got to level 9.
So, what happens if you do exaggerate your abilities on the test by going at, say, a level 10 exertion instead of a level 9? Well, here’s what happens: the miCoach changes your training zones, and if you have given it the impression that you can work out at a higher heart rate level, it will raise the cutoffs. Not a huge deal for blue zone running, especially if you’re like me and have a hard time going slow enough to stay in the zone. But what’s likely to happen, as I soon found out, is that on the first day of interval training when you’re supposed to run five minutes green zone, then five minutes yellow, then five minutes green, and five minutes yellow... well, it’s almost impossible to even get into the yellow, because you’ve already worn yourself out working above Lactate threshhold in the green, and then, if you manage to hit yellow, good luck maintaining it for five minutes. And in that instance, green zone doesn’t exactly count as a recovery, so the intervals don’t work the way they’re supposed to.
You’re wondering how I’ve listed all this as a good thing. Well, not only does it keep you honest, but it’s super easy to fix. You just go into your Settings on the website, and manually adjust your target zones. I set mine so that I only had to hit about 170 bpm to get into the yellow instead of the 174. That doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but I also set the top end of the blue zone at 149 insted of 153, so my green zone runs can now happen at a much more comfortable pace of 155 to 160 instead of at lactate threshhold. Save the threshhold run for yellow runs. I love how easy it is to customize.
I think I’m pretty much addicted to the website. Graphs and charts are just so much fun to look at and analyze. I don’t even miss the networking of the Nike+ site, but I’ve heard Adidas is going to add that feature, too, so don’t let that stop you from going on over there.
What else do I love? I love that the coach tells me to “Maintain blue zone” when I’m getting close to the upper limit so I can make adjustments before I’m out of the zone and, hopefully, avoid being chastised by the “Slow down to Blue zone,” instruction.
I love getting my pace any time I want it without having to do the calculations in my head. I don’t love, but I’m greatly amused when I have to run in place for several strides to wait fo traffic (or lady with donkey) and can actually see that on the graph as a point where my pace was essentially zero. Huh. As far as I can tell, those blips don’t affect my overall workout pace by much, but like I said, I can’t really figure out how they calculate that to begin with.
I love that it keeps recording information even after the programmed workout is completed, so if I feel like I want to add some mileage to the end of a run, I can without stopping to load a new workout. I also love that, if I don’t want my added mileage at a slow pace to reflect poorly on my workout pace on the graph, I CAN add a custom workout and get a separate graph for the easy run if I don’t mind taking the time to switch between workouts while I’m running.
I love how easy it is to share my graphs via Facebook. However, I’m pretty sure if I did it everyday, my friends would all just block me.
I also love that I feel motivated to get out there and run even on the worst days, because I feel like the Archangel miCoach is waiting for me, and I don’t want to stand him up. Also, it feels a lot like cheating to delete a workout off the calendar.
Things I’m on the fence about. Well, as much as I love the workouts and the graphs, they’re not very tree-friendly if you want to print them out. I tried to printout just a workout list which looked like maybe a page on the screen, but when it came out of my printer, every line on the screen was acccompanied by a huge explanation, and it would’ve taken over 20 pages to print out the Plan, so I cancelled it. I don’t have any other devices like this where you can upload the data and then use them as you wish, so it’s quite possible they’re all clunky in the hard copy area. I won’t hold that against it.
I know a lot of races don’t allow listening devices, and some of those that do allow listening devices specifically forbid verbal coaching. So, I’m not sure you could use the Pacer in a race, even if you just put it on “free” so that you could get heart rate, distance, and pace readings on demand. It’s definitely a device that’s primarily designed for training. Which means, of course, that if you’re like me, and you decided to forego buying the Garmin in favor of trying this out instead, then you might actually still need to go and purchase the Garmin before race day. Which, really isn’t a worse option for me, since I’d have had to purch the iPod nano if I had decided to go with the Nike+ instead, and I think the miCoach is just way more functional than Nike+ as a trainer.
If you read my initial reaction post, I said that one of the primary reasons I decided to purchase this device over the Garmin or Nike+ was because not many people had them. It’s new and shiny. So of course, I knew that it was likely to have bugs in it when I got it, especially since most of the reviews I found were from people who only used it once or twice. I don’t mind spending my money to guinea pig myself out, in this case, because overall, as I said at the top of the page, I really love this gizmo. I will qualify that by saying, however, that I don’t really have anything to compare it to. Overall, it does exactly what I need it to do, keeps me honest, slows me down when I need to slow down, and speeds me up when I need to speed up. And if there are a few bugs in the actual data, I just have to remind myself that running has evolved where it is today by just putting on a pair of shoes and doing it. The rest is just icing, and the real data is how you feel as time goes by.
Definitely a purchase I’d recommend to other runners who have maybe a goal race or a goal distance in mind but don’t have a solid plan or way to assess progress. If you’ve already got a Garmin, I wouldn’t bother with the miCoach, and if you can only afford one or the other, go with the Garmin, primarily because I don’t know if miCoach is race legal.
And that, as they say, is that. I don’t have a star rating system, but if I did, I guess this would get a 4 out of 5 with high marks for functionality and ease of use, and a few lower ones for questionable accuracy and technical glitches. The only thing it doesn't do that I currently need is repel dogs. :/
Til the next bend in the road. Watch out for plot holes.
-Tracy
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