Last month I was in the water with my age group waiting for the start of the Lake Stevens Ironman 70.3 when I happened to notice a guy with his Forerunner 305 on. Thinking he was a little nervous about the race and had forgotten to take it off, I pointed out to him that it was on. He just said “Oh yeah, I always swim with it. It works great.”.
I’ve always thought these weren’t water proof but I can’t find any testimonials online anywhere. Does anyone swim with theirs? Was this guy just covering up? It’s a little pricey to just test for myself.
yeah, I would like to know if anybody consistently swims with the 305 or 405. I guess if it gets wet you can just open it up and let it dry up and use it again. At least that is what happened with my Polar s625X this morning after it wasn’t sealed correctly yesterday to check the battery. I dried it out and it is now working fine. But I wold much rather have a Garmin.
People tell me not to but i swim in the ocean with my 305 about 3x a week and have not had a problem with it. I do sometimes lose signal on my down stroke i think so i just hook it to the back of my goggles. sounds weird i know but i have not had a problem and it helps me figure how straight i am actually swimming.
good luck
Here is the deal. It will work. For a while. Maybe even a long while. But then it
won’t and you’re getting it replaced via warranty or some other mechanism. I
have to be careful if I rinse mine off in the shower now.
I don’t do the IMs with it on because the strippers won’t get the wetsuit off over it and switch to the Edge and back to the Forerunner for the run.
The guys at Garmin made a big deal about swimming with it being ok.
The thing is- it is eventually going to stop working because it’s an imperfect device. Among those who swim with it prior to it no longer functioning will attribute the lack of function to swimming with it. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
O.K., lets look at this logically. Major company(GPS big in hunting and fishing) makes a product that sells to triathletes that want something for the swim. Major company, wanting sales knows people want to swim wth it. Major company wanting profits says “Do not swim with it” What you think?..I think they would say swim if it would not hurt sales.
Notice it has a bike mode, running mode, and other. NOT swim. in multisport its not swim, bike, run, but other, bike run Hmmmmm I don’t know what to think.
For a triathlon race. If you dont swim with the 305, what do you do? Do you just have it mounted on your bike, and forgo the swim? How do you time yourself with a watch in the swim? Do you just wear a watch for the swim, take it off in T1 and start the Garmin 305 for the bike and run? I’m just trying to figure out how I can use the 305 in the entire tri race. I’ve heard you can put the 305 in a plastic zip lock bag, and put it in your swim cap?? All ideas and comments are helpful! thx
The problem I have with the 305 & swimming is the 2 halves of the case have nothing squeezing them together; they are just held together with glue. If the glue is letting loose or missed a spot, it’s toast (mine fell apart while pushing buttons after a run).
As far in a race, I put it on the bike and start when I leave T1. I don’t wear a watch in the swim. Usually, there’s a clock coming out the swim so I know about where I’m at, but not knowing my exact time during the race doesn’t have any affect on my final time.
What I do is just leave it on the bike with it setup to track bike, run and one transition.
I’m using it for HR mostly, since every race I’ve done has chip time. Also, since IM
has everyone start at the same time, it’s pretty easy to figure out times.
I went 13:29 and the batteries made it the whole way. Key is to turn off the GPS when
you boot it up and put it on the bike. Cadence sensor will give you distance on the
bike. Then I turned it back on for the run (as I was running).
