11 December 2009
	GIMME Hit the road By Kate Thompson

The Forerunner 310XT is Garmin's latest GPS-enabled fitness watch. It provides a wealth of information for the statistically inclined sportsman. It tracks speed, heart rate, distance, elevation, calories used - and that's just the start. It can link to other fitness gadgets, such as heart-rate monitors and footpods, to give you more data than most people could ever use. The 310XT also allows you to create personalised workouts - a vibrating alarm tells you when you've gone a certain distance or have moved out of your specified speed or heart-rate zone - making your workout more effective. Though smaller than its predecessors, the unit is still quite bulky and takes some getting used to in terms of wearing it, and it is definitely not going to double as a fashion accessory. The advantage of the unit's size is that the large display allows for easy reading, even on the go. You can customise the screen to display up to four data fields and change between predefined screens, allowing you to check any of a number of measurements mid stride. It's even waterproof to 50 m, and has a bike mount for cyclists. For avid athletes, the 310XT is a worthwhile gadget that allows you to monitor almost every aspect of your exercise. But at R4 900 it is only for the true enthusiast.