Garmin Forerunner 305

For my 21st birthday this year I decided I really wanted to get into shape. I’d been doing a light amount of jogging since January the year before making use of Nike+ but I knew it wouldn’t do for what I had in mind. It was normally off (typically by a factor of a third or more) and was a hassle to use if you wanted to change music on the go. So I put down some coin and picked up a Garmin Forerunner 305 from Amazon. It wasn’t cheap at a smidge over £140 but it’s been one of the best gadgets I’ve ever bought.

The Forerunner is a GPS watch meaning it keeps track of where you are, where you’ve been and how fast you’ve moved. And it’s not just limited to running; cycling, skating, any sport where you move over large distances is supported with settings built in. Using the watch couldn’t be simpler; turn it on, let it find three or more satellites and hit start. There are functions for lap times, configuring what the display shows (current speed, pace, distance, time, direction etc) and a backlight which comes in handy when running at 2am.

There are two major downsides which frustrated me. The first is the included heart rate monitor. This is a simple strap that goes around your chest and wirelessly talks to the watch. From my first few runs it works brilliantly, pairing automatically and showing a little heart beat on the watch’s display. The problem is it made my chest sore to no end, to the point I couldn’t continue wearing it. I’m sure someone with a… less rotund chest would be fine though.

The second downside is one that continues to be a bugbear until you learn to get around it. When turning the watch on it has to acquire a signal from three or more GPS satellites. This can take seconds, but often will stretch to minutes (the maximum mine’s ever taken is 5 minutes, the average is <2). The easiest solution I've found is to turn the watch on, put it by the window and then go and get changed, by the time you come back the watch is ready and waiting. After you've been running, uploading your data couldn't be easier. The Garmin Training Center app is more than usable, providing visual graphs of your speed, elevation and heartrate over time with a simple little map. You can even choose to open the run in Google Earth, a very neat little feature. A (non-mutually exclusive) alternative is the Garmin Connect website. This lets you upload your runs straight from the browser (via a plugin that only works with certain browsers, sorry Chrome) and view them in a much nicer format including a proper Google Map.

Charging is done via an included dock and USB cable that doubles as the sync cable. I can easily get 20+ hours of running out of one charge and have never had it die on me, unlike my ageing Nano.

All in all the Garmin Forerunner 305 is an amazing bit of kit. It has its limitations, but has made running a much more enjoyable (and trackable) hobby. Definitely recommended.