Garmin010-01689-00 Forerunner 35; Easy-to-Use GPS Running Watch, Black

While I was in the military from 1895 till 2005 I was in excellent shape. I was doing about 4 hrs of progressive weight training/week and getting 7.5 hrs/week of very high intensity cardio. When I retired, I was probably in the best physical condition of my life, at 6% body fat. I was 51, then. After I retired, for the first few of years, I maintained a gym membership and kept up my training. By 2010, I was working in my consulting business, and I began teaching part time at a local university. More time on my ass and less time in the gym. In 2013, I began teaching full time, and I became almost totally sedentary. About the only exercise I was getting was walking across campus between classes. Just before Christmas, I calculated my body fat percentage using the Navy method. At 5'8" and 178 lbs I found myself to be 29% body fat and obese! That did it for me. I realized I had to start to get back into shape, and I realized that it would be a lot harder now at 65 than it was when I was in my 20s.I have never been much of a distance runner/jogger. In the Navy, I ran my 3 miles a year for my two physical readiness tests, and that was about all the running I actually did (even though I was a sprinter in college). It also occurred to me that I probably just couldn't jump on a Stairmaster, and workout at 175 bpm heart rate for 90 min, either. So, with the recommendation of my internist, I decided to start increasing my activity by walking. We live in a subdivision on a street that is an oval of exactly 1/2 mile in length (I drove around it eight times and it really is exactly 1/2 mile). I started walking around my street on Dec 26. I started going around twice (i mile), then I increased the distance by a lap a day, until I was up to 10 laps on Jan 3 (I took Jan 1 off). Since then I had been walking between 8 and 10 laps daily, trying to increase my pace as I went. Somehow, I knew I wasn't getting enough feedback from just the mileage/time calculations. Back when I was working out in gyms, I always wore a chest strap, with one of the more advanced Polar watches. Now that it is over 10 years later, I explored more modern technology, in the age of FitBit and Apple Watches.Actual review starts here: One of the first decisions I made about getting an exercise watch, was that it would need to have GPS, since I have resigned myself to a walking regimen until I get my weight under control, and I regain some of my cardiovascular endurance. I also wanted a watch that used ANT + as its transmission system, because I knew that at some time I would want to add a chest strap for more accurate heart rate measurements (I purchased a Powr Labs strap that arrived today, more about that coming up). I also wanted the watch to be water resistant enough to allow me to swim (This is south Florida, and in the summer, it is a lot easier to do laps in a pool than it is to even walk, and by Summer, I will probably need to change to an activity that will allow me to increase my heart rate above the aerobic zone). The final thing was that the watch needed to be easy to read in a number of different lighting conditions. As I was purusing the various devices here at Amazon, I was immediately struck by the Garmin watch. Ergonomically it appeared to fit exactly the way I would want a watch to fit (I haven't worn a watch in over 20 years), and the way the contrast is set to make the LCD display easier to read with more intense light, it appeared to be perfect for outdoor use in Florida. After reading a number of reviews, that suggested it was a good watch (but not great) at $200, I figured that for under $100 it was probably more than enough to satisfy my needs.The watch came the other day, and I spent about two hours reading the manual and playing with the features. I took the watch outside, selected the "Walk" activity and the watch set the time and date through the GPS signal (None of the Polars I had previously owned did anything like that, and the most annoying thing about those watches was setting date and time). Yesterday was my first day actually using the watch. Before I left for school, I did four laps around my street, and sure enough, the watch registered 4.1 miles ( I stopped it after walking up my driveway). It also had my HR average at 122 bpm, which seemed reasonable to me. At school, the class I taught yesterday was in the library, which is about a half mile from the building in which I have an office. Since "walking" is to be my fitness thing, I walked to and from class from my office building. After I got home, I walked another two laps around my street. After dinner, I synched the watch to my iPhone. After the synch, all of the activities I did since I began wearing the watch were displayed. I guess I'm still fascinated by the GPS thing, and when I tapped each of the saved exercises, I was treated to a GPS map of my actual walking path. The repeated oval around my street wasn't too interesting, but at school I took two different paths to and from the library, and it was very cool to see them clearly defined on the map display.Today is my day off from school, so this morning I set out walk my 10 laps around my street oval. Just before I left the house, the Amazon Prime truck arrived dropping off Powr Labs ANT + chest strap. I took some time to synch the strap to the watch, and then set out on my walk. I walked eight laps, then paused to remove the strap so that I could proceed with just the watch measuring my HR, so I could make some "in the ballpark" comparisons. After two more laps, I went into the house and synched the watch to the iPhone. Of course, I got the same boring GPS map of the "circle" on which I live, but the thing I was most interested in was how close the average HR measurements were between the watch and the chest strap. For the chest strap, the eight lap HR average was 130 bpm (I try to walk at a little over 3.5 mph pace), and the two lap average for the watch alone was 132 bpm. As far as I can tell, the physiological variables were probably more noisy than the actual differences between the measurements, and, at least for my wrist physiology, the watch is probably "close enough for Government work".So, in conclusion, all I can say is that I really love this watch. It does way more than I really need it to, and things I need it to do it does exceptionally well. If you are a competing tri-athlete, you may need something more powerful and complicated, but for me, and I'm sure the many people who want to invest in a product that will help get them off there asses, for the cost, there really isn't a lot that competes well with the Garmin Forerunner 35.

Before I bought this watch, I researched for months many different running watches before I made my decision. I kept coming back to this watch, but was delaying due to the negative reviews. Let me tell you who this watch is/isn't for. Sidenote I've had an Apple Watch before and I absolutely hated it. People think when they get the watch they will use it to call/text but come on, the screen is so small anyways, I'd get irritated and never use it for those features. The one feature I did like, the sleep tracker, I never used because the watch would die like every day and I'd have to charge it at night in order to use it the next day! Super irritating. Also, mileage was ALWAYS off when running. Like, off by a lot and I could probably have fixed this, but was too lazy to and felt like that shouldn't happen with an Apple Watch.The Garmin watch is meant for a runner. If you aren't such a serious runner maybe running 1-2 miles then I'm sure you can get away with something else but the main reason I needed a watch was to track my mileage and timing ONLY during my daily runs and races. I average around 30 miles per week and so holding my phone while running just wasn't cutting it. I am a millennial and like my technology but I didn't need a damn watch to do all these special features that I had at my disposal before but never used. This was one of the negative comments I kept seeing- how this watch was simple. Well, I just need it to tell me my distance accurately so that's what it's for. Bonus points that it also gives HR continuously and tracks your sleep so to me it's amazing. Also without a touchscreen I don't have to worry about accidentally hitting a button. It's easy and that's all I need. ALSO I only have to charge it like weekly not even that if I actually waited for it to die which I never do. That is huge for me especially after having the Apple Watch. It is GPS acquired and I've run with it on a track and multiple races so I know it's definitely accurate. Had this watch since January and have had no issues. Love when you're done running you can sync the phone easily to come up in the app so you can see everything even in more details. One thing I will address is the pacing. People say the average pace pr mile is slow and takes a while to catch up. While this may be the case, this does not bother me one bit because i've been running for so long I have my pacing down. I'm looking at the time like oh, at 2:00 minutes I am hitting .2, at 3 I should be at .3, for example. I always know what my mile time is going to be around and it's always at that time so this doesn't bother me at all. In summary, while the watch screen may not be like super fancy looking, I've been over the Apple Watch since I got it and this watch literally does what it's supposed to- accurately give you your running distance and time.