Anyone who registers for Garmin Connect between February 10th and March 31st will be automatically entered to win a new FR60 limited-edition fitness watch with bold colors and soft strap heart rate monitor. It’s easy, it’s free and it’s a way to connect to millions of fitness activities while analyzing your own.

More details here.

Full FR60 product details can be viewed at the online Garmin Store.

Lots of talk over at dailymile.com right now about the Garmin Virtual Partner and Garmin Custom/Advanced Workouts (partly my fault for keep mentioning it I suppose….) Hence tonight’s workout of the Garmin Custom variety:

To set up one of these workouts, you’ll need to open up your Garmin Training Center software and add the various “steps” of the workout. Mine was fairly straightforward and contained just three “steps”:

1. 2 miles @ any pace
2. 4 miles @ 6:30 pace
3. 2 miles @ any pace.

I could have specified an easy pace for steps 1 and 2, but I quite fancied the freedom of running at any pace. Of course Step 2 was the important piece of the puzzle.

Anyway, the run in my older Newton Gravitas was tremendous – the 2 mile warm up was completed at 7:46 pace and without relying on the Garmin for pacing, I averaged 6:29 per mile for the 4 mile tempo section of the run. I backed off in the last two miles but still averaged less than 7 minute mile pace.

Very enjoyable run. Loved the Garmin countdown to each segment of the workout and the little jingle at the end to signify “workout over”. Mission accomplished…

Honestly, it took a lot of self control to hold back and run 7:27s, but the slower pace was just what my legs needed. However, you can see my impatience took over towards the end as I opened things up a little and finished strong. Good run.

Splits: 7:27 7:27 7:27 7:25 7:25 7:27 7:25 7:17 6:49

6:34 6:40 6:39 6:38 6:37 6:37 6:29 6:39 6:37 6:30 6:33 6:43 6:35 0:40 – 1st half split 1:26:31

6:27 6:42 6:55 ……………….

Goal:

1st half – 1:26:30
2nd half – 1:23:29

Actual:

1st half – 1:26:31
2nd half – 1:35:40

I guess you could say I ran the perfect first half, just one second slower than my goal. However, words can’t describe the frustration about what happened in the second half where I slowed by almost 10 minutes.

It’s a funny old game…

PS Does anyone else have problems with their Garmin Forerunner 405 in the rain? It seems just a couple of drops of water on the 405′s touch bezel causes it to go crazy – cycling through the different screens and rendering the buttons inoperable. It’s not the first time it’s happened and I’m only able to stop the workout when the unit has “dried out”. Maybe I need to contact Garmin?

Update: Just read a couple of newsgroup posts about similar issues with rain/sweat. Seems like the best fix is to disable the bezel during workouts. Not ideal, but it would have been useful yesterday….

I started slowly with a 7:56 opening mile, and for the remainder of the run averaged just under 7:30 pace. It was good to finish with a 6:52 final mile and now I can look forward to a couple of easy days – my mini taper before the Santa Shuffle 5k on Saturday morning.

I think I’m now out of marathon recovery mode and once the 5k is out of the way this weekend, I’ll start planning for a solid start to the 2009 racing season. Good times….

If you’re interested, click here for tonight’s training run details courtesy of my Garmin Forerunner 405 and the Garmin Connect web site.

I searched online for a solution, but the news isn’t good; it appears the battery inside the wrist unit will no longer hold a charge and is actually quite a common problem. Several newsgroups, forums and even the Garmin web site suggested a soft reset — which is performed by pressing the lap and mode buttons at the same time, and then pressing the power button to switch the unit on — but this didn’t help at all.

I also read several blog posts where 305 owners had taken their units apart to check the battery connections – a bit too drastic a solution for my liking. I guess I’ll contact Garmin in the next couple of days to find out what my options are, but my gut feeling is that a repair will be almost as expensive as buying a brand new unit with full warranty.

I’ll let you know what Garmin comes back with….

After yesterday’s treadmill run, it was great to get outside again for a late afternoon run in the sun. With the temperature in the mid-80′s I knew it could be a tough workout, but I planned on averaging seven minute miles for eight miles if I could last the pace. To err on the side of caution I decided to run the first half slower than seven minute pace with the intention of picking things up later on.

The first mile came in at 7:30; right where I expected it to be. I quickened slightly for the next two (7:19 and 7:23) before taking advantage of a nice 10mph tailwind to record a 7:06. Well, that was the easy part over with – time to quicken the pace and see what was left in the tank. It turned out to be quite a lot and I enjoyed running free and easy back towards the house.

Two sub-7:00 miles (6:42 and 6:43) lowered the average pace to around 7:10 per mile, and with a crazy-fast 6:16 I’d met my goal. Now it was just a question of holding on, and trying not to think how thirsty I was.

Great workout and I’m feeling good about the upcoming 20-week marathon plan that begins June 30th.

The temperature for the run was great (just under 80°F), but the moderate SW wind meant the air was filled once again with the smoky air from the wildfires still burning in North Carolina. I headed outside, waited a few minutes to get a good lock on the satellites and set off fairly fast to hit my planned pace of 7:00/mile.

The first mile came in at 6:43 and a quick glance at the Garmin screen had me 119 feet ahead of the Virtual Partner! Unintentionally I quickened in the second mile and recorded a 6:15, but I was still feeling good and pushed on to the halfway mark. 6:20 for the third mile, but by now I was feeling thirsty and went in search of a water fountain.

Despite several soccer games being played, the first three fountains I found were shut off. Luckily the fourth was switched on and I took 20 seconds or so to rehydrate and cool myself off. Not surprisingly this mile was slower (6:49) but I picked it up again for the final two miles and finished with a couple of 6:22′s.

The victory sound played when the 10k distance was complete and I was surprised to find I was almost half a mile ahead of my Virtual Partner – most satisfying in a geeky kind of way.

So, all in all a good run today and a nice way to finish off the week. 43 miles isn’t bad at all and coupled with the last two weeks of 40 miles, my base is almost ready to launch myself into a 20-week marathon training plan for the Richmond Marathon in November.

I fear the low battery is something to do with the dreaded “Gold Contact Discoloration“. For those of you who haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about, there are four gold contacts on the back of my Garmin 305 GPS unit. For some reason, possibly sweat related, the one to the extreme left always turns black and won’t make a good connection in the USB charger/cradle.

Every week or so I scratch away at the black surface to restore the shiny gold contact, but as the week goes on the black “corrosion” slowly reappears and my computer connection gets worse and worse. It’s not a major hassle I suppose but slightly annoying when the battery dies mid-run because the unit hasn’t charged correctly.

Oh well, rant over, time to do Week 1 Day 3 of the Hundred Push Ups Plan.

The new release looks to be a winner for Garmin. The new design is sleek and looks more like a watch than any of the previous GPS monitors and is fitted with a different GPS chipset that apparently locks on to satellites much faster than we’re used to. Another nice feature is the ability to upload wirelessly to your computer utilizing a nifty USB device called an ANT stick.

I have to say the price is pretty good too. The Forerunner 405 complete with heart rate monitor is currently retailing on Amazon.com for $349.99 with the 405 without HRM feature weighing in at $299.99. (Prices correct on Amazon.com 6/17/08 and subject to change)

You can read the Runner’s World review here or visit Garmin.com for the official product description.

I won’t be upgrading any time soon. I’m more than happy with my 305 and have other priorities for my hard earned cash at the moment. To summarize, the 405 appears to be a great product but I can’t help wonder why more companies aren’t jumping on the fitness GPS bandwagon. Healthy competition would only be a good thing for the consumer, right?