Last weekend I got a new toy in the mail. It was the Garmin Forerunner 305, which I had been waiting for for a few weeks due to Garmin’s shipping issues getting these units out to the retailers. Well, it finally arrived, and I love it. Basically the unit is a GPS receiver and heart rate monitor training tool for the exercise enthusiast. I have trained with a heart rate monitor in the past but never with a GPS receiver due to their normally large size. However, this unit contains some great improvements that make the GPS functionality really useful. The watch does more than I can talk about here, but you can monitor pace/speed, heart rate, time, distance covered, and many other metrics during your workout. After the workout you can download all this information to your computer and visually examine your workout. For example, check out this display of a bike ride I did recently. Or if you have Google Earth installed on your computer you can view this arial tour of the ride.

Right now I am still just collecting and looking at the data from my rides and runs. As I learn more about my fiteness level and how my body reacts to various exercise, I will be programming specific workouts into the watch. Then instead of defining a workout as 1 mile easy, 2 miles up-tempo, 1 mile easy and guessing where each of those mile markers are, I will be able to know exactly when I’ve covered each mile at what pace and at what heart rate.

If you want one for yourself, check out the deal at Campersland. They have it for $60 less than most places are selling it for, and they upgraded my shipping to 2nd Day Air for free due to the fact that my order was backordered for so long.