Garmin oh garmin, which one should be my garmin?!?

Reading so many posts about GPS watches and the not so sure which one to purchase I decided to share my experiences between three garmins with you...

My beginning with Garmin started not long after I started running. This was in the beginning of 2006 in the beautifull village of Grimsby England. I noticed myself on a photo that was taken at a Christmas function. It came to me as a shock. What happened to me over the last few years? How did I not realise what happened to my body? I could hardly see my chin! I decided that is it! No more Barney, from now on it will be Ben 10!!!

This is the old me next to Don King.

So I took up running. I started with 200m and wanted to vommit. I was so unfit. The 200m quickly developed into 1km which after a month was a slow but steady 3km. I ran every day except for Sundays. The day came when I decided to do a 5km route. I was so scared and thought, what will I do if I can't make it as it is far to walk back if I break down... I completed it and it was great. Although at a slow pace I did it without walking once.

After about two months I did my first 10km race. At this point I was serious about running so I decided I need a monitor or something which will log my runs. I went online and read that some people have a log which they write down their runs in a log book. The lazy me quickly turned away that option. One afternoon a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to use his Polar watch. He told me it has a heart rate monitor and it can give you a graph afterwards explaining the effort of your run. WOW WOW WOW. I ran with it and was quite impressive. I can't remember the details but the information I printed after the run was amazing. Then I started my line of research in watches and without a lot of information, I stumbled on the Garmin forerunner 301. The following is my experiences:

Garmin forerunner 301:

I bought this forerunner just before the 305 was launched and I bought it from ebay for a mere 140GBP. I also received a 1 year warranty. I used it for approximately 2 months when the socket which connects the watch to the PC did not want to recognise the watch. I phoned Garmin UK and they asked me to send it back to them. I was quite happy with the watch as it registered not only the distance but also my heart rate, pace and on a lazy software program could even see on a poor map where my run was. It took a while to find satelite and the strap looked like a thing you can use when yuor parachute does not want to open. But at that time when GPS just came out with watches, it was a great gadget. I phoned Garmin after a week and asked the lady what the problem with my watch is and she informed me she will exchange it for me. I did some more research by then and realised the new forerunner 305 was just launched. After some negotiations I was allowed to pay in 20GBP and she send me the new forerunner 305.

Garmin forerunner 305:

This was an exciting watch. It also had the heart rate monitor as well as so many features. The screen can be devided into either 1 screen or 4 viewable screens. You can also select manually which information you would like to view on the screen. It contains fields as pace, time, lap speed, distance etc. The software was also much better than the 301 software. It had a better updated map and the training centre (name of the software) was also easy to read and follow. You can also select a specific user profile which has different speed zones. You can even download from runnersorld training programs directly to your garmin and it will appear on your software under a calender of your specific exercise for each day. You can also create your own workouts and by the press of a button to start the workout and pressing only again once you are done with your workout. You can also select auto lap whereby you set a specific distance for the watch to select a lap. On the software it will then point out all data for that specific lap. It also has a multi sport for instance doing a duathlon, by pressing start, you do the first sport, then press lap and it automatically start the second sport. You can also select a transition between the sports and it will record just that. The time to find satelites once switch on is also much quicker than the 301. All in all a great watch for training.

There are a few cons as well:

It is quite a big watch on the wrist but one get use to it quite quickly.

It is only splash proof so one can not swim with it.

The battery life is quite short but long enough for at least a 4 hour workout.

The lap sounds at the end of a specific split to notify you is quite soft.

The cons is realy not merely as much as the pro's and this is an excellent watch for the beginner, intermediate and pro runner. It can now even be oploaded to google earth and will automatically show you on google earth where you ran and it is quite accurate. It has a footpod optional but good to have for those treadmill runs.

I had the watch for at least a year and a half when I saw the garmin forerunner 405. It got my attention and again because it was new I had to be the guinea pig. So I bought it with only a few reviews on youtube but all was positive.

Garmin forerunner 405:

This watch is sleek and pretty. It is compact and has the same features as the 305 with the virtual runner and multisports. There are only a few differences that is better than the 305 and here they are:

It is much smaller and lighter.

You can wear it as a normal watch and nobody will realise the power you have on your wrist.

It downloads the data automatically via a bluetooth stick to your computer once in a radius of approximately 30m from your pc. It also has a docking station as the 305 but you don't need it anymore, only for charging it.

The battery life is much longer due to a auto power safe function but more of this in the cons.

I thought that the program garmin connect was only for the 405 but I could download even the data from my 305 to this program. So there are two software programs you can use.

The cons:

On my first run with the watch, I struggled to switch between the different data on the screen. It has a toggle function whereby you slide your finger accross the face of the watch and it scrolls through the menu. It loks quite impressive. You need to do the same when viewing through the different data screens. After 10km, I struggled to scroll with this feature as it jumped sometimes to fast or did not want to scroll. I still prefer the buttons, it is much easier to push while running.

After approximately 15kms I wanted to stop my workout and in the meantime it went automatically to auto battery safe function and to exit this function you have to touch the outside of the watch and hold it there for a while before the actual workout appears. By this time it was already an extra minute of standing still before stopping my workout.

I came home and changed some of the settings. I changed the sensitivity and stopped the virtual runner as it was automatically selected as a default and kept on switching to it while I was running. My next run I eperienced the same problems.

The screen is much smaller than the 305 and makes it a bit harder to read.

It is also just splash proof and not water proof. So again no swimming.

The above is a reflection of my experiences with this watch. I hope that some of this information can help you in deciding which one to purchase. My 405 stay at home as I am just using my 305 and will most probably continue to use it until a waterproof garmin watch comes to the market. If there are any ideas of what I should do with it, please give me ideas. There you have it. If you look at all the pros and cons and prices of the different watches, I still think the 405 is a better buy. For more information go to http://www.garmin.com/. Here are some average prices in US dollars for both the watches:

Forerunner 305 from 210 to 230 dollars

Forerunner 405 from 300 to 320 dollars

Looking at the price difference, it is quite a big difference. For any questions please feel free to comment and I will answer as detailed as possible. Enjoy your new Garmin as it will be the start of a great relationship with you and your wrist watch.

KEEP FIT and GOD BLESS.