Ten Random Tips for your Garmin Forerunner 305

I wrote up some of these a while back in a comment after a friend got her new Garmin 305 GPS late last year.  But figured I’d clean them up, add a few and put them here for all the world to see.

• Never ever use/open up GTC (Garmin Training Center) again. It’s crap.  Instead, go download (for free) Sport Tracks (2.0):
  http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks
• Don’t worry about doing splits using the watch itself. Do all split stuff in software later (which is automagic with Sport Tracks). You can set the watch to autosplit as well btw, but I don’t bother as sometimes obstructions will incorrectly autosplit.
• In Sport Tracks you can overlay your route/course right onto Google Earth (or Virtual Earth in ST 2.0) – pretty cool.
• Remember to wipe the metal contacts on the back of your watch after you run. After a while (a few months) if you don’t the sweat will cause corrosion.  Which will in turn cause other problems.  If it gets really out of control, use an eraser to clean the contacts.
• For about $21 or so you can pick up the velcro wristband and associated bike quick release kit, which is much nicer than the rubber wristband thingie that came with your watch. Great for quick transitions.
• If you don’t like standing out in the cold, before your run starts toss the watch in a window sill while you put your shoes on. By time your shoes are tied up, the watch will be ready to go. And that will reduce the awkward standing around outside looking at your wrist dance that you do.
• When you download the stuff to your computer, there is an option in Sports Tracks (ST) to ‘automatically turn off device and start charging it back up’. This makes it dead simple to go ahead and always ensure you have a charged unit when you’re ready to go.
• If you want to swim with your Forerunner, go here.
• Don’t try charging it in the middle of a rainstorm outside (don’t even ask how I managed to do that)…it kills it.  The good news is that in under two weeks, Garmin fixed it all up again.  Garmin Customer Service rocks!
• You can change the data fields that are displayed on the watch.  For example, I changed my cycling one so that by default it displays four things: Cadence, Total Distance, Current Speed and Total Time – in four little quadrants.  You can add any of the gazillion fields to make your own custom view.  You can even save multiple views per sport.

To read all my other random Garmin Forerunner posts – just click here or here (first link is more ‘refined’).

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