loving my Garmin Training Center

I'm still really pleased with the Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS fitness computer with heart monitor that my wife got me. And even if all I used was the toy monitor itself, I'd consider it a good deal.

But I've now synced up my Forerunner with the included Garmin Training Center software and boy does this take things up a huge leap in terms of accountability and tracking.

I went on a ~20 mile ride this afternoon on the bike, and after getting home, I plugged in my Forerunner so it could upload the data to my Mac. In addition to automagically plotting out my route on a map, it also rendered a graph that I can choose two variables to plot against each other (pick from heart rate % max heart rate, speed, elevation, pace, cadence and distance) and plot it out over distance or time.

I did the heart rate v elevation over distance and this is what today's workout looked like (click the image for a bigger version):



And this is just the beginning...