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Credit: Illustration by Ian Moore and product image courtesy of Amazon.
Ever since I retired my fancy G-Shock watch a decade ago, I’ve been relying on fitness watches, and what do you know, they’ve all been Garmins—for good reason: Garmin makes great fitness trackers. If you’ve never owned a Garmin watch and want to try one out, now is a good time: The best budget Garmin for runners, the Garmin Forerunner 55, is down to its lowest price ever, according to price-tracking tools: $129 (originally $199.99).
Lifehacker Senior Health Editor Beth Skwarecki dug deep to determine find the best fitness watches for runners, and named the Garmin Forerunner 55 the best budget pick—made all the better by this record-low price. It offers features that have historically only been found in the premium versions, like the Respiration Rate Tracker feature, which tracks your breathing rate. The battery life will last up to two weeks when it’s in standby mode and 20 hours when using GPS tracking.
You can use the Daily Suggested Workouts to suggest how to train to reach your running goals. If you like to run on tracks, you can choose which lane you’re in with Track Mode, which gives you exact pacing for much better accuracy, snapping your times at 100-meter intervals. Based on those numbers, you can also see the Race Predictor, which tells you how you’d fare in a marathon and other race lengths using your VO2 max and other metrics.
What do you think so far?
While the Forerunner 55 was released back in 2021, it’s still a great budget option in 2026, as Garmin is known for supporting its devices with updates for several years. At this price, you can get a great running companion to keep track of your miles, and still make the rent next month.
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