Getting new stuff makes me happy, especially when said new stuff is waiting on my front porch when I get home from work. And new stuff is from Amazon - that ridiculous little grin on the side of the box always brightens a gloomy day.
Today's package was particularly awesome because it contained this:
A brand spanking new Garmin Forerunner 305! Although I felt I was channeling my inner nerd, a la this guy below, I couldn't help but be excited by the impending ability to have running stats on my wrist and at the mere touch of a button.
Poindexter is the man.
The watch is a bulky bit of gear, but the neat feed of data it provides makes wearing the awkward piece a worthy sacrifice.
She's large and in charge!
I took it for a test drive this afternoon in the *ahem* Fifty-One Degree Weather that graced us today. The training schedule I'm following for Kalamazoo required that today's run be an easy five miler at a pace of 10:21. Nothing too crazy, no complicated speed work. The perfect day to give it a go.
After I read through the manual and let the Garmin charge for an hour or so, I was ready to go. Despite the intimidation factor posed by the manual (there are so many options and features offered by the 305), I found the basic operation to be quite simple. It's more or less set to use straight out of the box if one just wants to push "start" and receive total distance, current and average pace, and total time run data as they go. The only modification I made aside from setting up a general user profile with weight, birthday, and gender was to set the auto lap feature to one mile so that I could get splits for each mile ran.
The run went well, and I loved being able to keep an eye on pace and distance. Plus, the watch will beep at each split, and the pace for that mile was briefly displayed - a reminder to either pick up the pace or take it down a notch.
When I returned home and took care of my muddy shoes (thanks, giant puddles of melting glaciers), I connected the Garmin to my computer via a provided USB cable to peruse my data. A user can either view data in the Training Center software that comes with the watch and/or with the Garmin Connect program online. I prefer the Connect program to the desktop Training Center software; Connect's interface is much more user friendly, despite the con of having to separately upload data to the site.
Once I uploaded the run, though, my inner nerd came spilling out when I saw all of the pretty data. Here's a quick smattering:
Splits by mile and total time run
A line chart showing dips in pace throughout the run
In addition to these handy little features, I could also view maps showing elevation and route, both of which were pretty cool. The route outlined the roads that I ran on and even detailed when I didn't run in an exact straight line (the result of some of my puddle jumping).
All in all, a very worthwhile purchase. I hope it will help to keep me in line as we attack our first long run - 10 miles - this weekend.
And just in case this post isn't nerdy enough...