New! Garmin Forerunner 620/220 (Read 831 times)

Has anyone else noticed that the VO2 max predictor is a little..um...optimistic?  On my first run it gave me a 44 which calculates race times close to my current race PRs.  Seemed reasonable at first.  But then the next day it upped it to 46.  And then tonight it upped it to 50!  I would love it if that was true, but if so that means I am racing _way_ below my current potential.

Also, I figured out a missing feature: macros.  You should be able to program a button to change multiple settings with one click.  For example, tonight I was experimenting with the high heart rate alert, but once I got close to the end of the run, drift caused it to go higher than I expected so the alarm kept going off.  I had to go deep into several menus to find the alert and up the value while I was running.  Not ideal.  With a macro, you could pre-program it so with one touch it ups your range.  Macros would allow you do do all kinds of cool things like that, that are currently just too many clicks to perform during a run.

Finally, the Recovery Adviser always tells me I need 72 hours of recovery after a run.  Even after an easy run.  I'm probably running them too fast (working on that), but still it seems a bit aggressive too.  I was expecting like 12-24 hours after running a short easy run.

 

That would be sweet! Something like "MILE F***ING TEN" would be even better.

Voiced by Samuel Jackson.

 

Voiced by Samuel Jackson.

He's already the voice in my head in races:

"I said, SLOW DOWN, M-Fer!"

I think the problem was that Mendel is a fucking tool

So I probably shouldn't expect an Xmass card from you?

Bummer.

The RunningAhead VO2Max calulator will do a much better job of estimating VO2max than the watch, as long as you enter a quality race time (i.e. a recent one that was a true all-out effort)/

After a few runs with my 620 I am getting over my initial bad impression. I finally got the WiFi transfer working which was nice. Previously I would come home from a run, "wake up" the 620 (since it had timed out of training mode) and hit the Connect button. Yesterday I gave it a minute or two between waking up the 620 and hitting Connect. I think it needs time to start up before doing the WiFi transfer. But then I realized the WiFi transfer doesn't transfer any file to my PC so I need to connect it via USB anyway to get my workouts into Endomondo.

I am a little concerned with battery life. My 310XT could go through a week or two of training without a recharge. Sunday I ran 1:16 total time with the 620 and it used up 20% of the battery. I guess that's the tradeoff for a smaller, lighter package.

I've had my 620 for a couple of weeks now.  I like it.  A few comments/opinions:

• Satellite lock in is awesome.  It takes seconds. 
• The new data is cool though I don't know what to do with it.  So my avg vertical oscillation was 7.1?  Uhhhhh....okay.
• Agree that VO2 max seems off.  It had me at 58 on my medium effort run this morning.  I think my all out 5K effort is around 50.  still cool to have the data though.
• The race predictor is kind of funny.  After my run this morning, it predicts a 17:22 5K.  Current PR is 20:42 from three weeks ago.
• The accelerometer does not work well at all for treadmill paces.  It was slow by almost a minute per mile.  I've since bought a foot pod and the paces are back to normal now.
•  The connection via wifi is really cool.  It seems I need to export the file from Garmin Connect in order to upload to RA and Strava though.  I liked the Ant connection my 610 had.
• The HRM strap works well.  I was getting crazy spikes with my old strap but that problem seems to be gone now.
• The audio alerts are LOUD.    I had to turn that off for gym treadmill runs.  I prefer the vibration alerts anyway.
• It'd be nice if the 620 had a bike mode like the 610 had.

coolstorybro?