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Lap distance

Former Member
Former Member

I called in this issue and i was told it would be looked at.  I have a forerunner 45 and i cannot change the lap distance.  It is stuck at 1.6k . I have changed the units to metrics. Workouts are recorded in kms. This seems like an issue that should affect a massive amount of users.  

  • I'm having the similar with Forerunner 35. I have settings set to metric and 1km laps but all my laps during a run are being recorded every 1.61km! This incorrect lap distance is synced to the Connect app on my phone.

    This problem only started 3 weeks ago, for the 11 months prior to that everything was working perfectly for 50+ runs.

  • You can change the auto-laps distance to whatever value you want, directly on the watch. Just check out the User Manual of your watch model for the details. For the FR35, you can find it here: https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/forerunner35/EN-US/GUID-943B595F-2D2C-475F-A4B7-1C7B2F7A741A.html

  • That's the strange thing, it is set to 1km. The  lap distance is displayed to confirm this setting  every time I select the 'Run Outdoor' activity. However, during a run it incorrectly records a lap every 1.61km!

    Given that 1 mile = 1.61 km I assume it's a software fault that's confusing metric and imperial distances?

  • Make sure you are looking at the right activity. The auto-lap has separate settings for every activity type (i.e. Run, Trail Run, Bike, Walk, etc.). It is not enough to change it just at one of them, you need to adjust it everywhere. 

  • ... and of course, the change will have no impact on past activities.

  • I guess that's why the lap distance is displayed when an activity is selected. It confirms the setting just prior to starting the activity. My outdoor run is definitely 1km.

  • I guess that's why the lap distance is displayed when an activity is selected.

    Not sure what you mean exactly. Can you post a screenshot or a photo of the watch on that screen?

    What laps does the watch show when you look the details of that activity directly on the watch (after finishing it)?

  • Sorry, I'm confusing Alerts with auto lap. Both are set to 1km s

    From the clock screen - 

    Press the Select button (top right, running man symbol). A list of activities is displayed with the first one being "Run Outdoor".

    Press the Select button again to select this activity and the Alert distance (1km) is displayed followed by 'Wait,' as it searches for GPS

    Press down arrow to list options 

    Press down arrow button 4 times to get to 'Laps'

    Press Select button to get 'Auto Lap'

    Press Select button to get confirmation that auto lap is on and it's set to 1km

    At the end of a 5k run I get a time for 3 full laps and a time for part of a lap.

    Distances are shown as 1.61 for the first 3 laps and 0.2 for the part lap which adds up to the full 5km.

  • Distances are shown as 1.61 for the first 3 laps and 0.2 for the part lap which adds up to the full 5km.

    Is it already in the details of the activity on the watch, or only once you sync it to Garmin Connect? Not sure whether the lap details are available on FR35, since it is a really old watch, but it could be accessible through the history, that even the FR35 has.

    Can you share a link to a sample activity, so tat we could look at the details? 

    You could also try downloading the activity FIT file driectly from the watch, using the USB cable, and we could look at it, to see what laps it includes. To me it still looks like a problem of the watch or its settings, because there are no problems with using any lenght of the auto-lap, generally. And certainly there was no change in Garmin Connect in the last weeks that would change the lap distance. In fact the lap distance is always fixed on the device, Garmin Connect does not modify it in any way, it just reads and displays the FIT file from the watch, with the laps exactly as they were recorded.

  • Yes, I'm sure it's the watch. As you say, the Connect app just reads the lap markers stored by the watch (unlike Strava for example that ignores the markers and uses the data to work out the laps for itself, hence I can see that the watch is doing most things correctly).  I thought maybe a change in the Connect app was the trigger for it to go wrong with its lap distances.

    I can display lap info on the watch for each run, lap times followed by the lap distances. This confirms what I see in the Connect app, so it's clearly the watch thats at fault.