running: the dawn

I have had my eye on a Garmin running accessory for several years now.  Over that time many new Forerunners have been added to the family and I’ve often wondered which one I would enjoy most.  Of course the temptation that one has when making a purchase like this is to buy the most expensive one because it’s obviously the best, without ever really deciding what he or she needs and expects from the device.  I did not want to be one of those people.  I wanted to know the different features and choose the one that was the best fit for my needs.  I wrote one post about comparing the Garmin options and you can read that here.

Since then I’ve read a lot of reviews of the different models, and honestly they almost scared me away from the 405.  I must say though, now that I have experienced the greatness that is 405 I am THRILLED with it.

Here are some of the complaints that I heard and now wholeheartedly disagree with:

Wrist strap doesn’t fit women’s smaller wrists. False.  I mean, yes the strap that came attached to it was definitely too big for me, but there were two other options included.  In no time Mr. Dawn had switched out the traditional watch strap with the awesome velcro one.  And I LOVE the velcro cause it’s super easy to adjust mid run.

Display is small/hard to read. Again, I disagree.  There are multiple screens that you can set up with whatever data is most important to you.  And seriously there are so many options!  I mean for pace alone, you can see your current pace, average pace, average pace of your current lap, or average pace during your last lap.  I’m amazed that you could actually set up a screen that tells you the grade of the hill that you’re running up/down!  I mean really!  So, yes if you choose to set up all 4 screens with the maximum fields (3) you might have a hard time reading the fine print.  But you can set it up so that it only displays one piece of information on each screen and then auto scroll through.  I’m still working on finding my favorite configuration of screens.  So many options!

Calorie counting is based on distance, so it doesn’t work indoors. Nope.  The calorie tracking is based off of heart rate.  I love that!  It means that I can wear the heartrate monitor and watch during Jazzercise (my other form of exercise) and finally be able to compare it to my running with not just one, but two units of measure (calories and heart rate).  I’ve come to learn that while running I sustain a higher average heart rate, but in Jazzercise I can actually get a localized higher heart rate (which explains the crazy amount of sweat) than I do when climbing some beastly hills!  So fun!

“Bezel” is hard to use. I completely disagree.  I actually think that it’s much like the first time I picked up a friend ipod.  I remember thinking, how in the world do you get to the music and listen to what you actually want?  But a few scroll and clicks later I had the system all figured out and could navigate anywhere.  The organization is so similar to that of an ipod and it’s nested menus.  Click on a word and it opens all the options for that particular category.  Its actually really easy to use and I’ve had no problems with it at all.

All-in-all, it’s an amazing product.  I LOVE it.  Besides just using it while I’m running, I love Garmin Connect, the online place that shows me all my stats and information.  In the past three days, I’m pretty sure I’ve spent more time on that site than I have on Facebook.

I always knew that my life would change once I got a garmin.  I knew that my running would be enhanced by all the information I would then have access to.  However, I didn’t know how much little Gigit would tell me and how much I could learn.

Thank you Mr. Dawn!!!  You are the best EVER!