Hi, I am on week 4 of a 12 week plan with coach Greg to get my half marathon time down to 1:32. All of my previous workouts on this plan have been in the range of 4:58-5:30ish, with some long runs and some speed/cadence intervals. The highest speed I have recorded was about 4:30.
Next week most of the prescribed workouts have jumped into the 3:00-3:59 range, including longer runs at 3:30-3:59. There is no way that I would be capable of doing this and I suspect it would be dangerous to try. Obviously the application has made an error.
So, I switched to another coach and then switched back to Greg to see what would happen when my workout plan was recalculated. Guess what, completely different speed goals. This time the efforts are mostly between 4:00 and 4:27, still a crazy jump from the previous weeks and probably not achievable but at least a bit safer.
Point is, it is obvious that the way these routines are calculated needs a lot of improvement before Garmin should (in good conscience) encourage people to follow them. The way the plans are presented leads you to believe that Garmin are monitoring your progress and adapting accordingly, I mean Garmin would know what they are doing right? If this motivated you beyond your safe limits then things could get dangerous.
It would no doubt upset a lot of people but I believe these training plans should be removed from the application until proper safety controls are put in place. My Garmin 645 M has no other apps etc installed and runs 5.70.
