The Curse of the Garmin

Oh well. I guess I am now cursed by owning a Garmin. I returned the crappy 610 last July because I was frustrated it took Garmin months to resolved some of the basic issues that the watch had (namely GPS accuracy). I'm lucky that I didn't also run into some of the other problems 610 users have seen, namely:

• Reverse charging issues
• Rusting of back of watch 
• Turning skin green due to reaction with back of watch
• Pins falling out of wrist-strap causing the watch to fly away while running

Nevertheless, I replace a 3+ year old Garmin 305 with a new Garmin 305 before they stop making them and the price went through the roof. Everything was going fine until....

The battery life of my 14-month old Garmin 305 went down the tubes. I first noticed it, when the Batteries Low warning would come on about 1:30-1:45 into a run. Now it comes on about 30-35 minutes into a run. My last couple of runs have only really gotten me about 70-75 minutes of time before the watch shuts off. I now have to run with a regular stopwatch to time the remainder of the run and use online map tools to measure the distance.

Quality product again. I will contact Garmin and see what they say. A part of me wishes I bought this watch from REI instead of Amazon, since I would simply return this crappy 305 back to them and get something different (like a 210). Alas, I did not. I expect that Garmin will like to steal my watch from me for multiple weeks, charge me multiple $$$$ to fix the battery in my watch.

A tiny, little part of me wants to just go back to a Timex Ironman....

Argh....