Last week, at the reccomendation of the on-base fitness guru (a retired Army 1SG), I purchased a Polar F5 Heart Rate Monitor. They've gone a model or two ahead of this one, but it fit all my needs and more and it was on sale (previously $99, they had it at $69, about $75 after tax).
This morning was the first time I wore it for a workout. (I tried it on last night and was wearing it around the apartment, so now I know what my "couch potato" heart rate and my "laundering clothes" heart rate are.) We did interval training, 8-400's, with the goal of completing each 400 within certain time tolerances of the initial time we set for ourselves.
Come to the sixth run, we've just finished up two miles at this point, and my heart rate monitor is pegging me at 98% of my maximum heart rate. "That's not good," I say, walking it off some. "Sit out," the SFC leading PT says. "To Hell with that," I think, walking it off some.
My heart rate on the next 400 and the final 400 (where we actually went all out instead of keeping to time tolerances; I was 1:48 instead of 2:04) was 101% of my max heart rate.
This really isn't as bad as it sounds (although it's close). It mostly means that my aerobic capabilities are higher than average for my other physical stats. The watch interface computer does some basic generalized math using my height, weight, age and gender as input variables and estimated what my heart rate should be. Because it's a generalization, it's off a little.
The heart rate monitor will still be a good tool in my arsenal especially for completing interval training on my own: 2 minutes of pushing my heart rate to 90%+ followed by 2 minutes of 60-70%, 8-10 sets. I'll see what I feel up to this afternoon...