If you’re serious about exercising and you want to track your progress, there are several electronic devices out on the market to help you. I looked at several models myself before settling on the Garmin Forerunner 305.
The Forerunner 305 is a wristwatch GPS. In addition to providing all the standard GPS functions, it also includes a heart rate monitor. The device itself isn’t much bigger than a regular full-size watch. The LCD screen is surprisingly readable for its size and has a backlight you can turn on for low-light conditions. The main functions for starting/stopping the time and starting a new lap are easily done with the two buttons on the face of the unit. Switching between screens and setting up the various options is also pretty straightforward. There are built-in options for setting the device for a run or biking exercise as well as an option for “other” types of exercises you might be trying to track. You can monitor your total time, split times, pace, distance traveled, etc. You can also customize the screens to put the data on them that you want to monitor and switch between three different screens at-a-time. It takes about 1-2 minutes from the time you turn the unit on until it acquires the GPS satellites. The device is very accurate. I do a lot of running on a recreational trail that is about 8-10 feet wide. When you look at the plot on the electronic map after a run, you can clearly see the two tracks where you ran the outgoing and return portions of your run. There are many features on this device that I haven’t even used yet. For example, you can set it up to be a virtual partner so that you can try to run and maintain a predefined pace and distance.
The unit comes with software that will run on either a PC or Mac. It includes a USB cable to connect the device to the computer. The software installation was simple and required no effort at all to perform. The PC version of the program has more features and includes the ability to upload your runs/exercises to Google Earth. Both versions allow you to monitor all aspects of your exercise including time, pace, distance, heart rate, calories burned, altitude, etc. I’ve found the device to be very useful for tracking my overall health and improvements in my running/biking times. I can see over the past year that I’ve used it that my heart rate has decreased for the same level of effort in a particular exercise.
I heartily recommend this device. I’ve had it for over a year now and haven’t had any problems with it. There is also a lower cost model called the Forerunner 205 that is the same as the 305 except that there is no heart rate monitor. A new model just came out called the Forerunner 405 that has a wireless feature to download your data.
