Comments about Polar RS100 Heart Rate Monitor:

I needed something affordable and reliable, because my old Oregon Scientific kept deciding to tell me my HR was 0 BPM half way through long runs. It's important to watch your heart rate on long runs in the heat, or there is a real possibility of dying. It's also cool to know how long it took to run the route. One click of the red button and your timer starts, and HR recording starts. Hit it again and it records a lap time, and keeps counting. Great for taking your HR averages over the bike split, then the run split separately. Alarm function for either a one off alarm, monday-friday alarm, or everyday alarm; the alarm flashes and makes a tonne of noise. Backlight is also good for midnight stumbles through the dark to the toilet, without waking up anyone. By using polar uplink tool, you can use your computers speakers/headphones to send a logo (google for rs100 logos) to this watch, which shows up on the top row where the date normally is (click the top right button to toggle between date and logo modes). We use this same model at university to do maximal aerobic testing, and they work flawlessly. You'll notice alot of innovation in this monitor, too much to put into this one review. If you want to train effectively instead of just hard, you probably need a heart rate monitor; it's the single most effective training tool you can buy. This one fits the bill perfectly.