Garmin forerunner

clouter

Hi folks, first time poster here.
Decided to run the Belfast marathon in May (my first!!!):o

Was looking to buy the Garmin forerunner 205 or 305. Just wondering is their any store in south east that stocks them or would i have to get it online. Any help much appreciated.

hunnymonster

You'll almost certainly get better value online. I would definitely go with the 305 rather than the 205 if your budget allows. Good luck with Belfast training.

Running Bing

Personally I dont buy anything other than DVD's, CD's or Books online because I prefer the peace of mind of buying in a bricks and mortar shop and the lack of hassle should anything go wrong.....Having said that I bought a 405 before christmas from Elara http://www.elara.ie/products/results.asp?srch=forerunner&anyallexact=all&manu=&productcode=&mancode=&searchBtn=Search

Its the best of both worlds really.....much much cheaper than anything I have seen in the shops and you can pick it up yourself from their place just of the Naas road. Cant recommend it highly enough.

holdfast

I have a 305 forerunner for sale only used twice.

clouter

holdfast- how much are u looking for? what part of the country are u in?

rigal

I bought the 305 online last week. Doing my first marathon in May as well (Edinburgh). I think it's great so far and it has a heart rate monitor also which gives it a bit more of a novelty factor for me.

Bought it from wiggle.co.uk - see link

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/Run/8/Garmin_Forerunner_305_GPS/5360022115/

€160 was good value I thought. There are usually discount codes posted up on the cycling forum which will get you c.€5-€10 off the list price.

Best of luck....

911sc

Check Amazon. Garmin GPS competitively priced.

holdfast

I am in kerry and i will sell for 100 euro or less if you can find online for less than that.

shels4ever

just ordered a 305 myself...

comer_97

I got a forerunner 405 from Elara a few weeks ago and I love it.

Good Service and delivery time from Elara too.

misty floyd

The 305 is massive. About the size of a box of 20 smokes!! Anyway, great peice of kit. I find it very satisfying coming in after a run to add my recent run to all of my others. From reading up about these forerunners, it seems the 405 has pretty much the same features only smaller. The 405 also eats more battery. I didn't think it was worth the extra €50 - €60 for a smaller watch. I don't really care how it looks.

shels4ever

misty floyd wrote: »

The 305 is massive. About the size of a box of 20 smokes!! Anyway, great peice of kit. I find it very satisfying coming in after a run to add my recent run to all of my others. From reading up about these forerunners, it seems the 405 has pretty much the same features only smaller. The 405 also eats more battery. I didn't think it was worth the extra €50 - €60 for a smaller watch. I don't really care how it looks.

Ah i know i've seen the 305's is grand for what i need it for, not planning on wearing them out or anything. But saying that the 405 looks nice. Can't wait to try out the new toy when it comes.

shels4ever

Well picked up a 305 last night from Elara handy they are located online a 5 mins drive form where I live.

So will take my new toy out for a run now.

kennyb3

Could anyone tell me re the link below will i need the foot pod to get

- Speed and Distance lets you track your running speed, distance and calories

???

just seems to have the heart monitor, clearly the footpod version is more expensive. most of the sites just give a standard description. really want the above features.


http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/catalog.cgi?view_product=1&id=25433

Thanks in advance

belcarra

Hi all,

By any chance has anyone got a Garmin 305 available for sale?

I want to buy one and will probably buy online in a few days time but if anyone had one that they're looking to get rid of then I'd be interested.

drquirky

Hey all-

Just a quick question- I'll be up in Belfast the next few days and was hoping to pick up a Garmin....any recs on model? Thanks

robinph

The 405 is the dogs dangly bits.

I got one for £195 from Amazon recently but not sure what you'd be looking at in a real shop.

Peckham

If there's a notably price differential between the 305 and the 405, then I'd recommend the 305. Very little difference in features between the two.

McConkey

My 305 arrived today-the day after I got hurt running a race So won't get to try it out just yet but since I had a thread on it a few weeks ago and a few people were interested in hearing about it, I am going to post a thread about it here when I get to play with it.

Initial thoughts: It is a big watch but then I have a slim wrist (I'm a girl), but it fits fine, I was afraid the stap would be too large.

It is in the middle of its first three hour charge now so I can't mess with it. If you look back a couple of weeks on the threads you might find some info there, Woddle gave me a few links for different sites containing information and indeed critique of the various Garmin watches.

kennyb3

I have a forerunner 50 with footpod, obviously no GPS like the others mentioned above. but does the business for me - distance run, splits, total time, speed in kmph or mph while running.

got one for €110

HardyEustace

I used my sister's 305 at the weekend and loved it. Lovely screen, really easy to use. Was worried about it being big and heavy as I'm fairly small, wrist circumference of about six inches but was very comfortable for an 18m run.

Thus was wandered into amazon to see how much the 405 was. The reviews for the 405 were fairly shocking. I was expecting to see rave reviews but it was certainly not the case. Shame as the 405 is a lovely looking watch.

TheRoadRunner

HardyEustace wrote: »

Thus was wandered into amazon to see how much the 405 was. The reviews for the 405 were fairly shocking. I was expecting to see rave reviews but it was certainly not the case. Shame as the 405 is a lovely looking watch.

I've read some of those reviews also but still went ahead and bought the 405. I absolutely love it, no complaints at all. I've never had another GPS watch to compare it against though

Redjeep!

I've got a 305 and love it more than is healthy.

copacetic

I have both, the 405 is great, but so was the 305. Main difference is the size and the wireless data transfer, the 405 gets the sats quicker too. The 405 is wearable day to day if you like also.

Not sure why the 405 would have bad reviews, imo it is worth the extra for the more 'watch' like size and the fact you can put it in watch mode. If you don't care about this the 305 would be fine and can probably pick up second hand one for next to nothing.

Running Bing

Got the 405 at Christmas and its one of the best presents I ever got.

My only criticism is when its raining the touch bezel is totally unusable. Two reasons this doesn't bother me:

1) when I use it I generally lock the bezel anyway. The screen shows up to three fields of info (e.g Heart rate, pace and distance) which I find is enough

2) I am generally lucky in avoiding the rain as since Christmas running 5-6 days per week I have only really encountered the problem once (it was annoying when it happened though:D)

Aside from that I find it really excellent. Very usable, incredibly helpful when doing stuff like intervals or tempo runs where pacing is important, you get ages out of the battery (which I was surprised with) and the wireless transfer is very convenient. Great product imo.

BeepBeep67

Great timing for this post, I'm over in the US in 2 weeks and was thinking about picking one up.
I have the Timex Ironman Bodylink Speed and Distance, but because the GPS receiver needs to worn on the arm I tend to only use for new routes.
So looks like I might try and pick up a 405

TheRoadRunner

as was said above the bezel can be a pain in the hole when it is raining but I always lock mine so it's never an issue. I also have an unhealthy love affair with my 405.

Krusty_Clown

Babybing wrote: »

<Lots of really good feeback>

Everything that Babybing said, +1. I too have an unnatural love affair with my 405. More than any gadget deserves.
A few friends have had problems with theirs, but when they work right, they really work great. If you have problems, you need to upgrade the firmware, and if they still persist, send it back.

Daithi BC

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Everything that Babybing said, +1. I too have an unnatural love affair with my 405. More than any gadget deserves.
A few friends have had problems with theirs, but when they work right, they really work great. If you have problems, you need to upgrade the firmware, and if they still persist, send it back.

Everything that Krusty said +1. I'd be lost on my long run without my 405. The main reason I got it instead of the 305 was for the heart rate monitor, but the GPS on it is also much better than the 105 I was using before that.

Very annoying in the rain though....

Sosa

kennyb3 wrote: »

I have a forerunner 50 with footpod, obviously no GPS like the others mentioned above. but does the business for me - distance run, splits, total time, speed in kmph or mph while running.

got one for €110

I have the same model and its the job.
I got mine for €70 on ebay.

Cualaman

Was up north on Saturday and picked one up in Halfords in Craigavon for 169.99 and i am delighted with it so far. Check the Halfords website, you can reserve on line and pay when you pick up in the store.
Good luck
Cualaman

Clum

Can Garmin 405 users post tips on how to get the best out of the watch?

I have one and wear it on most runs but just use it to monitor speed and distance, and the odd time my heart rate. However, I don't think I exploit all the watch has to offer.

Does anybody use the coaching functionalities and create training schedules, or use the virtual partner, etc? What else should I be doing, and how?

Thanks.

HardyEustace

Cualaman wrote: »

Was up north on Saturday and picked one up in Halfords in Craigavon for 169.99 and i am delighted with it so far. Check the Halfords website, you can reserve on line and pay when you pick up in the store.
Good luck
Cualaman

What make/model did you pick up for 169.99?

Krusty_Clown

Yep, I used the Workouts for my recent 10k training, and it worked out great. I'm not using this functionality at the moment, as I'm marathon training, and the sessions tend to be '10 miles aerobic with 10 x 100m strides', which you really don't need the advanced training functionality for. So these days, I have: distance, heart rate and pace per lap showing on the screen. Occasionally I will also use the training partner and set a target pace for my run.

I have uploaded courses to the watch, but only used them once as I like to vary my route as often as I can.

When I was doing the 10k training, I created a workout for each different type of activity, e.g.:

10 Minutes Warm-up
12x400m Repetitions @5K pace, with 200m rest between repetitions
10 minutes Warm-down

Then I could drag and drop the various workouts in to calendar to schedule the workouts for the 5 or 6 weeks up to the race. The workouts are also stored on the watch, so alternatively you can just select one on a specific day that suits.

Things like intervals are very easy to manage on the watch, and great if you don't have a track available to you. Some of the other programs are great if you don't have good discipline, e.g. warm-ups and warm-downs.

hunnymonster

I currently have a 305 which I love. I'd ditch her for the 405 in an instant though if they could only extend the lifetime of the 405's battery.

Cualaman

HardyEustace wrote: »

What make/model did you pick up for 169.99?

The Garmin forerunner 305

Cualaman

plodder

I like the 405 but I've had a couple of problems with it. I really don't like that "Ant stick" thing which you have to plugin to your PC. I left my laptop on the floor and ended up stepping on the stick, and bending it. It's not quite broken, but I don't think it will last very long. They should have designed it to use bluetooth, which most laptops have builtin.

I must have a very fat wrist as well, because it just about fits me, on the last notch of the strap. I imagine it's designed to fit most people, but it might be wise to try one on before buying it, if anyone is thinking of it.

ManFromAtlantis

i just bought a new 405 online with ant stick and heart rate yoke. cant wait to get in teh post hopefully this week"! including postage i spent 245 EURO which seems good to me.
let us know what u think of it when u get.

robinph

I've not got round to trying out any of the other training features yet, but I did set the Virtual Partner up with the pace that I wanted for the Cupids Dash 10k at the weekend. It worked very well for what I wanted, expect for me making a mistake in my calculations and not quite setting it how I had intended, but did mean I'd got a fair guesstimate of if I was actually going the speed that I had wanted for the route.

plodder wrote: »

I like the 405 but I've had a couple of problems with it. I really don't like that "Ant stick" thing which you have to plugin to your PC. I left my laptop on the floor and ended up stepping on the stick, and bending it. It's not quite broken, but I don't think it will last very long. They should have designed it to use bluetooth, which most laptops have builtin.

I must have a very fat wrist as well, because it just about fits me, on the last notch of the strap. I imagine it's designed to fit most people, but it might be wise to try one on before buying it, if anyone is thinking of it.

I've been having a slight issue with the ANT stick as well, but only that it detects the new workout, starts downloading and then stops claiming that there isn't really a new workout. I think that is just down to various strange goings on on my laptop at the moment, but I do still manage to get everything off the watch after restarting a couple of applications first.

I've found the watch strap to be slightly awkward as well, but think it's just the fixed width of it then making it almost too tight on one notch and then way too loose on the next notch along.

Krusty_Clown

plodder wrote: »

I like the 405 but I've had a couple of problems with it. I really don't like that "Ant stick" thing which you have to plugin to your PC. I left my laptop on the floor and ended up stepping on the stick, and bending it. It's not quite broken, but I don't think it will last very long. They should have designed it to use bluetooth, which most laptops have builtin.

Yep, did the same thing. Laptop dropped off the laptop table and snapped the USB ANT stick in two (though I can't really blame Garmin for that). I would've preferred the more straightforward USB connection to upload data - I mean I still use USB to charge the watch. ANT is a form of Bluetooth, but has much lower power requirement. Garmin also purchased the company that created the ANT protocol (Dynastream), so expect more of this in their products in future. ANT is also used for the HRM, footpod etc., so the power req for bluetooth in each of these devices would have been too high.

Krusty_Clown

robinph wrote: »

I've been having a slight issue with the ANT stick as well, but only that it detects the new workout, starts downloading and then stops claiming that there isn't really a new workout. I think that is just down to various strange goings on on my laptop at the moment, but I do still manage to get everything off the watch after restarting a couple of applications first.

I used to get that, but it was down to the upload to the Garmin Connect website failing, rather than the upload to Garmin Training Centre. Try clearing out the caches where the Garmin workouts are stored, e.g.:
\Users\XXXXXX\AppData\Roaming\GARMIN\Devices\YYYYYY\Garmin Connect\Pending Uploads

plodder

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Yep, did the same thing. Laptop dropped off the laptop table and snapped the USB ANT stick in two (though I can't really blame Garmin for that). I would've preferred the more straightforward USB connection to upload data - I mean I still use USB to charge the watch. ANT is a form of Bluetooth, but has much lower power requirement. Garmin also purchased the company that created the ANT protocol (Dynastream), so expect more of this in their products in future. ANT is also used for the HRM, footpod etc., so the power req for bluetooth in each of these devices would have been too high.

Yes, bluetooth has a much greater power requirement, but I think it would have worked ok, if the data transfer was only done when the user actually requested it. Bluetooth is faster and it wouldn't have needed that much power for the short time needed. But I agree, USB would be a simpler answer.

I've just remembered my biggest problem with the 405. On the three occasions I have raced while using it, I've set up the watch just before the start, and then just before the race starts, it has switched back to watch mode. So, I'm nearly being run over by people trying to get past me, while I'm foostering with the watch :rolleyes:

Krusty_Clown

plodder wrote: »

I've just remembered my biggest problem with the 405. On the three occasions I have raced while using it, I've set up the watch just before the start, and then just before the race starts, it has switched back to watch mode. So, I'm nearly being run over by people trying to get past me, while I'm foostering with the watch :rolleyes:

I'm probably coming across as a Garmin sales rep at this stage, but have you considered turning off the timeout?

This feature's only available if you have upgraded the firmware. It's in:
[Training]
[Options]
[Timeout]

copacetic

plodder wrote: »

I've just remembered my biggest problem with the 405. On the three occasions I have raced while using it, I've set up the watch just before the start, and then just before the race starts, it has switched back to watch mode. So, I'm nearly being run over by people trying to get past me, while I'm foostering with the watch :rolleyes:

Have you updated firware lately? They put in an option to turn this off a version or two ago, to stop this very issue:

Changes made from version 2.10 to 2.20:

Added timeout setting to the Training Options menu that disables the automatic timeout to power save mode when the watch is in training mode.

edit - doh. krusty beat me too it while I was finding release notes...

nortal

I know this has been done on other threads, but went to purchase a 405 on www.heartratemonitors.co.uk this morning, saw a forerunner 50, they have a page where you compare garmin products, both the 405 and 50 are pretty similar what is the advantage of having a GPS system with the watch, I can get a good deal on the 50 including the bike set and save around 80 sterling.

I am a total technophobe so thanks for the advice

Btw thanks to those who responded to my running form question

ergo

nortal wrote: »

I know this has been done on other threads, but went to purchase a 405 on www.heartratemonitors.co.uk this morning, saw a forerunner 50, they have a page where you compare garmin products, both the 405 and 50 are pretty similar what is the advantage of having a GPS system with the watch, I can get a good deal on the 50 including the bike set and save around 80 sterling.

I am a total technophobe so thanks for the advice

Btw thanks to those who responded to my running form question

I'm definitely not the best person to answer but I suspect the GPS feature (which makes the 405 so expensive) allows you to accurately log your distance and routes run instead of just your heart rates. Someone else correct me if I'm wrong

Have only just started looking for a HR monitor, if someone could tell me in a nutshell is 405 simply a sleeker version of 305 and would both be equally good for coverage when running under trees I'd appreciate it?

Krusty_Clown

Yep, that's correct, you also get elevation information. Plus you can also setup predefined routes and race against yourself (on a previous run on the same route). Also, the GPS isn't as affected by stride length (which the 50 can suffer from). The 405 will be very accurate (within certain tolerances) but the accuracy of the 50 depends on a consistent stride length and leg-turnover, elevation and regular recalibration.

A couple of benefits of the 50 over the 405:
It will track your distances covered indoors, on the treadmill.
It records cadence-type information.
Battery life.

plodder

Anyone know if it's possible to edit an activity, either on the watch or the website? I forgot to reset the activity at the race yesterday, and then pressed the timer start button on the way home, so the timer continued on from the end of the race (until I got home). :rolleyes:

Highway_To_Hell

You should be able to delete the extra time as it will be recorded as a new lap (presuming you hit the stop button when crossing the finish line). I have a 405 and use the Training centre software that came with.

ManFromAtlantis

just another q.
had satelite located and watch set to 00:00 ready for the off. did this about 10mins before the race start. just before the actual delayed race start i looked at 405 and there it was ' gone' . just the time of day showing. i quickly managed to get the sat back . how long do you have it ready to go before it switches back/off to time of day ? thanks.

plodder

Highway_To_Hell wrote: »

You should be able to delete the extra time as it will be recorded as a new lap (presuming you hit the stop button when crossing the finish line). I have a 405 and use the Training centre software that came with.

Thanks, though it seems to be recorded as all one lap. I thought you had to press the other button to start a new lap anyway...
[edit]BTW I did press the stop button.

To ManFromAtlantis:

There is a setting that will switch off that timeout on the watch. Very annoying it is ..