Some Forerunner info

I'm quite pleased with mine so far. The display is large and easy to read(displaying 3 types of
data), the run storage is an awesome feature, the elevation seems accurate, no batteries to replace,
and I don't even notice the weight on my arm.

On the minus side; the GPS mapping is pretty lame, the lap recall does not give elevation data (I
hope the software will download this... when available), and the slope grade jumps around so much as
to be worthless.

I'm pretty sure the mileage is just slightly on the optimistic side when measured against known
distances. My Timex GPS has proved quite accurate when used on certified race courses, in four
marathons it was between .10 and .14 miles over. As a comparison, on my "5 mile loop" the Timex
measured 4.97 miles and the Garmin 5.06 miles.

[email hidden] (John C) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I received a Garmin Forerunner as a Christmas gift and have had it out for two runs now. On a
known distance route on suburban streets it gave me a total distance of 6.05 miles for what I
believe is 6.1 miles. On a trail run that I haven't measured it gave me 13.1 miles which I think
is close to what I ran.

Although the log software doesn't seem to be available yet I discovered that with Delorme Topo 4.0
I was able to download the tracks of my runs by putting the Forerunner in charging mode and having
Topo download track 0 at 9600 baud. Both my runs were consolidated into a single track. For the
suburban run the track followed the Topo-mapped streets I was on fairly closely though I could see
it had some trouble at a point where I run under a railroad and highway overpass. On the trail run
the trails I do are not marked on the Topo maps but the run is an out and back and the back track
was off from the out track by as much as 300 feet or so in places and the tracks took a few short
zigs and zags that I didn't. The track did match up pretty well with topo features that are on the
Delorme map,
e.g. parking lot at the start/end, hill I circle, etc.

Interestingly I have Garmin's Mapsource product that I use with another GPS I use (Etrex Vista)
but I could not get Mapsource to download the track from the Forerunner. I did notice in the
manual for the Forerunner on page 30 in the System Requirements that Mapsource is mentioned. I
assume this means that some integration is coming but didn't make it into the first release of the
Forerunner

So far I'm optimistic that the Forerunner will be a helpful training aid. A little more time and
the log software will tell. I tried the Fitsense a year or so ago and ended-up returning it in
frustration as I found myself focusing more on calibrating the thing than on actually running. I'm
hoping the Forerunner will be reliable and accurate enough that I can generally ignore it.

In hopes that someone from Garmin Forerunner product management reads this group I would suggest
one improvement - volume control for the beeper. It's too quiet for me to notice most of time.

- John

In article <[email hidden]>, John C

Quoted message said:

I received a Garmin Forerunner as a Christmas gift and have had it out for two runs now. On a
known distance route on suburban streets it gave me a total distance of 6.05 miles for what I
believe is 6.1 miles. On a trail run that I haven't measured it gave me 13.1 miles which I think
is close to what I ran.

I took mine along on a bike ride yesterday just to see how the distance it shows compares with that
of the cyclocomputer on my road bike. There was less than 1/10 mile difference on a 27-mile ride.

I'm pretty pleased with the thing; if only the calories display was more explanable. It seems to
display total calories burned when the unit is set to pace mode. In speed mode, it shows another,
significantly lower number. Maybe it's the average calories burned per mile, but multiplying that by
the number of miles yields a larger number than what pace mode displays...

--
David Thompson

I haven't really paid attention yet to the calorie display on mine. I was struck though by the fact
that the Forerunner doesn't seem to distinguish between different exercise types with respect to
calories burned. A seven minute/mile pace running has a very different calorie expenditure than it
does for cycling. Maybe software upgrades will address issues like this. Garmin has been great about
releasing useful upgrades for my Etrex Vista.

David Thompson said:

In article said:

I received a Garmin Forerunner as a Christmas gift and have had it out for two runs now. On a
known distance route on suburban streets it gave me a total distance of 6.05 miles for what I
believe is 6.1 miles. On a trail run that I haven't measured it gave me 13.1 miles which I think
is close to what I ran.

I took mine along on a bike ride yesterday just to see how the distance it shows compares with
that of the cyclocomputer on my road bike. There was less than 1/10 mile difference on a 27-
mile ride.

I'm pretty pleased with the thing; if only the calories display was more explanable. It seems to
display total calories burned when the unit is set to pace mode. In speed mode, it shows another,
significantly lower number. Maybe it's the average calories burned per mile, but multiplying that
by the number of miles yields a larger number than what pace mode displays...