I can has Garmin... (Read 1384 times)

I know I wrote that I didn't need a Garmin and that I wouldn't buy one. But then I bought one any way. I didn't get shit for my birthday last Saturday so this was my gift to me. I admit I am a geek and I love to analyze data. Ok, I am out of the Geek closet. I came running out in fact. Although there were strong hints of geekness if you were following Globule and my Star Wars postings the last couple of days. I was debating waiting for the 405 to come out because it looked smaller. I initially thought the 305 was this huge thing that resembled a laptop for the wrist and that it probably had XP on it. That's what I thought. With the price point of the 405 with HRM being around $350, the 305 looked like a smart buy. I got it from Amazon for $220 and paid $35 for the foot pod too. All together with next day shipping it was $270. Got it at work yesterday and spent last night setting up the unit and reading the manual. I am amazed at how much data is available and how easy it is to set the unit up to display what you need or want to see. Sort of like a Heads-Up Display on a figher jet...at least that's how I think of it. I have very small, narrow, bony wrists for a man. I can reach my index and ring fingers around it and touch my thumb so I was worried the 305 would look HUGE on my wrist. Not so. It's really not as big and ugly as I thought it was going to be. I was also worried that it was going to be heavy. It's not. I didn't really notice that it was much heavier than my Timex Ironman HRM. This evening was my first run with my new Garmin which I will from here out call my Gremlin. I went to a local forest preserve that has the mile markers clearly marked so I could check the accuracy of the unit. I have it set to auto-lap at 1 mile increments and without fail the Gremlin's mile marked within 25 feet of where it's marked on the path. Not bad. The weather in Chicago today was gorgeous. Sunny and 73 but crazy windy. I planned to run easy because my legs have not felt great all week. I also have a 10k Saturday morning. That was the plan but the plan got ditched. Ran the 7.7 mile loop in 49:32 (6:25 pace) at an average HR of 177. Then I came home and couldn't wait to sync and upload all the information from the Gremlin so I could look at my run. On Trent's suggestion I activated the Motionbased Gravity Service and then uploaded to the Motionbased website. See data here: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5417310 Then Trent had to tell me how to extract the following chart which has pace, HR, and distance charted. The two areas where my HR dipped was when I stopped to tie my shoe and it's pretty cool that you can see that in the chart. I am very impressed with this Gremlin. While it's true I don't need it. I do like it.

When you get really good, you are gonna figure out how to resize the images from MB before you download em. GEEK.

Big Red says 'hi' to Gremlin. I love my Garmin. I'd sooner go without my iPod than my Big Red. I don't even look at it all that much, but it's nice knowing that it's there taking note of what I do and giving me a little "cheer" at each milepoint.

Fixed. Thanks T!!!

Gremlin ... I likey. I still haven't done the MB thing. I tried once. Had problems. Will try sometime next week. I hit stop when I have to retie shoes/relieve myself/pick up found $$, etc.

I have the auto-pause on but it takes a couple of seconds to stop.

A lot of Garmin peeps have found Auto-Pause to be more headache than its worth. Auto-Lap every mile is a must, however.

I think I will probably just do a manual stop, start where necessary. And yes, the auto lap per mile is the shiznit. I was running in the dark this morning and when I hit a mile, not only did Gremlin beep but he also lit up so I could see the split. Good stuff there my friend, good stuff.

Also Globule, if you look at my chart up there that I snagged from motionbased, is there a way to change the pace increments on the left to set it for a range of say 5:00-9:00 or something like that?

Dude, I wish. I hate the pace graphs because of that very thing. They're not adjustable. My recommendations: 1) Use the speed graph, whose scale is not so affected by stops (stopping goes to zero on speed, but infinity on pace) 2) Get a running start. Unless it's a race, I run for about 15~20 yards before I hit start. This helps reduce the number of data points taken at or near rest, which helps you avoid jankifying the pace graph. Obviously, it's hard to do this every time you have to start/stop, but I try to do it at the beginning of the run, which is often the worst culprit.

Maybe my question was not clear enough...if you look at the left of the graph the pace range goes from 0:00 to 30:00 pace. Because the range is so great the actual pace is condensed and you just get a bunch of up and down lines like an EKG, but it's not clear what the pace actually is. Make sense? So my thinking was that if you reduce the range it would serve to unclutter the pace line making it easier to figure out where the pace really was. Geeky as hell I know.

No, I knew exactly what you were saying. MB does not allow you to change the scale. But if you can avoid those spots where the pace is really high (i.e. at a dead stop or nearly so), the graph will be condensed to fit the data. (Though not nearly as tightly as we would like). That's why I use a running start to avoid that "pace spike" at the beginning of the run.