To handle the “can be seen by vehicles” part, I bought two of the Nathan Clip-On Deluxe LED Safety Strobes.  I can clip these to my wrists via my road-ID and watch.  Given my wrist movement in the arm swing, these can be seen from the front, side, and rear and the multiple LEDs blinking is very eye-catching.   I think I’ll also pick up a reflective vest the next time I see one that fits well.

To help see where I’m going I picked up a Petzl E47 PS Tikka Plus headlamp.  It is light-weight but really bright.  A feel somewhat like a coal-miner when wearing it, but it definitely does the trick.

I broke down last week and ordered a Garmin Forerunner 405 (the black watch above).  I’m not quite sure what to think of it yet. The 405 definitely looks a lot less dorky than my trusty 305 (red one above), but the 405 has its share of quirks and limitations.

Pros

• While still bulkier than the average watch, the 405 can actually be worn while not working out and people won’t wonder why you have a brick with an LCD strapped to your wrist
• The wireless syncing is neat (sent workouts to computer when I set it on my desk and even did a firmware upgrade that way)
• A few new options (like showing a graph of your heart rate)

Cons

• They definitely had to make some usability trade-offs to ensure the battery life isn’t completely horrible when in normal watch mode
• You perform many functions on the watch by touching the bezel (like an iPod).  Unfortunately like an iPod, you can’t be wearing gloves.
• The elevation accuracy appears to be much worse than the 305
• You have to push the ‘start/stop’ and ‘lap/reset’ buttons at the same time to lock the bezel.  I can see myself easily dorking this up during an event and either stopping the watch or adding an inadvertent lap
• I had a weird lock-up occur and had to dork with the watch for a few minutes to get it to come back to life

After uploading data tonight on the 405, I got a notice that a new firmware update was available and installed it.  Hopefully that will fix some of the quirks.

Note that even though the 405 looks less dorky, I am sure I looked like a complete tool tonight when I wore both of the the watches while running.  I lucked out in that it was almost completely dark out by the time I ran, thus hiding my gadgetry shame.  I did have a real goal though, I wanted to see how close the two devices would be for my run.  From a distance measured perspective, they were pretty darn close (and I’m sure I added a second or so on stopping and starting since I couldn’t hit them both at the same exact time).

Garmin 305: 5.03 miles (auto-laps of  8:00, 7:51, 7:40, 7:13, 7:03, :08)

Garmin 405: 5.02 miles (auto-laps of 8:02, 7:50. 7:42, 7:12, 7:03, :07)

(Side note, best run in months!)

From an elevation perspective, the 405 was chock full of fail.  It showed about 3 times the elevation variation that the 305 had (and the 305 isn’t super accurate elevation-wise to begin with).  I really hope Garmin is able to update the firmware to deal with the elevation better (or at least at their MB gravity service to Garmin’s Connect service).

Update: To be clear, if I didn’t already have a perfectly functioning device, I think an argument could be made for the 405.  If you do already have a 305 that works fine, it is hard to make the case for the 405 except out of love for gadgetry.

I’ve been running for about a year (~ 1400 miles in 2007) with roughly half my time outside and half on gym or hotel treadmills. I really enjoy the commercial Life Fitness treadmills at my gym, but sometimes it is nice to have one you can just hop on without a 20 minute drive (or this time of year having to wait for one to open up). My wife and I were looking at a few different treadmills, and we liked the main stats of the Bowflex series 7: strong engine, large tread area (20×60), heavy frame, fast enough. For just under $1400 and with no tax or shipping charges, buying it through Amazon seemed like a good move.

Ordering
I ordered the treadmill late Friday night and received a call on Monday from the freight delivery company (ABF, in my case) asking if I would be home on Tuesday for the treadmill to be dropped off. They gave me a 2 hour window of 11am -> 1pm to expect the delivery. Knowing it was a very heavy unit (300 lbs), I asked a friend if he could come over and help me move it into the house and assemble it.

Freight Delivery
The freight company arrived a few minutes before 11:00am the next day. I was a bit surprised that there was only a single guy in the truck. I helped him move the unit on a dolly to the porch, and then we waited a few minutes for my friend and his teenage son to show up. With 4 of us, it wasn’t hard to move the BIG box into the house, but it would have been pretty tough with just two people. Make sure you have a friend or two with some muscles to help.

Assembly
We unpacked the unit and read through the instructions. Overall, the instructions and labeling were pretty clear. There were two small things that could have been improved. There was a difference between the instructions and the names printed on one the blister packs of screws, but it was pretty easy to figure out. Another minor issue that puzzled us for a minute was that the assembly guide indicated a philips head screwdriver was included. The ‘philips head screwdriver’ was actually one of the ends of an included allen wrench. Assembly was a breeze. It took the 3 of us about 30-35 minutes to assemble the pieces (it would have taken about 1/2 the time if we had a 2nd allen wrench and screwdriver of the correct size).

Trying it out
After assembly, I hopped on the treadmill, eventually pushing the speed up to about 9 mph. I was definitely working a lot harder than the treadmill was. The motor felt smooth and wasn’t very loud, although the noise from the foot strikes was a bit loud (to be expected as the speed increases). The running surface had a little bit of a bounce, giving a nice cushioned feel. Having the long belt surface made me feel pretty confident as I was running, knowing I wasn’t in danger of getting near the back edge.

As other reviews have mentioned, the console is pretty weak. The main text display area is only 2 characters! This makes it awkward to read messages as text scrolls by. I really don’t understand why they couldn’t have made it at least 3 or 4 characters, which would have made a big difference. While I don’t care much about the console for my personal use, if you are used to big displays like you see on gym machines, you will be very disappointed in this aspect.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a Polar heart-rate strap came with the package. After putting it on, the HR started showing up on the console within 10 seconds or so.

The fan is also a bit on the weak side. If you get hot while running, I think you are better off putting a “real” portable fan in front of the treadmill.

The handles are pretty short, but they were sturdy enough for me to put my entire body weight.

Overall rating: 4 out of 5

Pros: large tread size, easy assembly, strong frame, powerful motor, Polar HR compatible, folds up easily and can be rolled around

Cons: console is lame-0, fan isn’t strong

Thanks to Team Silverstein for the moving and assembly help.

• Virtualization – VMWare Fusion for OSX
• Portable automotive GPS – Garmin C340 (simple interface, comes pre-loaded with maps for entire US and uses text-to-speech to pronounce street names before turns). You can get it at Amazon for about $260.
• Fitness GPS – Garmin Forerunner/Edge 305 (combines watch/heartrate/GPS). You can get it under $200 if you shop around with rebates.
• Austin Bookstore -Book People( as big as the big-box bookstores but with a great vibe, a ton of staff recommendations and lots authors that come and speak)
• Austin Ice-cream – Amy’s (if you go to the 6th street location the scoopers perform crazy acrobatic/tossing moves as they mix your add-ins and put it into a dish)
• Author – Richard Wiseman (wrote Quirkology and The Luck Factor among others)
• Harrisburg Burritos – Neato Burrito (no frills ambiance but tasty food)