indispensible piece of trail running equipment

By solarweasel Ranked #130 - Trail Running Accessories November 5, 2008

i have to disagree with matt's one-star review which i found a little harsh. it is important to remember that Garmin is still the only major player in the market of trail running gps devices and that the whole concept is still relatively new.

first of all, only a minority of people will ever hit the battery limit. i'm sure future iterations will address the 6-hour limit but for now, most runners will do fine with the given capacity. secondly, although i also thought the size of the watch would annoy, a couple runs with the thing and i nearly forgot i was wearing it. even if you don't like the rubber strap it comes with, you can replace it with a velcro one. thirdly, i find the accuracy of the unit to be remarkably good. runs with many switchbacks and dense foliage caused it to come up a little short and the altitude is prone to some error but once again, this is still a technology in its infancy. it's certainly more accurate than trying to chart the course out by hand on a map. finally, i agree that the included software isn't very well constructed, but there are alternatives. i've heard great things about sport tracks (http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/sporttracks/), and garmin is still in the process of converting their online database (motionbased) over to a more user-friendly, functional "garmin connect" platform.

ultimately i think the forerunner was worth every penny. there is certainly room for improvement and making it more appropriate for ultrarunners but the ability to plot out my runs in google earth and compare altitude, pace, heart-rate, and distance data from many runs is enough for me to give it a strong recommendation.

View Details: Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS

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