What did we do before Garmin (BG)?

I finally got my Garmin training computer Garmin Forerunner 310XT. WOW!!!  What did we all do for training data before these things came along? My clumsy spreadsheet that recorded total time and distance and my polar heart rate monitor for measuring nothing but elapsed time and heart rate were fine but there are so many more things that I can do with my Garmin. My old system became more sophisticated when I discovered MapMyRun.com, but I gave up using that for anything more than finding the total distance I ran because the whole thing took too much time.

For example, for today's interval training (see data below) before setting out I set up the interval training at the pace and number of reps I wanted to do, I also selected the 90 second rest interval. I also set up a warm up and cool down and then as I started I simply pushed the start button and away I went. The screen told me I was in warm up until I pused the lap button and then just prior to the first interval I selected the Virtual Partner (VP) screen and then pushed lap. As I set off my VP and I were plotted on the screen and a live feed told me how far ahead or behind I was. Then when I was 10 metres from finishing my 1km interval I got a countdown beep and then a vibration when I crossed the 1km mark. The 90 second rest interval counted down automatically giving me a 10 second countdown and then I started all over again. Once at home I simply turned the Garmin on and the data was uploaded to Garmin Connect (see below) via a radio signal: no plugging in, no pushing of any buttons; map plotted; heart rate, elevation and pace plotted; splits recorded; virtual fly through loaded; all done! Next week, I will have my bike cadence also plotted.

This is all done from a unit just a little larger than a normal wrist watch and costing around $NZ500. This is made even more astounding because GPS wasn't even operational until December 1993 (after 20 years just getting the satelites up) and, according to one of my training partners, James (an astrophysicist), the first ground units were so large they had to have a seat for the operator!