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Forerunner 245 trail running

Hi, may I know if Forerunner 245 is suitable for trail running purpose. Can i export GPX data to the watch for turn by turn navigation purpose?

Thanks

  • I would say yes, you can follow a course on your watch while running. You can draw the course on your own on Garmin Connect or import it from GPX and then send the course to the watch.

    It is not the proper navigation with turn by turn but is "breadcrumb trail navigation" that is how they call it. I have tried it and it is good enough for any sort of running. This feature was one of my favorite even on the 310XT, using it while running and site seeing in a new city/area or even trail running.

  • Other than not having the barometric altimeter, it's perfectly fine for trail running. 

    You can both import routes or create them through Connect.

    You can learn more about navigation here: https://www.garminforerunner245.com/review/#Course_navigation

  • By not having the turn by turn, meaning I need to manually scroll the breadcrumb trail navigation to follow my running course?

  • From above link, can I say that its not wise to invest on 945 since its made for tri athlete? I plan to use only for running and trail running purpose.

  • FR945 has more depth in some training metrics and barometric altimeter, as well as full maps. For trail run is a better option, but obviously the price is much higher... it depends on how much you want to spend. 

  • You don't need to go all the way to a 945 to get trail running.  It's also on the 645.

    One thing about devices with native trail running, is they don't include vo2 max for that activity.  There's threads in various forums (645/935/945/f5/f5+) that explain why, but I forget the details.

    See https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-935/128780/run-vs-trail-run for example.

  • it is constantly auto panning so you don't have to scroll/pan the trail manually to see where are you on the trail you are trying to follow and you can always zoom or pan manually if you want to get more details or whatever...

  • The reason is that trail running is more difficult than running on the roads, so ppl complained that their VO2Max would decrease after running trails. (I guess this is the case even if the VO2Max algorithm accounts for hills, since the terrain is also a factor.)

    If that bothers ppl, you could just run trails using the normal Running activity, in which case you'd still get a VO2Max for those activities. (And edit the activity type in Garmin Connect after the fact, if it really matters.)

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to WillNorthYork

    It's not so much the hills that were causing the problem.  It's the uneven terrain, sand, mud, snow, loose gravel and sod you encounter while trail running that was throwing off the VO2 Max data.  It takes more effort (of course raising your HR) when running on these surfaces.  You can trail run using the run app and get a VO2 Max, but if this metric is important to you, I wouldn't recommend doing so as the data between the two apps can be pretty significant.

  • Thanks for the clarification. I tried to make that clear in my comment, but I prolly shouldn't have mentioned hills at all -- I just didn't want ppl to think that trail running is difficult/different from road running because of the hills and not the terrain, but I may have made the opposite impression with my choice of words.

    And I agree that trail running really messes up your VO2Max calculations and I wouldn't run trails with the normal Run app either. There's a reason Garmin disabled VO2Max for trail running -- pretty sure there were a lot of complaints.