This discussion has been locked.

You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Marathon Battery Life?

Has anyone actually run a marathon with the 235 using optical heartrate? How was the battery life?
On my long training runs the battery gets pretty low. If I turn off the backlight from coming on automatically when I bust my HR zone it seems to help, as does creating a workout based on distance without HR, so it isn't constantly vibrating at me. (I know, I should just slow down a little to stay in my zone)
I am running a marathon in 2 weeks and expect to finish in about 4:15 - 4:30 range. I am thinking of using a HR strap so the optical HRM will not drain the battery. I would like to use the Livetrack feature so my family can follow me, will that affect battery life?
Am I overreacting, or should I be fine for a marathon?

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Should be no problem at all. I get a drain of about 9-10% per hour with GPS+HRM.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

I did a 2h 23min run with ohr gps and glonass.
Backlight 8 sec, wrist-turn deactivated, bt off.

Went from 96% to 59%. So you should be ok

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

I ran a 3:38 marathon recently with GPS+GLONASS and there was over 50% battery remaining at the end -- no problem! I did not use the backlight, tho

0 PatrickNSF over 9 years ago

I ran a 3:38 marathon recently with GPS+GLONASS and there was over 50% battery remaining at the end -- no problem! I did not use the backlight, tho

Congrats on the 3:38!

0 LTomBerry over 9 years ago

Cool, I guess I'll not worry so much.

0 lightmatter over 9 years ago

With HR on and plain GPS (no glonass), I get about 8-9% drain per hour, so it would last 10 - 12 hours total. I have vibrations on per lap (1mi laps), but turned off the auto-backlight and don't have any other alerts set. I also turn off the Bluetooth for long races because I don't run with a phone so there's no reason for it to be trying to connect.

0 stevespeirs over 9 years ago

Mine lasted 12:43 on the weekend, but with Bluetooth, GLONASS, OHR turned off. Hoped to get a full 100 miles out of a full charge, but ended up about 17 miles short. Not too shabby though I guess.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1043666772

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Completed my first full on the last day of the Dopey Challenge and had plenty of battery. Bought the watch at the expo on Wednesday and used it during each race of the challenge.

I was running it with everything turned on, run/walk alerts and lots of button pushing/screen changes for over 6 hours. I was sorta shocked it lasted the full duration.

0 edlondon over 9 years ago

Thanks Steve - wondered about that exact setting.

0 LTomBerry over 9 years ago

Update

So I ran the Phoenix Marathon, just made a simple workout without HR zones so no beeps and buzzes. GPS but no Glonass. OHR without chest strap. I left Bluetooth on and LiveTracked the whole thing. After a 4:53 finish I still had 53% battery left. I had a little cadence lock issue at the beginning but it straightened itself out pretty quick.
Incidentally I ran the first half in 1:58, but then had feet swelling causing shoe issues and developed a bad cramp. Had to walk a bit but was determined to finish my first full marathon and I did.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1065790845