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Swim workout with time interval instead of distance

I'm creating swim workouts in Garmin Connect and most of them are intervals like 20x25yds or something like that but now I have to do time intervals instead of distance (swim 4:00 x 3 with 2:00 rest between) and the spot where I would change the duration type from distance to fixed time is greyed out and won't let me click on it. Is there no way to change the interval to a fixed time instead of distance? Seems like that should be an option if it is listed on the app.

  • Hello .  Setting the "Duration" to time is available for most workouts, but is not available for Pool Swim workouts.  This is because most of the time you aren't going to finish the length at the same time your timer is going off, which will lead to the distance being short. If the workout is set to a time alert it would stop counting laps as soon as the workout step ends, which most of the time will be mid length.  This would lead to significant distance discrepancies in your activity.

  • Makes perfect sense, didn't think about it that way. Thank you!

  • Not having the ability to set base times for intervals (also referred to as "sends"), e.g., 5 x 100 on 1:25, which means you swim the 100 coming in when you come in, under 1:25, and sending on 1:25, with the rest equal to the difference between when you touch and 1:25, when you leave for the next interval. The set up in Connect is not at all built for actual swimming workouts in a pool, which is where 99% of all swimming workouts take place.

    As for not finishing a particular distance -- whatever it is -- at the same time the timer goes off, I disagree. This is what swimmers do! Literally 100% of the swimmers I know design workouts in sets, usually consisting of some variation on the theme of warm up set, build set, main set (or 2), and a warm down set, with the main set or sets consisting of the hardest work. We know where we are, within 1 second, at distances up to 500 yards, even longer. For example, in a set of 5 x 200s, with evens at a build pace (e.g., 2:45) and odds descending from 2:40 to 2:30, I know within 1 second where I am on all of them. But the timer would go off on whatever the "send" is for that distance in that set. Summarizing: set = 5 x 200; evens swim at a build pace of 2:45 (just a little faster than coasting); odds descending from 2:40, meaning the 1 = 2:40, 3 = 2:35, and 5 = 2:30; set the base interval / "send" for 2:50, or get fancier and set the odds for 2:45, 2:40, and 2:35, giving 5 seconds rest, and the evens for 2:50...

    Tracking movement already happens, so capturing moving time is already solved. Establishing send time, or the "leave" the wall time, and allowing the user to insert the distances in the workout, would reflect pool swimming training reality. What exists now requires a workaround with more built into it compromise than it's worth. Hire a swimmer who knows how to code and fix this. 

  • It is actually working with "sends" "leaves" or whatever it is called.

    You make a workout, lets say 8x100 leaving on 1:45

    you create 8 times the 100 meter interval and you also create a rest period of a "fixed repetition time", in this case 1:45.

    When you finish your 100m you press lap button and then a timer will start till the 1:45 (it is even starts beeping in the last 5 seconds to know that the interval is ending a new one is starting)

  • @Roan123 I think you don't understand I want to have a set where I want to do 100's on the 1:45 so I hit start and 1:45 later it will start another 100.  If I finish my 100 in 1:20 then I get 25 seconds rest, if I finish my 100 in 1:30 I only get 15 seconds rest.  This is the most common workout in swimming and no way to set it up with garmin.  Garmin makes you set the rest interval to a fixed amount of time, which is not what we want.  We want the 100 + rest time to be a set interval.

  • That is exactly what I am explaining! The only extra step you need to do is to hit the lap button, so if you push the lap button after 1:20, you have a 25 sec rest, if you hit the lap button after 1:35 you have 10 seconds rest.

    The fixed repetition time is not your rest time but your 100m + rest..
    So what you do is, make your intervals and add a rest step on each interval, but in the field type you select fixed repetition time, fill in your time in the field (in your case 1:45) and you're done 

    Try it! I did this multiple times already and it works like a charm

  • Amazing, thanks a lot Roan. Not very intuitive ar first to work with reste but it Indeed works like a charm