Strengths: Comfortable, hard wearing, no blisters.
Weaknesses: None.
Overall: I am prone to blisters and these are the first pair that stops be getting them. I've tried 1000 mile and Hilly with mixed results. I now have 3 pairs of Brooks and I love them.
Strengths: It looks cumbersome but feels comfortable on your wrist. It’s easy to use, accurate to within a few meters per kilometer and I love the Autolap which gives you an automatic split each mile or kilometer. It also has the great Virtual Partner which allows you to decide how far and fast you want to go and you will be told whether you are ahead or behind schedule as you run.
Weaknesses: Under tall building and trees it can lose the signal. Its quite good at correcting itself once it regains the signal but if you have not been running in a straight line, errors will occur. I would have liked to use it more for speedwork but the accuracy of the heart rate and pace is not good enough, especially during transitions when the time of your reps are short i.e. 2 or 3 minutes. Finally, the software that comes with the Garmin is poor but useable.
Overall: When I got my Garmin, it was like going from the Stone Age to the industrial revolution. I could throw away my piece of string and map and just run. I can record, fairly accurately, all my runs and that helps enormously. I get a good idea of my speed and that has helped me monitor my progress over the last year. The ultimate accolade is that I never run without it anymore.
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