Techy Tuesday: Garmin Forerunner 405CX with HRM

If you read Saturday's post about my long run, the topic of this week's Techy Tuesday shouldn't be much of a surprise.  I have a new gadget to share!  My trip to Costco ended up with me bringing home a birthday present.  Shhhh - no one needs to know that my birthday is still 3 months away...hubs and I tend to do this. Fun things come up and they tend to become gifts for the next big occasion.

Well, this year, my birthday prezzie is a shiny new Garmin.  A Garmin Forerunner 405CX.   Costco was selling them for only $199 (a $70 savings over what the Running Room sells them for).   What was wrong with my 201, you may be asking...well, nothing really.  It has been taking a bit longer to pick up the satellites lately and I've had a couple of instances where it didn't want to sync for me (though that might have been a daily mile thing).  Ultimately, though, I probably would have been perfectly happy with it until it died had I not seen this one.


Costco used to sell the Forerunner 305 and I really hated that style.   It has a ridge on the underside that dug into my wrist and I really have no clue how people with larger wrists can even wear them if it hurt my teeny wrists!   So, I knew I would never own that model.   But I have been drooling over the 405 and the 110 for their simple style and minimal bulk.  I knew that if I were to replace my Garmin - it would be with one of these two.  It was purely serendipity that these were in the store this weekend...really.

Ok - on to the unboxing.

 

What's in the box:

• Garmin 405CX
• 2 velcro wrist straps (to fit larger and smaller wrists than the built in rubber strap)
• Strap changing tool
• Heart Rate Monitor strap
• ANT+ usb thingy
• Charging clip
• wall adapter (including 3 different prong styles which makes it ideal for travel!)

It doesn't come with the ANT+ foot pod, but I think I may invest in that on a later date...I like the idea of having it in case I am traveling and need to use the hotel gym.

My initial thoughts:

• It is much different to set up than the 201 was.  I fiddled with it for about a half hour before I had to concede and go online in search of training videos.  Once I watched a couple of the ones on the Garmin YouTube Channel - I went back to playing with much better luck.
• The touch bezel is weird at first, but it starts to make better sense fairly quickly.
• I really like that it only has 2 buttons.  I have a really bad habit of hitting the wrong button when I mean to hit STOP on my 201.  This one has a start/stop button on top and a lap button on the bottom.  Easy peasy.  I expect my race times will be far more accurate for it :)
• While I do have teeny wrists, I found that I can probably get away with the strap that it comes with instead of swapping it out for one  of the velcro ones.  Guess we'll see how I feel after a few more runs.
• It is definitely lighter than my 201...and since it takes up less real estate on my arm, I find it more comfortable.
• I can't figure out how to set up the alarms like I have them on my 201.  I just want it to beep every 15 mins.  No biggie, though, since I can always set up a workout on it to time my walk breaks.  I just don't like that bossy beep that tells me to run again after a minute :P
• First run with it, I had issues with the GPS, but it was an operator issue and it picked up within a half a block.  Much faster than my old one.   I think I have it figured out now so it won't happen again
• It also took me a while to figure out how to sync with the ANT+ usb stick, but once I downloaded the software for it - it synced right away (to both Garmin Connect and Daily Mile) and was super speedy.  I'm impressed.   A firmware download was also super speedy.
• It feels weird to not power this thing off after each run...instead - it just becomes a wristwatch.  It is going to take some time for me to get the hang of turning the GPS on and off before and after each run.

I have only run with it once so far (my legs (27K) and the thermometer (27*C)  did not want to cooperate with me getting in a Sunday run this week) but I really like it so far.  I am actually looking forward to wearing it for my half this coming weekend in Edmonton.