In Nov 2008 in honor of my birthday, my wife and I bought a Garmin 305 during the infamous $180 Costco on-line sale. My first run with it was 11/29/08, 6.02 miles at 7:10 am. 39:37/6:35 pace. So today marks the end of my 3rd year running with this thing, and I absolutely love it. I've rarely missed using it during the 3 years. It has helped me go appropriate paces for races, track workouts, long runs, recovery runs, lactate threshold workouts, marathon pace runs, and all those runs that you don't really put a label on - just runs. I wore it today for an easy 6.03 miles at 7:25 am. 41:02/6:49 pace.
A week after purchase, I wore it at CIM, where I was pacing two buddies. We all learned a lesson from looking at "average pace" on a race course, instead of looking at elapsed time and dividing by the "real" distance we'd covered on the road according to the mile markers. Our Garmins all showed a faster pace than the course was telling us with just a handful of miles to go. Luckily we all ran strong to the finish and my pacees both achieved their sub-3 time goal, a first for both of them.
If I click on the root level in the Garmin Training Center on my PC, it shows the following "since inception" totals:
6958.16 miles
781:24:38
6:44 per mile
Awhile back I went thorugh and cleaned out all my wife's runs & walks, as well as hikes & walks we did together, since they had hurt the average pace a bit. So 6:44s seems about right, looking through my week-by-week average paces. 7:15 is a super slow pace that I rarely do, and most of my easy runs during those years have been in the 6:55-7:00 range. 6:30-6:40 tends to be an honest but gentle tempo, while 6:25 and better requires more effort.
My fastest week was 6:19/mi in Aug 2009, a 26 mile week that included 17+ miles of Hood To Coast legs.
My slowest week was 7:55/mi in June 2009, 30.5 mile week that included an 8 mile trail run from Seaside toward Cannon Beach & back (at 11:28 pace). It was a hilly & technical trail, but I still believe the 305 undermeasured the distance that day.
My longest hours in a week was 10:07:14, a 90-mile week in Oct. 2011 at 6:45/mi. That was also my biggest mileage week. My lowest mileage week was, well, 0.0, and there are several weeks that tie for that honor.
There were a number of weeks where I averaged about 6:30, often when they included a race like a half marathon to bring the pace down. But my longest/fastest non-race week combo was in late-July 2011, covering 67.0 in 7:14 for a 6:29 pace. The week included a 10-mile tempo at 5:58s and a 21-mile long run at 6:30s, and several 5-8 milers around 6:30. I remember thinking after that week, "That was a bit quick; I need to do my recovery runs slower if I'm going to survive this training cycle." I'm amazed what a difference slowing from 6:30 to 6:45 means for my recovery.
Because of a big mileage increase in 2011, the 2319.39 per year average is not spread at all equally over the 3. Calendar 2009 was 2098, and Calendar 2010 was just 1632. Last week, I passed 3000 for Calendar 2011, and may be heading to 3300 or so, which will be my biggest calendar year ever by over 600 miles (previous best 2646 back in 1990).
It's hard to believe I've run for over 781 hours wearing this thing. Amazingly, the battery seems to be lasting just as long as the day I got it. Truly an amazing device.
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