Garmin Forerunner 210 - first impression, first run

As much as I didn't want to give up my Nike+ SportWatch GPS, the inaccuracy of the GPS mapping was driving me nuts. The mapping did improve a little over the past couple of months, but just when I thought I would not have the problems anymore, the GPS mapping would be way off again. I was not confident that the mileage for all of my runs was accurate, especially if I was mapped starting on another street, or on out-and-back runs, when the out wasn't even close to the back. WTF!

I actually wanted to exchange it for the same watch, but decided I may as well try out a different GPS watch. The Garmin Forerunner 210 was the closest in price range, and with the added shoe pod, it cost less than the Nike+ kit, so I was told. $179.99 for the Nike watch, and $224.99 for the Garmin, which included a heart rate monitor (HRM). The Garmin shoe pod, to track your indoor runs (treadmill), was an additional $62.99. They had a kit that included the shoe pod and the HRM for $269.99. For the record, the Nike watch came with a shoe pod (normally $19.99 if you need a replacement), and the Polar link Nike+ HRM is $62.99, for a total of $242.98, so for the record, no it was not cheaper.

I charged the watch last night, set-up my Garmin Connect account, then tried to see how fast the satellites, shoe pod, and HRM connected. The shoe pod and HRM linked really fast, I guess due to the ANT+ technology that connects them to the watch. Cool. The satellites took a little longer. I like being able to see the distance, elapsed time, and pace all on the same screen - you could only see two of these on the Nike screen. What I don't get is how to erase a run on the Garmin. I hit the start button last night, on accident, so I hit the stop button, then the reset button and I think the only option I had was to save the data, but I wanted to delete it. How do you delete it?!? I guess I still need to get used to all the buttons on this thing.

So, this evening was my first run. I decided to run a similar route that I did with the Nike watch a few weeks back because there were discrepancies with that route and the Nike watch. As expected, the  HRM and shoe pod linked right away, but even outside it still took what seemed like forever for the satellites to link to my watch. I stretched for about two minutes and I did not lose the satellite link, something that happened to me from time to time with the Nike watch. Not bad.

I was surprised that the distance was the same. Nice to see the HRM info. I will have to set up my target heart rate. So how did the mapping feature track me? Surprise again, the Nike mapping was better than the Garmin mapping. So is it just me?!? Am I just too detail oriented that I expect to see my run tracked on a sidewalk and not on someone's yard because I was running on the sidewalk, and not across the street? Argh. I plan to run all my usual routes with the Garmin so I can compare GPS tracking. Hopefully the overall mapping for the Garmin will be more to my satisfaction than the Nike mapping. And, hopefully I will figure out how to delete runs off this thing.