New watch is why we hate change

So, the audio alarm on my Forerunner 305 has been dying a slow death the last couple of months.  Then, last Wednesday, it seemed that the watch had given up the ghost entirely.  Of course, I panicked due to my upcoming race and my dependence on pace alarms.  I went out and bought a Garmin Forerunner 220.

After I got it home, and before I opened it, I tried a trick that my coach suggested: plug the 305 into a USB charger that was connected to a wall outlet instead of charging it through my computer.  Well...that worked!  So, I had my 305 for my race on Sunday.  Whew, disaster averted!

Now, I have this 220, and I figured I might as well start using it as my 305 is near death anyways.  Yay, new watch!  Oh...new watch.  Grrr...new...watch.  I found out my new watch is pretty sensitive about pace alarm violations...as in TOO FAST!! TOO SLOW!! TOOFASTTOOSLOWTOOFAST!!

It took me a bit to get running at a pace that the watch didn't think was too fast and too slow at the same time...

Another thing I'm not too crazy about is that pace alarms can only be set for 5 second intervals, so my dream base pace for the next couple of weeks of 10:04 must now become either 10:05 or 10:00.  I don't know if I'm comfortable with either...oh the humanity!

And still another thing that is better on the 305 is the ability to set multiple paces and select the one that I need for that day.  With the 220, it's one pace alarm and if you want another, you get to manually set both upper and lower.  I might check out the training options; maybe they're better than on the 305 and will actually alarm when I am outside of the bounds.

On the plus side, the 220 supposedly has more battery life, it does have a vibrate with the pace alarm, and it's lighter and more plasticky.  Remember, when someone uses that word plasticky, you saw it here first.

And finally, race results:
21/33 age group
281/824 overall

Saturday: 5 easy miles.