Data Field: Peter's (Race) Pacer

This is the support Thread for the Data Field Peter's (Race) Pacer.

Setup Guide with pictures: http://starttorun.info/peters-race-pacer/

Download
https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/23ea0301-30c6-4c33-b4ef-63e2b5394e76

Summary
Peter's (Race) Pacer resolves 2 issues for me when I'm running a race:
  • Before the race starts I want to see the time of the day (How long till the race starts?)
  • I often pace marathons and it used to be doing mental math all the way, now this is no longer necessary as I can fully depend on the average pace/speed, because this data field allows to correct the distance at the kilometer / mile marker by simply pressing the LAP button
While the data field's primary intent is to race races, you can also use it to run laps around the track, just set the lap distance to 400 meters and press the lap button as you cross the line!...

Intro
In it's full glory this data field uses about 24kb which is too much to run on the older devices. To enable using the data field on older connect IQ devices I've stripped some functionality from these older watches in order to let them operate within the 16kb limit that Connect IQ 1.x allows. (Items marked with (*ciQ2) are only available on the high memory watches (high memory watches are FR735xt, fenix chronos & fenix5 variants))

The data field is fully functional as is, yet donations are encouraged on the watch by a small encouragement text.

Usage
Before starting the race an initial data screen is shown (* cIQ2), this screen shows you the following data
  • Time of the day
  • Current heart rate (+ zone indication)
  • Configured Settings Summary (Change these settings in Garmin Express or in the Garmin Connect Android App)
  • Battery Percentage Remaining
  • Gps Signal Strength Indication
After pressing the START button the race timer will start and a new data screen will be shown, this data screen will show you the following information:
  • top middle configurable field: current heart rate / average pace / average speed / perfect pace / perfect speed (*)
  • row 1 left configurable field: average pace / average speed / current heart rate / perfect pace / perfect speed
  • row 1 middle configurable field: speed, smooth speed (5s average), smooth speed (10s average), pace, smooth pace (5s average), smooth pace (10s average)
  • time ahead / behind
  • race timer
  • (adjusted) distance covered (see adjusting distance explanation below)
  • estimated time of arrival
After Activity in Garmin Connect (*cIQ2)
  • When you opt to record the ahead Time to the FIT track an extra graphic is shown in Garmin Connect
Perfect Pace / Perfect Speed
This field recalculates as you run and gives you the pace you need to run to arrive at the finish with 0 seconds behind / ahead (eg if you run a 10k race and want to arrive in 1 hour (avg pace=6:00min/km), currently you're at the 7k point in 41:30, which means you're 30 seconds ahead, the perfect pace will thus show the value 6:10 (min/km) as you can run the next 3k 10 seconds slower to still get in time at the finish line)

Distance Adjustment
When you press the LAP button the on screen distance is adjusted to the nearest LAP SIZE (eg 5.31k will be adjusted to 5k if the lap size is 1000 meters).
When you press the LAP button by mistake you have 30 seconds to undo the last correction (just press the LAP button again)

When you miss a mile/kilometer marker, don't worry DO NOT PRESS THE LAP button and wait for the next kilometer/mile marker and press the LAP button there.

Adjusting the distance has no influence on the recorded distance (In Garmin Connect when you come back home you will see the real recorded GPS distance, yet of course you will be able to determine based on the lap marker postions where the LAP markings really were)...

Recommendations
  • Train with the data field before you race with it so you're used to the layout!
  • Have a backup second datascreen layout, in case the field crashes you can switch to the native data screen layout
  • If you have a Connect IQ 1.x device consider the application option to enjoy all features of Peter's (Race) Pacer: https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/ea97af1f-1e5d-4541-820c-9bd994080d4
Tested on real FR735XT, all other devices were tested in the simulator.
  • Gave it a try on an F5 today and it works well. Here's a screenshot :



    A few comments :
    - The fonts are a bit "wide" so HR and Pace values look a bit "merged"
    - I had the flexible distance selected and it went from 5k to 10k and then to 10 miles, could it stay in metric and go to 15k then 20k, HM, M ?
  • Ah a lucky Fenix 5 owner :)

    Which fenix 5 do you have as I had to define a specific layout for the 3 types (the Fenix 5s, Fenix 5 regular, Fenix 5x all have their specific code branch in my app...)
    The problem with using the built-in fonts is that the next font is a lot smaller, but I suppose I could take a few pixels away from the AHEAD field as that seems a bit wide.

    I had the flexible distance selected and it went from 5k to 10k and then to 10 miles, could it stay in metric and go to 15k then 20k, HM, M ?

    I'll consider it, but I'm not sure about this one as my idea for the flexible option was to have the main race distances defined in there and although I've done 15k and 20k races before, they're not all that popular (or common) over where I'm living...
    The flexible distances defined now are: 5k, 10k, 10mile, half marathon, marathon, 100k
  • It's the Fenix 5, yes it seems Garmin have added some complexity by changing the resolution and the fonts as a result. If not all the F3 apps would be compatible out of the box I suppose. On the + side that makes the fields a lot more legible than on the FR235. Yes maybe resizing the "Ahead" field might be enough as you shouldn't need more than 3 digits in there and if there are you'll probably have other things to worry about ;-)
  • I like the fonts on the f5 more than the f3, but as Peter said, they are different in height and difference in the range of heights.
    The interesting one is the Fenix Chronos, in that the production FW today uses f3 like fonts, but there are public betas right now (soon to be production) which is really the f5s FW (and those fonts). There's a blog post about this from march 15th.

    https://developer.garmin.com/blog/category/connect-iq-sdk/
  • @webvan: in my dev version I've got the layout adjusted for fenix 5 (and 5x) to give some more space to the middle field, but thought I meanwhile shuffle the code a bit to do some cleanup. The cleanup turned out to be a bigger than I expected (isn't it always so :)), so it set me a back a few days planning wise. Fix expected somewhere by the end of the week in the "release" version.

    ------------------

    Meanwhile I thought it would be nice to show how to do post-analysis of a race with the Peter's (Race) Peter app.

    Last sunday I paced a half marathon where the kilometers were apparently (way) too long (the race had limited signage, no mile signage between 5k and 14k). Turned out I was 380 meters ahead on my GPS at the 14k point, but due to Peter's (Race) Pacer app I had to do no mental math to adjust my pace. I had to up my pace but got to the finish line just in time.

    Afterwards you can see during the whole race how much time you had ahead or were behind in the Ahead Time IQ graphic, the manual lap in combination with the drops indicate a distance correction. Visually it looks like this:
  • Cool analysis and well done on the pacing in spite of the "environment"! What software is that graph from?

    Will be sure to give the new version a try when it's ready!
  • The image above was a screen-grab from SportTracks 3 (Desktop Version) with the plugins Garmin Fit Devices and Custom Data Tracks installed.

    But you can use any software that's capable of reading in fit files to consult the ahead time track and of course you can also consult it on the Garmin Connect website, as an example this is how it looks like on Garmin Connect (I overlayed the graph here with the run cadence):
  • Released version 3.2:
    • added support for FR935
    • gave 10 extra pixels to middle field on Fenix5 and Fenix5x
    • cleaned up code
  • Donation made. Looking forward to trying it for real in Paris Marathon next Sunday.
  • Looking forward to trying it for real in Paris Marathon next Sunday.

    Enjoy Paris, let me know how it went. Have a good race!