Time for a new watch? (Garmin Forerunner 610 quirks)

This Garmin Forerunner 610 has been great, but also has had its quirks.

As I mentioned in my race recap for the Atlanta 10-Miler, my GPS running watch lost its satellite signal halfway through the race, forcing me to pace on my own. It's had its quirks but I'm thinking it's time to look for the next running watch.

The watch was released in 2011 -- I have no idea when I bought the one shown here -- and it was novel for its time, including wireless downloading of your run data and novel magnetic charging pins.

I also loved the ability to program my interval schedule into the watch so I wouldn't have to keep track of how long I needed to run fast and when I needed to jog easy. The touch screen bezel works great and was a tremendous improvement over its predecessor, the Forerunner 405, which had a bezel that at least on my watch would react if rain hit it.

This watch's problems increasingly have caused me to look for a new one. The charging pins drive me crazy -- if the pins do not align just right the watch doesn't charge. Plus in Atlanta's hot and humid summers, the pins develop corrosion. I have to scrape off the connections on the watch and the charger with a nail or a pin for it to connect properly.

The wireless downloading of data to the ANT+ stick on my computer worked really well for a while. But now I'm having trouble having the watch download to Garmin Express -- it just doesn't do it. Right now the last set I have up on Garmin Connect is Oct. 24. So the next day's run -- the Atlanta 10-Miler -- didn't show up. (For the running streak this isn't such a big deal -- you can manually enter data onto Garmin Connect and my running calendars have always held the definitive data on the streak).

And when I just looked at the watch's history, it now only shows data from April 11. In August, after running in the Bowerman 5K, I realized that somehow my watch lost that data set, so I have no idea how I ran in that race.

So ... just a long way of saying in about 30 days, expect a review of the next watch! :)