Workouts/Intervals and viewing their metrics individually

I was just thinking about this after posting...  does the workout/interval show up as a Lap?

El_Dorado_Mike said:

f I enable a workout somewhere or sometime into a Ride i.e. Activity, am I able to differentiate and make separate the Workout from the entire "Activity" when viewing it's metrics after saving the overall "Activity"?

Not directly, but there is a bit clumsy workaround - trimming the activity to the desired section. The stats then show only the data from the selected part. And since the trimming is reversible, you can repeat it as many times, and with as many different sections, as you want.

A much better solution is using the Multisport feature. For example starting first your warm-up, then stopping it and using the function "Change Sport" (you can select the same one as you used for the warm-up). This starts a new "leg" of the Multisport activity and start the workout. The leg comes with its own stats, while keeping all together under the umbrella of the common Multisport activity. You can add as many legs as you need. The function "Change Sport" is available in the Pause menu of certain models, and on others you have to assign a hot key for calling it. The watch has to support the Multisport feature (many low-end models usually do not have it).

Otherwise, Workouts and Intervals usually come out as several laps, not just a single one.

I'll answer from the perspective of running since that's what I know, but it should be similar for cycling.

TL;DR if you create a workout with open-ended warmup and cooldown, then you can use the lap/interval type filter after the fact to see your stats just for the "workout" (minus rest and recovery periods). See below.

Another alternative would be to just split each ride into 3 sections (pre-workout, workout, post-workout) and save each one as a different activity. (That's probably the simplest solution, tbh.)

El_Dorado_Mike said:

I was just thinking about this after posting...  does the workout/interval show up as a Lap?

As Trux said, it's multiple laps, but Connect presents each workout step / interval as an "interval" which is kinda like a grouping/classification of laps.

You can use this to your advantage by classifying the pre-workout part of your ride as "warm up", the work intervals as "Bike", the rest/recovery intervals as "Rest/Recovery", and the post-workout part as "cool down". Then you can filter by any of those interval types to see only the applicable stats (including totals and averages.) So you could see the stats for the workout (sans rest/recovery) by selecting the Bike interval type.

More on that below.

El_Dorado_Mike said:

I think I finally understand how to configure, start and stop  both workouts and intervals during at Activity.  But where I'm confused is with the term "Activity".  If I enable a workout somewhere or sometime into a Ride i.e. Activity, am I able to differentiate and make separate the Workout from the entire "Activity" when viewing it's metrics after saving the overall "Activity"? 

- An activity (e.g. run or ride) consists of everything that happens between the first time you press the START button (which starts the timer) and the last time you stop the timer (also by pressing START) (followed by selecting Save from pause menu). For example:

  1) Using my Forerunner watch, I select the Run activity and wait for a GPS lock

  2) I press START which starts the timer and also causes the watch to track accumulated distance and other metrics

  3) I run for 30 minutes

  4) I press START to pause the timer and stand around for 5 minutes

  5) I press START to resume the timer and run for 35 more minutes

  6) I press START to pause the timer, and select Save from the pause menu, which ends the activity

The activity is comprised of everything from 1 to 6. The total recorded activity time will be 65 minutes, and the elapsed time will be 70 minutes.

- You can't select/start a workout after you've started an activity. Notice that after you start the activity timer, the Training menu is no longer available.You can continue an activity after the current workout has ended, though. This also means you can't have multiple workouts/intervals within a single activity.

- When you select a workout (or interval) before starting an activity, what ends up happening is that your activity laps will become grouped/classified as "intervals" (each interval represents a workout "step" or a work/recovery interval), which actually gives you an opportunity to view your "workout stats" without using trimming or multisport. This is possible because there are different kinds of "intervals" (as in lap categorizations), such as "warm up", "run/bike", "recover", "rest" and "cool down"

  - Again using running as an example, suppose I go for 5k run, with 1k auto-laps and no workout/interval selected. Naturally, once my activity is saved, I will have 1 lap for each k and I can look at average pace for each lap or for the entire activity (all laps)

Garmin Connect will show me a lap list which looks like this:

Lap 1 (individual lap stats: averages and totals): 1k ...
Lap 2: 1k ...
Lap 3: 1k ...
Lap 4: 1k ...
Lap 5: 1k ...
Summary: (all lap stats: averages and totals)

  - Now suppose I create a running workout which looks like this:

     - Warm up until lap press (for an indefinite time/distance)

     - Run 2k

     - Rest for 2 minutes

     - 3 x (run 800m, rest for 90s)

     - Run 2k

     - Cool down until lap press (for an indefinite time/distance

 - This time before I start the Run activity, I select the workout and I make sure 1k auto-laps are still selected (just for illustrative purposes.)

 - During my workout, I warm up for 3k and cooldown for 3k.

 - The way laps work within a workout is that you can't take manual laps (pressing Lap ends the current step), but any interval which is longer than your auto-lap distance will be divided into auto laps. So in this case, every interval that's longer than 1k becomes multiple laps. Every interval that's 1k or shorter remains a single lap

 - Now when my activity is done, Garmin Connect shows me *intervals* (groupings of laps which can be expanded into individual laps)

Interval: 3k | (interval totals and averages, which aggregates laps 1-3)
  Lap 1: warmup | 1k (lap totals and averages)
  Lap 2: warmup | 1k
  Lap 3: warmup | 1k
Interval: 2k+ | (aggregates laps 4-6)
  Lap 4: run | 1k
  Lap 5: run | 1k
  Lap 6: rest | 2 minutes
  ...

Where this becomes powerful is that you can filter this list by workout step type. So I can choose to view only the run ("work") intervals which would exclude warm up, cool down, rest and recovery. That way I can see my average pace for the entire "work" part of the workout.

So to accomplish what you want, you could create a Bike workout which looks like this:

Warmup (until lap press)

[actual workout with Bike and Rest/Recovery steps]

Cooldown (until lap press)

Before you start your Bike activity, select the workout. Start your Bike activity, do your pre-workout leg and whatever actual warm up you need to do, then press Lap. Do the workout, then use the Cooldown phase for the rest of your bike activity. After the fact, you can look at your activity in Garmin Connect and filter the Interval list by Bike, to see your stats for the "work" intervals.

Some downsides:

- Perhaps a bit complicated

- People on strava still see your average pace for the entire activity. Strava also only shows laps and not intervals (lap groupings/step classifications)

- You lose the ability to take manual laps

- Filtering stats by interval type is temporary and needs to be done every time

- You can't see aggregate stats for multiple interval types (other than "All"), so you wouldn't be able to exclude just "warmup" and "cooldown".

Example of what I'm talking about with running (the values in the summary line change depending on what interval/step type is selected):

In addition to the lap/interval classifications that happen when you select a programmed workout / interval before starting an activity, you can also (re)classify laps/intervals after the fact by selecting Edit Intervals in Connect. This allows you to select an interval type for each individual lap in your activity. (Consecutive laps with the same interval type are grouped together, unless all laps are Run/Bike.)

Garmin also has automatic interval categorization for running activities, which happens when you take manual laps and run what looks like intervals (e.g. alternating fast/slow laps).

Thank you everyone!!!

El_Dorado_Mike said:

... what will happen if I end my workout (not Activity) and press the lap button during the cooldown phase?  How does that effect the overall activity?  Can I end the workout by pressing the lap button (cool-down) as mentioned above and continue with my "activity"?

I just tried this with a Run workout that has Cooldown (until lap press) as the final step. After I pressed Lap to "end" the cooldown phase, the watch indicated that I was still in cooldown but I was able to take manual laps (and see the normal lap notification screen), which wouldn't be possible normally. Looking at the workout after the fact, all the subsequent laps were included in the Cooldown interval.

I also tried creating a workout with no cooldown step (just warmup and run). What happens here is that anything after the workout completes becomes part of the run interval.

For workouts which have a finite cooldown step (i.e. bounded by time or distance), the activity definitely keeps going afterwards. Based on the previous test, I would assume that anything after the workout ends becomes part of the cooldown interval.

TL;DR

- Yes, the activity keeps going after the workout ends. (People have actually complained about this, as in the past, the activity would stop when the workout ends.)

- Any laps after the workout ends become part of the final interval (regardless of what type of interval it is)

- After the workout is over, it becomes possible to take manual laps again

A couple of other notes:

- During a workout, your normal lap notification settings do not apply. The "workout auto-lap notification" always shows the same data (Lap time and interval time IIRC)

- If you go for a run and your watch auto-categorizes your laps into intervals, you may want to undo this (e.g. for the sake of exporting your laps as CSV or something). If you subsequently select Edit Intervals in Connect, it will appear as though all intervals are "Run" (even if the Intervals tab says differently). The workaround here is to change any single lap to something else (like "Rest"), change it back to "Run" and save your changes. You should now have a single "interval" which contains all your laps

WillNorthYork said:

- You can't see aggregate stats for multiple interval types (other than "All"), so you wouldn't be able to exclude just "warmup" and "cooldown".

I am able to "Export Splits to CSV" from my biking's activity page.  From there I can manipulate the excel file to my liking.  BTW, If I expand everything from the activity page (intervals) I can export the additional lap(s) info that I recorded after my workout was completed.

This is all pretty cool and you guys have helped me make a huge jump in my understanding of how to use this think including helping me with my training!

El_Dorado_Mike said:

You can't see aggregate stats for multiple interval types (other than "All"), so you wouldn't be able to exclude just "warmup" and "cooldown".

As I suggested in my first post, you can achieve it by using the Multisport / Change Sport feature:

1. First leg: warm up 
2. Second leg: workout
3. Third leg: cool down

You will then have separate cumulative stats for each of the leg (regardless how many laps they include), and you will have an aggregate statistics for the entire run as well. Without the need to edit anything manually.

Of course, you'd need a device supporting that option. For example I am not sure Edge computers have this option. Most multisport and outdoor watches do support it, though.

Multisport isn't a bad solution, but I'll just point out:

- Strava will show each leg as a completely separate activity

- The amount of aggregate data will be extremely limited in Connect (if it matters.) It seems that in the app you just get distance, time and calories, while the website has the same information plus speed and charts for elevation, HR and temperature.

If you were going to split up a run or a ride into multiple activities in the first place, then making each activity a leg of a multisport activity can't hurt (I think)

What I personally do for group running workouts is record the warmup, workout, and cooldown as 3 separate activities (no multisport), and only share the workout publicly on Strava. Others will just record the whole thing as a single activity, which is also valid. That's what I usually do for non-group workouts. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter that much imo.