I wrote an earlier review on the Garmin 405. It may have been obvious from it that I was hesitant to drop my regular watch and use it. I think I’ve managed to not rely on it too much which I’m glad of. The Garmin has a number of paces it calculates. These include:
- Overall pace: The pace for the entire run, averaged over the distance covered till that time.
- Current lap pace: The pace since the start of the last lap (since last mile mark).
- Lap pace: Gives you the time of the last mile/lap.
- Immediate pace: Your pace at that very instant (based on the the last couple of readings from the satellite).
The primary display is set to show the Overall time, current lap time and overall distance. At each mile (lap) it shows the time for that mile so that tells me my lap pace. On my secondary display I have the Current lap pace and Overall pace. I barely use the secondary display.
The one I’ve never used is the “Immediate pace”, I just don’t think given the 10 meter range of accuracy that it can be all that accurate. If I used that I’d probably be yo-yoing all over the place. It’s pretty obvious that you can’t really rely on it if you look at how any route with turns gets mapped.
Another proving point against using “Immediate pace” for me was the run this Saturday where I think my miles were pretty consistent. If I used the immediate pace and it showed the maximum pace I would have slowed down unnecessarily.
Mile Pace Max Pace
7:23 6:16
7:29 6:29
7:27 6:49
7:29 6:53
7:32 6:59
So what I don’t use my Garmin 405 for is: Figuring out my immediate pace.
Austin Metronome 