Garmin Forerunner 610 Review

Here’s a lovely photo for a Garmin Forerunner 610.  I’ve had mine running for over 4 years now and it has been a trooper that’s for sure.  If you’ve looked at my past photos of my runs, you can see there’s a littttttle chip on the top because a couple months ago, I dropped in onto the bathroom floor from around 3.5 feet high and it is still going strong!  So I just wanted to give you a quickie review of my watch as it’s been over 3 years and let me just say, if you’ve been concerned about the pricing/whether it’s worth it or not, it really is.

*note, I did not purchase my Garmin Forerunner with my own money.  It was a gifted to me by someone who I would call a mentor when I first started running.  More on that later.  But this is my honest review and I am no way sponsored/paid for by Garmin (although if you see this Garmin… I wouldn’t mind ;) haha)

WHAT DOES IT COME WITH:

• USB stick that can wireless connect with your watch and download your work outs.
• Charging cable – The magnetic latch style for the watch is so it sticks to your watch and charges if you bump it (whereas the other charging cable styles can shift and stop charging).
• The option of having it come with a Heart Rate Strap (I do not have this one)

RUNNING FUNCTIONALITY AND FEATURES:

Like other Garmin’s, the Forerunner 610 is touch screen.

• The touch screen works well with my underamour gloves that have traction on the fingers AND a regular mittens so that’s not bad for when it’s cold out and you don’t want to take your gloves off to change the screen.

Buttons/Menu

• It has three buttons, on the left: Power/Light and on the right: Start/Stop, and Lap/Reset
• It has two touch screen buttons, one on the 9 o’clock position which serves as a back button when you go into Settings, and one at the 6 o’clock position that takes you into Settings.
• Menu screen has “History,” “Training,” “Setup,” and “Where To?”
• You can change your screen up to display different widgets on the main screen in there such as “Lap,” “Lap Pace,” “Time,” etc.
• You can set it to beep/vibrate at a pre-determined distance – mine is very 1k
• This feature is great because you can also set it to Run/Walk if you’re just starting out, it beeps/vibrate to remind you when your running or walking interval is completed.
• You can also create custom workouts this way or set up interval training  based on time and distance so you don’t need a coach/clipboard to track your 4 x 1s!
• “Virtual Racer” is one of my favourite features as you can “race” your previous bests or activity from someone else – it even has a little stick figure showing you if you’re ahead or not!

Uses satellites to track where you are/track your speed and distance

• On a good day, the connection is made when I’m still tying my laces in my living room/entry way area
• On a bad day, it can take up to a minute to make a connection
• “Navigate Back to Start” is a great feature using the satellites as you can run whatever route you’d like and it can navigate you back to where you started.
• It has yet to drop on me when going into trails but be careful when going into tunnels, I tend to lose the satellite tracking there.

Water Resistant

• Ran in the rain with it  before and it was a-okay!
• Got some Powerade on it while racing and it was fine then too!

and finally… Battery Life

• 8 hours.  So far I haven’t ran longer than 8 hour in one go so I’m fine but if you do plan on using it for longer than I would recommend a different watch.  However, keep in mind, it’s 8 hours while you’re using the satellite tracking.  As just a normal watch and using it to tell time (aka it’s sleep mode in my opinion) it has lasted me days.

Here’s how mine look after 3+ years of me not being the most gentle to it…

If you’re interested, you can check it out on Amazon (it’s $100 cheaper online than it is in my local running store).

Is there anything else you would like to know about the Garmin Forerunner 610?  Let me know!

<3 Carmy