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Garmin Forerunner 301

Garmin Forerunner 301 description

If you're serious about training and your gym is the great outdoors, the wrist-mounted Garmin Forerunner 301 is your personal coach, heart-rate monitor, and route map. With internal speed and distance calculation, elevation tracking, zone targeting and a host of compatible computer programs, the Forerunner 301 has every ingredient for a record-breaking season. When you get back from a run or bike ride, you can hook up to your Mac or PC and use Garmin's online MotionBased program to lay maps over your route, find out calories burned, track your change in heart rate on different terrain, and send your routes to friends (or competitors) to show them how much butt you're kicking. Triathletes love the easy switch between running and biking modes, and the Virtual Coach program keeps you on your toes in every discipline. Try to keep pace with your pre-programmed Virtual Partner and you'll know whether you're meeting your goals every step of the way. As if that weren't enough, the Forerunner 301's GPS stores waypoints to guide you back to your car if you lose your way.

This is a very good product. I started using a Forerunner 301 a couple of years ago and it worked really well. If you run/bike on trails, in the city (tall buildings), or any area with limited visiblity to the open sky, you might have problems keeping a satellite link. If you need GPS training aid with a heart rate monitor and can scratch another $80 together I'd recommend going with a Garmin Forerunner 305. The 305 was updated with a better/stronger antenna which allows it to keep better satellite links. If you don't need a heart rate monitor take a look at the Garmin Forerunner 205. The 205 is equal to the 305 without the heart rate monitor. The 205 is also cheaper than the 301 or 305. Bottom line, the 301 is older technology with fewer functions than the 305/205 but it is still a comparable piece of equipment.