My running and biking life before Garmin was great. I have always had a love for maps and my pre-Garmin life was a never ending quest to find maps of all the places I ran and biked. Christmas 2006 changed my life forever, under the tree that year was a Garmin Forerunner 305. If life before my Garmin was great, life for the last two years has been near perfect. I have now mapped everything I have run and biked, have helped my local community map our network of trails and have turned what used to be a hobby of running into an integral part of my life. My 305 has joined me for over 1,000 miles in 2007 and another 1,200 in 2008, and that is just on my runs.
Tuesday of this week, 12/9 9:00am EST to be exact, after dropping my 1 ½ year old off for pre-school, I drove to my favorite trailhead for a run. I placed my 305 on top of my car to find a signal and then my cell phone rang. I had to drive home to take care of a work related issue before I ran. I got home and the second I pulled into my garage I realized my mistake, I left my watch on top of my car. Of course it was no longer there. Barely able to focus on the small work task at hand, I wrapped that up quickly and proceeded to run from my house back to the trailhead, retracing my drive, no 305. I spent the next 1 ½ hours running back and forth along my route. No 305. Not only was I dejected about not finding my watch, I realized I had become dependent on the watch to run. I felt lost trying to run w/out the watch, I kept looking at my wrist to check my pace, the time etc. Oh yeah, no 305.
Upon returning home, I sent an email out to my trail running group, the trailheads, www.trailheads.org, and asked for help, if anyone is out running along the route I drove, please keep an eye out for my watch. The forest manager happens to be on this list serve. Five minutes later I get a call, “We found your watch, it looks a little worse for the wear, but it is on and is still working. It looks like someone ran over it!”.
I picked my watch up a few hours later and sure enough, it did look like someone ran over, the gray casing was chipped in several places and the left side was about to open it. The LCD screen had some smearing and I could not turn it on or off w/out using a sharp object to push the power button. I have run with it twice since Tuesday, it is indeed still working but yesterday’s run in the rain created some serious water damage. I fear it is on its last legs. I cannot fathom going back to life before my Garmin, my dilemma now, do I wait until this one dies, do I get another 305 (about half the price we paid in 2006) or do I get the 405?
Thanks for changing my running life and thanks for such a great product. I attached a few pics of the damage, in a couple of them you can even see a water bubble on the inside of the watch from yesterday’s run.
Sincerely.
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