150-Lap Timex Review (Sarah - Liverpool)

As a self-confessed plodder, I finally decided to take action and increase my speed. And what better gadget to do it with than the 150-Lap Timex watch with Tap Screen technology, or as I lovingly call it: The Tap Lapper.

Not limited to improving running, this sleek gadget is great for all sorts of training including swimming, conditioning and timed stretches. Initially seduced by the the tap action on the watch face, I pictured myself hitting the screen whilst executing a perfectly hydro-dynamic tumble-turn. And there's time to marvel at your speed as your lap time lingers on the screen for a good 10 seconds; just enough time for you to adjust breathing and for the bubbles to clear!

But there's so much more to this time-piece than effortlessly recording laps and lengths. You can even set up to 16 of your own interval times that can be repeated up to 99 times. These intervals can be labelled with markers that will show up on-screen as warm, slow, med, fast or cool; an invaluable feature  for when fatigue sets in and you're not at your sharpest. It's like your own personal coach telling you what to do! It can be as complicated or as easy as you choose.

So who's doing a marathon this month? For now, I know when to eat or drink during a training run, however on an adrenaline filled race day, nutrition will be the last thing on my mind! To prevent an unexpected energy crash, my 150 Lap can be timed to go off when it's time to fuel up or drink. Great when you want to lose yourself in the atmosphere and overtake that idiot in the Spongebob costume!

My main motive for buying this watch was to increase my speed. In addition to the benefits of interval training, I can also smash my PB using the Target Time Racer. As you complete one lap, hit the screen and within a margin of your choice, it feeds back if you're fast slow or on target. The beauty of this feature is it does a different bleep for each flag; a slow low bleep for slow, a short modest click for on target and fast high pitch pips for fast. It's loud enough to hear on a treadmill so you don't even need to look at it to know how well you're doing! This also takes the tedium out of clock-watching when holding an uncomfortable stretch or powering through a painful plank position.

I'd recommend this tool to anybody aiming for a high quality training session. All too often, runners get bogged down with GPS systems and spend more time staring into their watches when they could be taking in the views and savouring the stretching horizon. With its 150-lap memory, there's plenty of memory left to check out your progress later on. Training benefits aside, this watch is lightweight, user friendly, comfortable to wear and comes in large or medium size. As the large screen is the dominant feature of the watch, the digits, fast/slow/drink signals are very large and easy to read from a distance; ideal when when focusing on performance.


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