Garmin Forerunner question

The 205 has been working for me and my friend for a few years now. Anything above that has a lot of bells and whistles but also costs a lot more.

For price/performance, I'd go with the 305. Check out refurbs on ebay, they have gotten cheap. Some of the criticism of the 405 is fair. Most significantly, the watch DOES freak out when it gets wets, light rain, etc. As far as the touch bezel, it is tough to work with but when properly setup there is almost no reason to use it while running. I also have the 205, and accept the quirks of the 405 over the 205 just based on the size/weight difference.

FR60 - it doesn't have a GPS which is perfect for running in places where catching and maintaining a satellite signal is difficult (i.e. mountains, heavily wooded areas, midtown manhattan). It comes with a footpod that you calibrate yourself, and then you're good to go (it will tell you your mileage and paces, etc.). Just take it out to the track and run a few laps to calibrate it.

FR60. I got one 3 months ago. No GPS, instead it uses a calibrated footpod. Mine is within 1%, same as GPS, but works on treadmills/tunnels/around tall buildings. I paid GBP 120 ($190ish) for watch, heart strap and foot pod.

You can set it to control intervals by time or distance, so if you want to do 6x1000 during a run, it does it.

Only one glitch - it went very weird in sub-zero temperatures and told me I was doing 3:30 miles on the way to work. Thawed out and went back to normal.

Thanks for the replies so far!

Zeb

Get the 305 at WalMart for $148, you won't be sorry..

I was an anti Garmin guy, but now I love it.

Get the 405. It's the best deal among the forerunners right now. The older 205 and 305 are big heavy honkers. The newer models 410 and 210 may be improvements but they are still new and over-priced. You can pick up a 405 with heart rare monitor (yeah I know you said you don't need it) for about $200. If you don't want to use the heart rate feature then just don't use it, but at least you have the option. I have been using the 405 for about a year now and the bezel has not been much of a problem. I rarely use the controls or even look at my watch while I'm running. Once the initial excitement of always looking at your pace and stuff wears off, you'll find that the watch is mostly useful to record your runs, and maybe beep at you when you run harder than you planned.

I mistakenly typed 305 above, recommendation is for the 405, about the same reasons as the above poster. The 205/305 really is a brick.

Someone mentioned calibrating the garmin. How do you do this? i ran on the inside lane of a track yesterday and got readings between 1.04 and 1.07 for a mile. It's obviously inaccurate.

How do the Garmins do in cold weather conditions? Has anyone tried them in -10 to -20 (Celsius)?

whereami wrote:

Someone mentioned calibrating the garmin. How do you do this? i ran on the inside lane of a track yesterday and got readings between 1.04 and 1.07 for a mile. It's obviously inaccurate.

You might be kidding but I'm not sure.

they sometimes work on tracks and sometimes don't.

Here's a thread about it:

not kidding but thanks for the link. i missed that. i know it seems weird to use the garmin on the track but i like having the mean HR and paces downloaded. it's like my running log.

brrr wrote:

How do the Garmins do in cold weather conditions? Has anyone tried them in -10 to -20 (Celsius)?

I used mine at -6c last week and it worked fine. the bezel was even less sensitive though (405cx) and the screens changed much slower.

brrr wrote:

How do the Garmins do in cold weather conditions? Has anyone tried them in -10 to -20 (Celsius)?

They work normally, except the screens are a bit slower to change. I have used mine down to -30C with no issues, other than the slow refresh on the screens.

eurodonkey wrote:

FR60. I got one 3 months ago. No GPS, instead it uses a calibrated footpod. Mine is within 1%, same as GPS, but works on treadmills/tunnels/around tall buildings. I paid GBP 120 ($190ish) for watch, heart strap and foot pod.

You can set it to control intervals by time or distance, so if you want to do 6x1000 during a run, it does it.

Only one glitch - it went very weird in sub-zero temperatures and told me I was doing 3:30 miles on the way to work. Thawed out and went back to normal.

I agree. Dollar for dollar, this is the best watch Garmin has ever made.

The sleek Garmin Forerunner 110 without heartrate strap (just the gps watch) is a good deal. Retails for 199 but can get at runningwarehouse for 160 with discount...

1. The Garmin 305 is $116 @ Amazon today.

2. Anyone who tries to use the Garmin GPS function on a track is a doofus. The GPS works well on straight roads and courses with infrequent turns. Running around in circles means you should just use it as a stopwatch and hit the lap button manually. It will still allow you to record HR.

3. I find the 305 lap & start/stop buttons tend to stick in cold weather (like today when it was 13F).

I think I've put probably over 8,000 miles on my 305.

A smaller version would be nice, but for $116 you can't beat it (It might even be $110...)

eurodonkey wrote:

FR60. I got one 3 months ago. No GPS, instead it uses a calibrated footpod. Mine is within 1%, same as GPS, but works on treadmills/tunnels/around tall buildings. I paid GBP 120 ($190ish) for watch, heart strap and foot pod.

You can set it to control intervals by time or distance, so if you want to do 6x1000 during a run, it does it.

Only one glitch - it went very weird in sub-zero temperatures and told me I was doing 3:30 miles on the way to work. Thawed out and went back to normal.

Is it possible to do interval type workouts on the road on the FR60? I read somewhere that the footpods aren't that reliable for short interval type distances. Can you set it up to where you can get 1/4 mile splits?

seriously.. wrote:

Is it possible to do interval type workouts on the road on the FR60? I read somewhere that the footpods aren't that reliable for short interval type distances. Can you set it up to where you can get 1/4 mile splits?

Yes you can. As a matter of fact, the foot pod gives you more accurate instantaneous pace than any gps watch because of the inherent inaccuracies in gps signals. it only loses accuracy over very large distances (around 20 miles or more)