Garmin advice

[Adam R Wende]

As you know I'm a number slave, but not for the accuracy. I like to know the distance to make sure, one I'm not over-training and two for the mental boost of knowing more or less what I put in. I agree with Jon that it is a life saver for when I travel. I like to head out of the hotel and go wherever and have a good idea of what distance. As far as accuracy I would never do a track workout with it (what's the point?). But on straight stretches of road it is more than accurate enough. I run the same courses a lot and the Garmin always beeps the miles within ~5ft of where it did the day, week, or month before... I also run a number of marked race courses and the Garmin also typically beeps withing  ~5ft of the marks and often is more accurate by the time elapsed than the marks on the ground. As far as why to wear it on the same course/easy days I like to see how easy those days actually are, could I just look at the total time? Yes. But as Jon can point out I run a huge range of speeds and I like to compare those easy/hard and just easy/feeling bad days in both pace and HR.

[Steve P]

My 205 was totally worth the investment, even for a grad student with little extra $$. I have also found it to be very consistent for the same routes, which helps me monitor how I do from run to run. I have used it on a track, too (to record my splits), and it has been surprisingly accurate. Just because I'm obsessive, I usually run an extra 0.03-0.05 to make sure I ran the complete distance. But I do that on the treadmill, too. Maybe that obsessiveness will pay off someday.