Talk me out of buying a Garmin Forerunner 205 (Read 1617 times)

Water and sweat resistant. Canoeing is fine.

Strap it to the canoe or it will leave a big tan mark on your arm. I've used the 301 for almost 2-yrs now and love it. I use mine pretty much the same way as trent as far as using lap pace, average total pace and shutting off the autolap during races and track workouts. I do find the 301 signal reception weak while on a trial, but most of my runs are done on subdivision roads. So, it works perfect. I've had the occasion to run with two "au naturel" runners, on their courses, and they both found that they weren't running as far as they thought they were based on their estimated pace. However, there might be days that they short change themselves. For me I enjoy logging my runs based on distance vs pace. So, my Garmin is perfect for this. It is accurate and quick and easy to strap on and go. However, If I had to do it over again, I would have saved the extra $75 and ditched the HRM.

I have to say I'm in love with dh's 305. As much as my runs have sucked this week due to the gusty winds and cold, I was able to cut out some of the parts where I'd have to face 25 mph winds head on and run where ever the hell I wanted knowing that I would still get in the milage I wanted for the day. I'm not sure I"m going to give it back to him either

Get out and run. Ninny. What better way to test the reception than under such conditions. Wait. I take that back. Go out and run in another couple hours. It will be really nasty then.

Get out and run. Ninny. What better way to test the reception than under such conditions. Wait. I take that back. Go out and run in another couple hours. It will be really nasty then.

I WILL get out today. The weather situation is about as bad as it gets for a runner. Things look tantalizingly okay--there aren't three feet of snow or anything--but the roads and sidewalks are extremely bitched up. There is an icy, rutted layer on everything. This is the recipe: hard snow for several hours, turning to freezing rain, then rain, then freezing rain, then snow again, then lots of very cold air and wind to freeze the whole mess solid. Beauty. Walking over here this morning from my car was treacherous, so running should be fun. But I have to get out even if only for a few miles. I would have been better off going this morning--the roads in Reading are just snowpacked with a frozen granular layer that provides okay traction, it just would have been slow. But I figured running in the dark on that would have been a bit tough, especially with all the plows still out doing their thing. Oh well. We'll give it a try at lunchtime. Probably head downtown where the sidewalks should be in better shape.

Look again. The summary info on that run is : Total Time (h:m:s) - 0:45:23 - 8:10 pace Moving Time (h:m:s) - 0:44:52 - 8:05 pace Distance (mi ) 5.55 That looks more in line with what you describe. The 7.5 is miles per hour, not minutes per mile. Despite poor signal (also on the summary page) your GPS map looks a lot like your Runningahead map. I suspect that the poor signal was due to the combination of weather conditions, being in a city and the fact that you had not used the device before (so it was still getting to know your location).

Okay I took it out this morning in the suburbs and the thing performed great. It never lost signal and the mile markers were exactly where they should have been. GPS said 8.36 miles in 1:03:49 and I just mapped in RA and it came out to 8.4 miles: http://www.runningahead.com/maps/c28fe70db79f42a3968d1d16e1e8b40a I had a problem uploading it to MB though. I think maybe I needed to reset the GPS before using it this morning? It read all zeros so I thought it was reset, but I guess not. It put the starting point at my office, then drew a straight line to where I actually started the run. If you look at the laps they are basically correct except for the little one at the start: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2086609 I don't see a way to edit the entry in MB so I guess this one is screwed up for good. Live and learn. In hindsight I think I could have deleted that first lap from the GPS itself and then uploaded it, unfortunately in trying to trouble shoot it I accidentally deleted all workouts. So its gone. All in all I'm feeling really good about my purchase now.

I had a problem uploading it to MB though. ... I don't see a way to edit the entry in MB so I guess this one is screwed up for good.

What was the problem, I did not understand. No, MB does not allow you to edit. You can download the course and edit the XML manually, then reupload. But I rarely do this. I hope that Eric's GPS tool will let us edit

I like SportTracks much more than MB. It's free, quite easy to navigate, you can edit your run too.

SportTracks is not straightforward to download and install, and is not avaliable for Macs -

SportTracks requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 and will not behave properly if it is not installed. If you are unsure whether you have .NET 1.1 follow the instructions on the following page:

".NET Framework 1.1" ?!? WTH?