Tonight I went ahead and decided to see how my Garmin forerunner 305 worked in the water.
I know what you might be thinking: GPS doesn't work underwater...However there is one part of your body that really doesn't spend very much time underwater and is a safe place to put a garmin...In your swim cap on the back of your head.
I read on a website somewhere of how to do this. I will post the link if I can find it...
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2007/09/how-to-swim-with-your-garmin-forerunner.html
This blog is great!!!
But here is the short and skinny of how to track your open water swim workouts with the Garmin 305.
1) Place the garmin in a ziplock bag
2) Seal the ziplock bag with a little bit of air in it (just in case catastophe strikes and you lose it...it will float)
3)Change the gamin 305 settings
-Set mode to "Other"
-Set auto-lap to Yes and make a custom distance of .1 mile
4)Start your garmin
5)Stuff your garmin into your swimcap so it is on the back of your head. It should be in the same position that a girl puts her 'bun'.
6) Hop in the water and swim.
I didn't notice the GPS unit on my head at all. There was no discomfort associated with it. In fact, I had to reach up several times to make sure that it wasn't sinking to the bottom of the lake somewhere...It wasn't. It was still secure in my swimcap.
The auto-lap really helps also. You can hear the beeping clear as day, and it helps you keep track of how far you swim ("Out to the 5th beep and back...")
Other people have complained about how inaccurate it is...but looking at the final data, it really does appear quite accurate, considering the environment that I am forcing it to operate in.
I did mess it up somehow. Take this how you will...but I think I was too excited to get into the water and I wasn't paying attention to details. Apparently I didn't close the baggie all the way and I didn't stuff it high enough into my swimcap. As far as the GPS it still worked fine but when I got back on shore, there was water inside the baggie and the garmin was all wet. There was no damage and everything worked fine so I was happy. It was just wet, which shouldn't be a problem with the unit.
Next time, I will make sure that the baggie is securely closed and higher up in my swim cap.
I just wanted to make sure that I was able to get this post up as "proof-positive" that this method works...even if the safety measures fail.
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