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.

Top Replies

All Replies

Mickelin01 over 7 years ago

Success!

I ran Paris on Sunday and it went just according to plan. I had set the target in the app at 3:55:00 and finished in 3:55:10. Spot on. I had auto lap on and also manually lapped each km. The difference was usually a couple of seconds at each marker. I primarily looked at the Ahead field, which initially kept increasing. Half way through the race, I was ahead by 3.50 minutes (or so I thought), but the next time I looked, I was just ahead by 30 sec. Analyzing the splits after the race, I can't see that I was ever ahead by more than 40 secs. Not sure what happened, maybe a major distance correction as I came out of the tunnel? I would like to create a graph to see exactly what was going on, but can' t figure out how to do it n Garmin Connect. How do you display the Ahead time?

Very impressed by the app, will use it again at the Stockholm Marathon in June.

Edit: to be clear, I used the data field, not the app

Mickelin01 over 7 years ago

Ahead track

I just re-read the first post and realize that recording of the ahead track is not available in the data field version on my F3 HR. Will try the app version in my next race.

peterdedecker over 7 years ago

Indeed high memory devices also have the function available in data field modus, but on the F3 due to the memory limitations I couldn't enable it in data field modus. A resolution is indeed to use the app version. Additionaly in the settings don't forget to indicate that you want to record the ahead time to the FIT file.

Something which currently is not available in the app modus is the ability to auto lap, but I'm thinking of adding that functionality.

To analyse the ahead time afterwards personally I use Sporttracks in combination with the plugins Garmin Fit Devices and Custom Data Tracks (you can see how this looks like on page 5 of this thread).

You can also analyse it in Garmin Connect. As an example this is my activity from the past weekend (I had to pace Rotterdam in 4:45) https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1667819333
To view the ahead time in detail you can click on the arrows. (When maximizing you need to overlay it with something else, eg elevation, to make it visible on Connect).

A vertical drop in ahead time shows the moment when I did a distance correction.

webvan over 7 years ago

Looks like the activity is private ?

It's nice to have "auto-lap" available when you're training but during a race it sort of defeats the purpose to have it on since you won't be able to get a proper estimate of your actual Time Ahead/Behind by lapping at each marker. That wouldn't explain the jump from 3:50 to 30 though except if you managed to confuse the calculations by pressing multiple times accidentally but that should be visible on GC.

peterdedecker over 7 years ago

no the activity is public

webvan over 7 years ago

It's working now. I'm surprised by the rather large corrections, sometimes 30 seconds ?

peterdedecker over 7 years ago

When I'm close to the distance-board I usually don't press the button to adjust the distance, when it starts to differ a bit I do press the lap button.
Of course the slower you run the longer it takes for you to travel a certain distance, for example in the case of Rotterdam I had to run a 6:45min/km pace (=10:51min/mile pace). At that pace adjusting 50 meters means losing 20 seconds...

Mickelin01 over 7 years ago

Autolap

I agree that using Autolap during a race is probably not a good idea, at least not if you plan to lap manually as well, as I did. It just creates a large number of 2-3 second correction laps that makes it hard to analyze in GC afterwards. The only reason I had it on was that this was my first race with my new F3 HR and I wanted to get a sense for how accurate the GPS is. Next race I will leave the Autolap off, or use the app version.

As a side note, the final distance on the watch was 42,86 km whereas when I load the fit-file in Strava, it shows 43,2 km. Isn't that a bit odd? Sure, I didn't follow the blue line exactly, but I hardly ran an extra km. I had Glonass on and 1s tracking. Sorry, drifted off topic a bit.

rbnd over 7 years ago

Questions re miles

Your datafield looks very helpful. I just started toying with it today but have a question regarding how to properly set it for miles rather than kilometers. I took it for a short run on an F5. I set the lap distance to 1609 and the target finish time. The initial data screen showed the target pace in minutes/K (which was correct for the entered finish time). During the run, however, that number was used as the minuntes/mile pace.

I don't recall the exact numbers now, but as an example, if I input a custom distance of 5 miles and a target finish time of 40 minutes, the initial data screen shows a target pace of 4:58, which is understandable (4:58/K is approximately 8:00/mile). But during the run, the data field showed me as being behind schedule for the entire run, even though I was running under 8:00 per mile from the beginning. At the end of the run, I was behind by nearly 16 minutes, suggesting that the average pace had converted to 4:58/mile (roughly 25 minutes total time), rather than 4:58/K (40 minutes total).

It is probably user error, so what is the correct process for setting up a run calculated in miles? (Running 5 minute miles or learning to use kilometers is simply too much to ask :rolleyes:)

Thanks!

peterdedecker over 7 years ago

@Mickelin01 When I developed the field I was thinking the same about disabling autolapping and initially I made it a recommendation to turn it off. Practice learns me however that during races I don't want to bother myself by pressing the lap button at each marker. Especially when I'm pacing big groups I have a lot of things on my head: I have to look at my followers to keep the group tight, I'm giving instructions all the time, I have to find a path through the runners ahead of me, I have to keep a constant pace, etc... so when I can lighten my task not having to press buttons when not necesary it helps to ease my mind. Also when racing for a best time for myself I appreciate the auto-lapping as not all races have board markers every kilometer.
But I agree that when you have a race with board markers every kilometer and you can keep yourself focussed to manual lap that it will deliver you with the nicest analysis afterwards.

@rbnd I just tried it and it looks like you found two(!) bugs, the startup screen is supposed to indicate the target time instead of the target pace like it does now on your fenix5, also the perfect pace should not be calculated towards min/km when you're distance is in miles of course. I'll have a look when I'm home after the weekend to fix it.

For reference this is how to input the settings (you probably did this right):

This is how it should look (on a fr735xt it's ok, on a fenix5 like yours not, I'll have a look to fix it)