I’ve just completed a lovely six mile run. My heart rate was around 5bpm slower than two days ago despite warmer weather and a faster pace. The sun was shining, there was a cool breeze, my daughter accompanied me on her bike. All good, right? Wrong.

So how can I be so furious as I write this post? How can all the perceived benefits of that run have evaporated so quickly?

Let me explain.

I’ve owned a Garmin Forerunner 305 watch for, I guess, a couple of years now. The 305 watch itself is fine. It’s quick to locate, lock on and retain connection to satellite signal and is extremely consistent in measuring the distance of a run. Despite looking like something from the 1970s with a screen the size of a small calculator or a wrist TV, it’s comfortable. The heart rate monitor is also accurate and I’ve had no problems with its connectivity to the watch.

What I have had MAJOR issues with is the websites which Garmin has half-heartedly developed and supported (despite a hefty subscription for access of around $100 per annum).

Garmin’s MotionBased (the predecessor to its Connect website) was, in my opinion, unbelievably poor. It was frequently unavailable, data transfers mysteriously failed and though support from the customer service team (Kathryn in particular) was well intentioned, it seemed clear that her obvious concern for customer experience was not one shared by Garmin’s CTO who allowed this to continue and continue.

A promised website replacement for all Forerunner 305 (and other Garmin customers) in Garmin Connect – which would offer many more features than MotionBased and much improved reliability – was delayed and delayed. It was finally launched around fifteen months late (for us), though customers of Garmin’s newer products such as the 405 were (understandably) given earlier access.

Rewind twelve months: Exasperated with Garmin’s MotionBased I finally accepted a refund and cancelled my subscription moving to the free iPhone application Runkeeper. Whilst not as accurate as Garmin, the developer (as I understand a sole trader at the time) managed to keep his site available and transferring run data was never an issue. The problem I had with Runkeeper was that I was reluctant to take my iPhone out in the rain and risk invalidating the warranty by getting rust on its connectors (something which the Apple Geniuses check for whenever you report a fault with an iPhone).

So, having checked and double checked for a go live date for Garmin Connect (and having not seeing one), I relented, trusting that after almost a year, Garmin would have fixed the availability and data transfer issues. I re-subscribed and the very first weekend, MotionBased fell over again. The site was not available. Kathryn kindly offered me a further full refund, but I gave Garmin the benefit of the doubt, hoping that I was just unlucky this time around.

Garmin Connect had still not been released at the time I re-subscribed and I waited patiently for it to arrive. When it finally did, I logged in anticipating that all my MotionBased horrors were finally at an end. How wrong could I be?

The Connect forums already seem to be filled with workarounds, trouble-shooting advice for users of Safari. “Delete Flip4Mac from your System Library Internet Plugins directory and try restarting Safari. Try using the manual upload instead of the automatic upload, etc etc.”

This from a company the size of Garmin with the developer resource it must have to hand! It is unforgivable. To deliver a site more than one year late with fundamental flaws is extremely sad.

What’s the problem, I mean specifically?

My issue is that despite downloading a new plugin for my hardware / software combination, despite subsequently following advice referred to above (delete this, restart that, etc) and quitting and restarting the watch, browsers (three different browsers – Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer), despite rebooting the computer and goodness knows what else, nine times out of ten, Garmin Connect insists that my MobileMe virtual drive is in fact my “Default Device”

On every occasion, the Forerunner 305 is clearly connected – again despite some very flaky brass or copper connectors on the back of the watch / cradle, which frequently don’t connect. This however appears to be unrelated since when these don’t work, the watch will not display the “Battery Charging in Progress” message. So it’s easy to see that the watch is docked. Just apparently not discoverable by Garmin Connect’s Communicator Plugin.

Garmin has now made it my mission to bring this to the attention of as many people as possible because I have finally lost all patience with its CTO and I don’t want others to share my experience. This is unacceptable. The features of Garmin Connect are hardly revolutionary. There are many free sites which allow me to upload data from a GPS device. It’s not rocket science.

It’s so disheartening to complete a 45 minute run and then spend as much time trying to upload the data. If it happened once or twice, it’d be forgivable. If I’d had to put up with it for a couple of months knowing that a fix was imminent, I’d be a little more relaxed. If it were free, well I’d try patiently to help the developers fix the bug. But this costs ~$100 per annum!

A year ago my Garmin forum posts were deleted. It seems my ranting was unjustified and my comments were unhelpful to other users. Moderating Twitter or Google’s search results will be a little more challenging:

Here’s a small selection from the last few days (updated 10 September 2009):

• @DianaRichter This @garminconnect software problem is killing my running high. Love garmin up 2 da point I can’t upload my runs. #Fail
• @Patmo and again the #garmin #forerunner doesn’t upload my recent activities. #fail
• @ScottAHamilton Unhappy that Garmin won’t repair my Forerunner 305 broken display. Instead offerred a replacement at above RRP. #garmin #fail
• @Coredumpster Garmin fail. Trying to download from 310. Slower than molasses. 22% complete, 40 minutes remaining. Really?! I’m glad they test this stuff.
• @johanvdk Garmin Connect is experiencing errors related to the recent upgrades and increased traffic. We apologize for the inconvenience. #fail
• @billdback Garmin connect is all screwed up. They make good hardware, but their software leaves something to be desired.
• @macmenco RT @garminconnect: Garmin Connect will be unavailable due to maintenance on Thursday, September 10, 2009 from 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM CDT
• @billdback I’m annoyed right now. Garmin connect refuses to recognize the plug-in after installing 3x and my Iphone battery keeps draining. #fb

So @garminconnect, I guess somewhat antagonised by my public tweets, pointed me once again to customer service yesterday. Today, after another half hour trying to get the Connect site to transfer data from my connected Forerunner 305, I tried.

European support was closed by 5:30pm so I tried the North American number.

Seems I’m not alone. Either the support line is now as under-resourced as the technical department or lots of people are having “issues”. My estimated hold time: 35 minutes!

Right now, I have no option but to continue to post about my experiences here on the blog and on Twitter. It’ll take little time for the search engines to pick this up, I’m sure.

5.95m | 59:43 | 10:09 | 165bpm

Another lovely afternoon in Lyme Park – really enjoyable (but hard work!). That climb up to Peter’s just doesn’t get any easier. I never pay any attention to pace on this run. The hills are challenge enough, so I’m not concerned about how fast (or slow) I’m running.

I think Lyme Park is one of my favourite places. Get half a mile from the house and car park and it really is a place of tranquility and escapism (and so close to such a huge conurbation of South Manchester.

MotionBased – bad news is that Garmin hasn’t got any better since I last gave up on them. They should have launched Garmin Connect for Forerunner 305 (subscription paying) customers over a year ago and it’s still not live. Worse still, I’ve tried three times today to upload my data and the site keeps kicking me out. (Server overloaded.)

6.5m | 56:59 | 8:45 | 161bpm

Set out with the intention of slowing the pace from yesterday and ensuring that today’s was a jog (at all costs!). So that said, 8:45 is about right given my current level of (un)fitness, but the heart rate is still much higher (about 10bpm) than it should be. Not going to get too hung up on that and just keep going with very gentle runs until I restore some kind of a base to build on.

I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it another million I’m sure, but I must not lose my running routine. This time, I’ve been blaming Cubase, but the truth is that there’s always time for a run.

I’ll upload the Garmin MotionBased logs as soon as I dock this watch (dock is at home).