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A couple of weeks back I was searching for a new heart rate watch. At first I was thinking to buy myself the Polar RS200SD (SD is with footpod), but after reading an article in RunnersWorld (the leading magazine for runners here in the Benelux) my mind was set for the Garmin Forerunner 305. The only problem I had with this device was the price. If I should bought it here in Belgium it should costed me around 330€ or $465. This is to much for a watch in my opinion. But then there’s eBay

There are a lot of shops on eBay where you can buy the FR305 for less then $300. After reading tons and tons of reviews, I finally made the decision to buy myself the FR305. Surfed to eBay, logged in with my account and ordered one via a shop that ships to Belgium.
There’s one shop that was cheaper, but because of the 99,9% positive feedback I bought it via one that’s a little bit more expensive. I must say, they did an excellent job delivering it. Ordered on Saturday night around 11pm, they received (or checked it) the payment on Monday the 12th, shipped it on Tuesday the 13th and I received it just a week later.

What came in the box:

So far so good.
Following the manual I charged the watch for about 3 hours until it says it’s fully charged.
Now the fun can begin.

After installing the software and connecting the watch via the cradle and USB I could simply upload training workouts I just created to my watch.
A big advantage the FR305 has is that you can setup your personalized screen. For example, I like to see my heart rate, my average running pace, distance I’ve ran so far and how long I’m running in one screen. It’s all possible with the Garmin 305.
It has much more things to display, but that you can display on alternate screens that you can use also while running.

Then it was finally time to stretch my legs, run a few kilometers and test the FR305 of-course.
Once back home, the fun part started. Connected my watch to my pc, beep beep, that’s it, data imported onto my screen.

Here you can see that I created a workout where I had to run 3 times 1km, rest 1 minute in between and finish with a 500m run.

The red line indicates heart rate and the blue line indicates speed.

I totally fell in love with the FR305, I only own it for a week now, but I can’t imagine running without it anymore. But I must admit, it’s hard to not watch at the screen while your running. You real have to commit yourself not watching

The only downside about all of this right now is that I picked up a little injury at my hamstring yesterday while playing soccer. So no running for me this week

If anyone of you need more feedback about this watch, just contact me, I’m happy to help you out about this great piece of equipment

Today the Preliminary group stage draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South-Africa went through in Durban.
After some boring speeches of the FIFA leaders they finally got to the drawing itself.
I was curious to find out against who Belgium had to play. Because of the bad results the last two years, they just made it into the 3rd pot.
For Belgium this means that they will be drawn against 2 stronger countries for sure. If they had made it into pot 2, then it’s just 1 stronger country.

Here are the full results of the draw:

Asia:
Group 1: Australia, China, Iraq and Qatar
Group 2: Japan, Bahrain, Oman and Thailand
Group 3: Korea Republic, Korea DPR, Jordan and Turkmenistan
Group 4: Sausi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Lebanon and Singapore
Group 5: Iran, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Syria

Asia drawing explained

North and Central America and Carribean:
This is a very complex draw, explaied here.
Group 1A: Dominica vs Barbados then USA vs Winner
Group 1B: Turcs and Caicos Islands vs St Lucia, then Guatemala vs Winner
Group 1C: Bermuda vs Cayman Islands, then Trinidad and Tobago vs Winner
Group 1D: Aruba vs Anitgua and Barbuda, then Winner vs Cuba
Group 2A: Belize vs St Kitts and Nevis, then Winner vs Mexico
Group 2B: Bahamas vs British Virgin Islands, then Jamaica vs Winner
Group 2C: Domenican Republic vs Puerto Rico, then Honduras vs Winner
Group 2D: Canada vs St Vincents/Grenadines
Group 3A: US Virgin Islands vs Grenada, then Winner vs Costa Rica
Group 3B: Suriname vs Montserat, then Winner vs Guyana
Group 3C: El Salvador vs Anguilla, then Panama vs Winner
Group 3D: Nicaragua vs Netherlands Antilles, then Haiti vs Winner

Europe:
Group 1: Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Albania, Malta
Group 2: Greece, Israel, Switzerland, Moldova, Latvia, Luxembourg
Group 3: Czech Republic, Poland, Northern Ireland, Slovakia, Slovenia, San Marino
Group 4: Germany, Russia, Finland, Wales, Azerbaijan, Liechtenstein
Group 5: Spain, Turkey, BELGIUM, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Armenia, Estonia
Group 6: Croatia, England, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Andorra
Group 7: France, Romenia, Serbia, Lithuania, Austria, Faroe Islands
Group 8: Italy, Bulgaria, Ireland Republic, Cyprus, Georgia, Montenegro
Group 9: Netherlans, Scotland, Norway, Macedonia FYR, Iceland

Groupwinners and best 2nd place directly qualified to WC2010, other 2nd place finishers will play 2 games against another 2nd place finisher.

Africa:

Group 1: Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Tanzania, Mauritius
Group 2: Guinea, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Kenya
Group 3: Angola, Benin, Uganda, Niger
Group 4: Nigeria, South-Africa, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone
Group 5: Ghana, Libya, Gabon, Lesotho
Group 6: Senegal, Algeria, Liberia, Gambia
Group 7: Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambiaue, Botswana, Madagascar
Group 8: Morocco, EthiopiaRwanda, Maurithania
Group 9: Tunisia, Burkina Faso,Burundi, Seychelles
Group 10: Mali, Congo, Sudan, Chad
Group 11: Togo, Zambia, Eritrea, Swaziland
Group 12: Egypt, Congo DR, Malawi, Djibouti

After these matches are playd, they will again be drawn into a final group stage as explained here.

My conclusion is that Belgium has a nice group and have a chance to qualify for the World Cup as long as they all will fight for it. And hopefully with another trainer, not Vandereycken who’s coach now and in my opinion made sure we didn’t go to Euro 2008.

Ok,

This post I especially created to get myself some interesting new RSS Feeds. But first I’ll let you know some of the RSS Feeds I look into regulary.

If you got an interesting RSS Feed that’s not in this list, please tell me by leaving a comment, I’ll surely check it out then and maybe put it in the list also.

And offcourse I saved the most important RSS feed you all should have as last: http://feeds.feedburner.com/milliondollarchallenge

Yesterday our national team played another qualifying game in and against Poland.

Belgium didn’t had anything to win or to loose as they’re are already too far behind to qualify for the European Championship in 2008, but Poland could place them self for the very first time if they win against Belgium.
And surprise surprise, we lost again, that’s for the 6th time on 13 matches!!!! Hopefully the KBVB (Royal Belgium Football Association) will make the decision to sack Rene Vandereycken as head-coach.

Although they played at a decent level in the first half, a stupid mistake did put Poland 1-0 in front just before half-time. Another mistake a few minutes after half-time made sure the 2-0 went into the goal.
A very disappointing game once again for our Belgian team.
This was one of the many bad matches they’re playing the last few years. The last game I really did see them play at a very high level was against Brazil in 2002 at the World Championship in Korea and Japan!!!
Since then it all went down the hill. And now the KBVB is wandering why there’s nobody coming to the stadium anymore to see the national team play???

It’s hard for me to say, but as long as they keep Vandereycken as coach or any other Belgian trainer (except Erik Gerets) I stop watching them play!
They better start investing in a decent foreign coach if they want to play at the World Championship in 2010. With the current trainer they won’t get there.

And to conclude my post, here’s an update on Friday’s post about Domino Day: They failed with about 400.000 dominoes short. Too bad, more luck next year!

Tomorrow it’s Domino Day in the Netherlands.

For those who don’t know what this is, it’s just another try to beat the world record of falling domino blocks.
What started in 1986 in Lisse with 755.836 dominoes and a few million viewers grew out to be a media spectacle that will be watched by 100 Million people over the world.
Also if you see the very first attempt they did and compare it to the attempt last year, you’ll see you can do a whole lot more with dominoes then we could ever imagin.
Robin Paul Weijers and his professional team of Weijers Domino Productions did re-invent the domino.
They’ve created new and easy to use tools to setup the domino blocks in a very fast tempo, like the domino ladder and a simple piece of wood on a nail to change the direction of the falling blocks in an instant with 180°.

A few weeks back, 90 specially selected people from all around Europe started to setup 4,5 million pieces of domino blocks. Tomorrow at 8:30PM the first domino will fall to try and break the current record of 4.079.381.
Theme of this year is “Falling into Life”. Nine big themes of life will be transformed into domino. With subjects like ‘Letting Go’, ‘Having Fun’, ‘Travelling’ and ‘Communicating’ the domino trail will be travelling the full path of life.
The 4,5 million dominoes have been divided into 40 different projects with names like: I have a dream, Bc2 Puberty, Guess Who’s married, ...

Anyhow, when the first domino will fall tomorrow, we’re in for about 2 hours of falling dominoes.
This year Katie Lelua (9 million bicycle’s) will have the honour to push the first domino.

Good luck to all the people who worked on this record and hopefully they’ll break it!