Running watches have evolved since the day they were nothing more than a stopwatch on your wrist. These days the best running watches feature speed, pace and distance tracking, many offer much more, even entire fitness tests and EPOC measurement.

All the major sports watch manufacturers offer GPS running watches, but each delivers in a different form.

This page is devoted to summarizing what unique benefits that GPS has to offer runners, swimmers, skiers, kayakers or any competitve athlete who wish to utilize the benfits of GPS watches to take their fitness and performance to a new level.

Push beyond your limits with a GPS running watch. A GPS watch allows you to track your exact pace, speed, distance and the exact route you have travelled.

There are several technologies that allow you to track exact speed, pace and distance, but only GPS has the ability to pinpoint your exact location on the planet. This ability allows a GPS running watch to record the exact course you have travelled and view this data on personal computer (or Mac).

View more information on GPS Watches here. GPS sport watches,

Be sure to check out my other hubs too:

• Timex Ironman Watch Information
• GPS Wrist Watches
• How To Buy A GPS Sport Watch
• GPS Watches
  

Photo courtesy of Jacob Garcia.

Polar are best known for their heart rate monitor technology and offer a wide range of heart rate monitor capable sports watches to suit all needs and budgets. Their top-line watches are GPS compatible and tend to provide a lot of features to manage your fitness or performance program and guide you through the appropriate intensity level.

The top-line Polar watches are not cheap! You pay top dollar, but get top-quality in return. Speed and distance tracking in Polar watches can be measured with an external GPS pod or an accelerometer foot pod unit, both have advantages and disadvantages.

Unlike some other GPS watches on the market, Polar do not offer GPS navigation.

Timex Ironman watches have been around since the early 1980's and hold a special place in history. Timex have never been shy to add innovative new technologies to their sports watches such as INDIGLO night light and the Flix System.

Such that it is no surprise that Timex have added GPS and heart rate monitoring technology to their famous Ironman time piece. The result: The Bodylink series, which is one of Timex's most sophisticated sports watch line.

Timex also offer speed and distance watches, a cheaper alternative GPS running watch which measures speed, pace and distance in 2 dimensions, but not altitude.

All Timex GPS watches feature a seperate GPS pod that attaches to your upper arm or clips into your shorts. It communicates wirelessly using Digital FM transmission with the wrist-watch unit to send precicse GPS data to your wrist watch which translates it into accurate real-time readings.

Without question, Garmin Forerunner is the most popular running GPS watch on the market today. Unlike offerings from all the other major bands, the Forerunner integrates GPS into the wrist-watch unit, allowing you to just put on the watch and run.

The Garmin Forerunner watches also feature sophisticated training tools for athletes such as virtual parnter, advanced workouts and courses.

Some models in the Forerunner line are capable of navigation and display a top-down map on their wide screen. While these watches are bulkier than their competitors, they deliver the complete package in terms of advanced GPS features for runners, cyclists and triathletes.

The Sunnto GPS watches, like Polar and Timex support a GPS POD that is worn externally to measure speed, pace, distance and in some models, altitude as well.

Among Suunto's many product lines, the Timex Trainer series is most suitable for runners and athletes and provides heart rate monitor support in addition to GPS support and foot pod.

The Suunto watches provide advanced post-session analysis tools and a variety of training tools for athletes who take their training seriously. Suunto watches are the only sports watches that measure real-time EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), a measure of how hard you are training, based on your oxygen consumption after a workout. A knowledge of your post exercise EPOC value can help you prevent training too hard, or to reckognize when your training benefit is not hard enough to achieve a net benefit.