Garmin Forerunner: helpful hints for noobs (Read 1478 times)

For those of you who are seasoned Garmin users, what useful advice and tips can you pass along? The basic use of the unit seems straightforward enough, but are there little features and quirks you have discovered as you became more familiar with the device? k --who is still sicker than a dog and can only dream of being able to breathe well enough to use her Garmie.

Something strange I have noticed is that the distance reading on the watch is slightly shorter than what I see when I upload to motionbased.com for example. I thought I read somebody else posting here about this, saying that if Garmie only polls every 3 seconds (I'm making that number up, don't remember), it may miss slight variances off the path. When all is said and done though, it's proved to be very accurate for me.

A friend of mine says that motionbased will correct your path so that if it cuts a corner it will leave you along the road or trail as you would normally go.

1. I personally like Auto-Lap every mile, but mbk makes a good point in not getting chained to it. Also, the Lap Pace during the first tenth or two of a mile split will be a little skewed (positional error is more significant when you've only traveled a short distance), but should be pretty accurate after that. It is nice to look at your mile splits after the fact; just don't get too obsessed during the run. If you don't like Auto-Lap, but still like knowing your mile marks, go to Training-->Training Options-->Alerts-->Time/Dist Alert. You can set it to beep every mile, but it won't start a new lap. 2. Under Settings-->General-->Data Fields, you can configure what the screen shows. As a runner, you'll have Main 1, Main 2, and Running to work with. (i.e during a run, you can use the up/down arrows to toggle between theses 3 screens). Put whatever you think you need there, but keep it simple -- it'll quickly become a distraction if you're looking at 4 fields trying to figure out what the hell they're saying. FWIW, my Main 1 has Time, Lap Pace, and (Total) Distance. Most of the time, a glance at this is all I need. 3. Settings-->System-->Tones : set to Message only. No one likes something that beeps every time you push a button. 4. Get to know your options under Workouts: a) Quick: run for a specific Dist &Time, Time & Pace, or Dist & Pace. If the Virtual Partner is turned on (not as hot as it sounds -- go to Training-->Training Options-->Virtual Partner), one of the screens you can toggle through will show how many feet/meters you are ahead of or behind the goal pace. Don't get too obsessive with it, but helpful if you have a workout with a very specific pace goal. b) Interval: Great for repeats. If you're doing 3x1 mile reps with 4 minutes rest, this is the place to go. The intervals and rests can be either distance or time-based. However, all reps are the same. If you want to do a workout with intervals of various time/distance (like this one), use Advanced Workout. c) Advanced Workouts: You can program just about any combination of time, distance, repeat you can come up with. Very difficult to program on the watch -- best done using the software (Garmin Training Center). MTA: Get well soon.

A friend of mine says that motionbased will correct your path so that if it cuts a corner it will leave you along the road or trail as you would normally go.

Motionbased does not correct for cutting corners--I can see on the map where it cuts corners all the time. Sport Trax (sp?) lets you do this manually but I've never used it. I think the reason MB sometimes shows a different distace from the watch itself is that if the watch loses signal (like if you go under a bridge or near a tall building) it will not record the distance you traveled while it lost signal, but motionbased will connect the dots in a straight line. I think. Anyhow in my experience the watch always says a slightly different distance than MB, both of which are slightly different from reality. Also--and here's why I DON'T recommend auto-pause--if the thing does lose signal for a few seconds and you have auto pause on, it will stop the timer. It will somehow add the time back in when you upload to MB (it does this whether you have autopause on or off which is anoying) but it won't be nearly as accurate, so if I'm running a route I don't know the distance of, I take the TIME off the watch and I take the DISTANCE from MotionBased.

Hmmm...perhaps I will disable the auto-pause, then. Too bad that feature doesn't work better...in theory it would be a very useful thing. k

ATTENTION HORSKACK, BABARINO, WASHINGTON, AND EPSTEIN (i.e. SWEATHOGS) The sound holes for the speakers are located on the underside of the watch. The problem is that they're right up against your wrist. I had my Garmin slowly go mute this summer, and I think it was due to a combination of sweat and sunscreen getting in the holes. (Got a fast warranty repair, BTW). I recommend putting scotch tape over these holes. You'll still be able to hear it just fine, and you won't drown your speakers in perspiration.

That may be, perhaps, the best tip I have seen, yet. Ask Eryn about my sweathogness. The first time she ran with me I think she was truly impressed and disgusted by my volume of sweat. Heh, I've lost 3-4#s on a single hour-long run in the Summer. I definitely don't glisten, I SWEAT! k

Hmmm...perhaps I will disable the auto-pause, then. Too bad that feature doesn't work better...in theory it would be a very useful thing. k

And if you forget that auto pause is enabled, and you are trying to beat a certain time in a race, you'll end up mixed up because of the time spent in the restroom, or tying your shoe, etc.! This happened in one of my marathons. I borrowed my husbands Garmin since he had the newer 205, but I didn't know the 2 minutes in the port-a-potty at mile 16 were auto-paused. So while I though I barely made it in under the 5:30 mark, I actually came out slightly longer than 5:30!

Hmmm...perhaps I will disable the auto-pause, then. Too bad that feature doesn't work better...in theory it would be a very useful thing. k

I hate auto-pause. I often have the opposite problem of what was described above. I'm running at a fairly even pace. All of the sudden, it auto-pauses, then a few seconds later it un-pauses. It may do this several times. I think this feature works better in the 30x series; I have a 205. But long story short, I hate auto-pause. I also hate that when you stop and start your watch it counts as a lap/split. So if you do come to an intersection at 0.42 miles and stop your watch, you won't be able to get a mile split at 1.0 because the split restarts when the watch restarts. I wish Garmin would fix that. Have fun.