About a week and a half ago, I guess a week or so before the Carmel Half Marathon, I purchased a Garmin Forerunner 305. I have been using my iPhone and RunKeeper for about two years now and have just gotten tired of running with the big iPhone on my arm. So much so that I just wasn’t taking it with me on my runs and just wearing my Timex Ironman watch. I don’t listen to music, at least not very frequently, so I won’t miss not having a digital music player. I have a small MP3 player / FM radio, the Sansa Clip, so I can take that if I really want something.
Being a bit of a gadget fan, I shopped around for a GPS watch. It seemed like Garmin was the clear leader, so I just had to decide what one I wanted. It got down to [amazon_link id=”B0045ZPVB4″ target=”_blank” locale=”US” container=”” container_class=”” ]Garmin Forerunner 210[/amazon_link] or the [amazon_link id=”B000CSWCQA” target=”_blank” locale=”US” container=”” container_class=”” ]Garmin Forerunner 305[/amazon_link]. I read a review of the 210 and 305 and was pretty undecided. Both would suit my needs, since I no longer have a bicycle. I liked the form factor of the 210, I thought. But as I got to thinking about it, I figured the bigger screen on the 305 would be a little easier to read as I was running.
Then, I looked at a comparison of the features of the two watches, side by side, and was sold on the 305. It seemed like it had more features and cost a little more than half as much as the 210. How could I resist?
So, by now I’ve done several runs with it and I think I like it! It was dead simple to setup and pair with the included heart rate strap. It does seem big when it’s off my wrist, but feels just fine when I put it on and reading the numbers really is easy as I’m running. I’ve never used a heart rate monitor when running before; I’m thinking that I’m going to learn a whole lot more as I start my marathon training up in about 2 weeks. I’ll make a little longer post on what I learn as I get a little deeper in to the training. Right now I’m still kinda in the honeymoon phase with the watch.
I’ve also signed up for Dailymile – my username is PerryW2, so feel free to friend me there. That makes like 4 places that I’m uploading my runs to now!