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Garmin Training Plans - Run Walk Run confusion

nikosalonen
over 4 years ago

I'm doing Jeff Galloway's half marathon training plan and if the whole point of the training plans is that the plan tells me the interval lengths and what pace should I run, then why on earth there's this "Run Walk Run®" workout where only instruction you get is "Run 9,6km but pick your own pace and splits."

Now I first have to google suggested splits and they are of course only given mile/min so I need to convert those to international units. Then try to figure out how I can keep track of everything because my watch won't help with that.

The whole workout should be removed from the plan if Garmin can't calculate the splits for me!

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 6897865

    Yes I just tried for myself and indeed the alert does not work with the Galloway 24km workout as part of the 10k in 55 mins plan. I should report this as bug I guess. 

  • +1 over 4 years ago in reply to Wilbertvdk

    This issue is reported a year ago and doesnt seem to be fixed at any time soon. Thats why I switched from Jeff to Gregg

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 6897865

    I'm considering this also because of the lacking run/walk alerts which absolutely must be a thing Garmin didnt test well enough or knew too little about Jeff's plan from the start. 
    Are you happy with Greggs plan compared to Jeff? I love Jeff's but it's har to manually keep track of intervals when you are doing 27km...

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Aagaard_A

    If you feel that you want the watch to set the run-walk-run-intervals for you (instead of deciding the splits based on how you feel and maybe the average pace), you could always set the watch's normal countdown timer to alert you. You can set it to repeat, so if your run-walk-run strategy was 4 min run, 30 sec walk (for example), you could set the countdown timer to alert every 4:30 mins, and then you would know to walk 30 secs (which isn't hard to count, and you can cheat from the watch's time field, if you feel like it).

    I did the above once when I did Jeff's 5k, but I feel it's much more useful to learn to do it by feeling.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Bitti

    I forgot to mention that I guess the reason the coach doesn't do the splits automatically is the fact that the Garmin's workout system does not have an option to repeat a set of steps until a given distance has passed. You have to give the number of repeats (which would depend on your pace, in this case). So providing automatic splits would require an overhaul of the Garmin's workout system (and I completely understand they don't feel like doing it for one training plan).

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Aagaard_A

    I completed a 10k plan with Jeff but wasnt happy about the non existing run/walk support during this time. Now I do another 10k plan (this time with time goal) but with Gregg.

    The main difference is his plan does not provide a fixed distance but time you should do the exercises. For example:
    Jeff: Run/walk for 12,9km
    Gregg: run for 50 min + run for optional 20 min (stop with roundbutton at any time).

    To answer your question: I am very happy with Greggs plan Slight smile

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    It should at least say that instructions for future runs will be more specific.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Same problem. I guess I just have to constantly stare at the watch for splits...

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Yeh I'm right there with you mate being frustrated with this. The rest of the program has all the steps built in, but this one is near on useless not helping to know when to walk and run, just after its told you previously it will help you.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to TomB

    Hi Folks,

    I have been using the Garmin Coach run walk plan for over two years.  I recently started over due to injury and Covid.  I agree with your concerns about not being able to run the intervals from my watch during a coached run assignment, but I have found that since I carry my phone with me when I run, I can just start an interval timer which I downloaded from the Google Play Store.  I start it when I start my run (after the warm up).  It does a great job of letting me know when to run and walk by giving four tones which I can hear over my music/podcast.  It also doesn't interfere with my heart rate and distance alerts from my Garmin which I also listen to through my phone to my Bluetooth headphones.

    Now for your stat folks (of which I am definitely one), the down side to doing this is that all of your stats for the run are based off of BOTH the running AND the walking (Ie pace per mile).  I am not sure if there is a way to go in and edit the stats to tag the run and walk portions (ie. every 2 minutes is a run and every 30 seconds is a walk), but I am sure somebody much smarter than me can provide guidance on that.

    Warmest regards, and happy running.

    Rob