i am a tech driven human, perhaps some would even go so far as to say a techy geek but seriously, i love data and new and improved ways to collect and review it. so it should go without saying that when something new comes out, i dig in and review and compare to see if it is something that would be useful to upgrade to. with all of that being said, let’s go on a journey of how we got to wearing a Garmin Fenix 5s, all the bells and whistles watch in Garmin’s wearable portfolio…
it started with my first watch, a Garmin Forerunner 210. i loved this watch for what it represented… to me actually owning a watch that could track and draw fun maps meant that i was an actual runner, a real runner. it was pretty basic, did everything a newbie runner needed - tracked via gps, showed pace, distance and laps all the fun stuff i had never been able to pour over up until that day. honestly, had the band on that watch not cracked i probably would still be wearing it. unfortunately it had a band that was not able to be replaced, it was a full casing. i was up in Chicago for the Rock n Roll a few years back when it did and no lie - i used zip ties to hold it together to get through the first race of that weekend and until i could go back to the expo and ask if it could be replaced… i was probably quite naive in thinking that it could but we schlepped ourselves back to the expo after the 5k and the Garmin guys were all, “Nope - no fixing that dinosaur of a watch but look here’s the 225 - its the latest and greatest and check this out - there’s a wrist based heart rate (hrt) so you don’t need to also wear a chest strap”. aaaannnddddd - i was sold on the spot. i could justify this in that i was training using heart rate so having a watch that could read mine without having a strap made sense. so new hotness (what I actually named my 225 in Garmin connect) was mine.
now i had the 225 - this watch was a beast, it was bigger than my 210, it had a color screen and it had the sensors on the underside so i was set. or so i thought. i came to find out that the hrt sensors and software were rushed and were 3rd party to the watch, meaning they were not exactly what Garmin had wanted in the watch but were good enough for that first iteration of wrist based hrt. not really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things but still… had the 225 for like all of 6 months and the 235 was released. this version containing the Garmin developed hrt sensors and software. color me grumpy. but whatevs… i went on my merry way, training using hrt and my 225 and going long. like super long. i was training to run my first full. at some point we will chat about pacing and my love of being in the back of the pack but for now put a pin in that. as i mentioned, i was training for my first full - Tulsa Route 66 in 2016, it was my way to deal with the stress of also planning a destination wedding with a dolt of a planner. when i towed the line at Tulsa i had loaded into the watch an entire hrt plan for the full, mile by mile i had assigned specific hrt goals. well by mile 22, my 225 had worn down its battery… needless to say if you look at my Garmin stats it will show that there isn’t a full completed - it died right before 23, i had actually completed an ultra in that there is a detour on the Tulsa course that makes it one, albeit a very short ultra but an ultra marathon nonetheless. after Tulsa i started the search for a watch in the Forerunner line that had a big enough battery to handle a back of the packer, not speedy, marathoner and one using programmed hrt plans.
this was when i first set my sights on the Fenix, it was a big big watch lots of bells and whistles but also a battery that could deal. what i couldn’t justify was the price and the wait, the smaller 5s model was set to release in a couple of months and it was spec’d to be nearly the same size as the 225 if not a little smaller so not as bulky but again, a few months away and about $200 more. at that time i also saw the Forerunner 735xt, again smaller profile, better battery and Garmin proprietary hrt tech. this watch was available and did everything that i needed it to - from trails to road and should i ever get a non-cruiser style real bike, it also had the ability to track a tri without having to find each discipline separately.
so my third Garmin became the 735xt. it was fantastic until i put my charger into the power strip next to my bed to charge over night in wrong, like half in half out. yea, i did that… sigh. so i contacted Garmin - they are fantastic with warranty work, tech support etc. unfortunately at that point my 735 was out of warranty so my only option was to do a refurbished unit so i did that. got the new one, it worked well but about 6 months in it decided to go on the fritz with the gps, and have me swimming when i was clearly running. rebuilt the gps file a few times and still it never held or tracked properly.
which all of that leads me to what is currently residing on my wrist… my fenix 5s. i adore this watch, what it can do and what it does. it is great however - Garmin released a 6s, with an updated set of tech that includes plus ox tracking, body battery monitoring, and more shiny whistles. so now i have FOMO. it is real, it is hard. i think that i may try to sell my 5s so that i can recoup at least some of what i paid for stand get the 6s. but damn, i really need to work on putting the blinders on when new tech is released, i mean i’ve been able to do that with new phones but not the watches. sigh.
see you on the road… perhaps with a new and shiny wrist… perhaps
old and busted on left, new hottness on right… note the zip ties. just call me macguyver