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

peterdedecker over 6 years ago

I'll consider it. When I add this functionality it I will probably do it as an addon data field that you'll have to put on a second screen (as I'm flirting with the memory limit now, also in "high" memory watches).

dekritischelezer over 6 years ago

Hi Peter,
is this the same functionality as Race Screen? Perhaps you are even the same person? One thing that bothers me using the latter, is that on Strava, I get extra laps for each correction I make with the lap button. Does that happen in your Pacer as well, or do real laps remain untouched?

peterdedecker over 6 years ago

No Race Screen is an app created by another author. The lap correction feature works similar in that app. Whenever the lap button is pushed a lap is created by the Garmin software, this is something which Connect IQ data fields can not influence unfortunately. Within Connect Iq full apps (which are called applications to make it confusing) the Connect IQ author has a bit more control, but still can not delete any previously created laps or insert laps at a timing which is not the current time, which is what you would want to do when you make a correction or uncorrection, so even in full apps there are restrictions over which the connect iq author has no control. Note that the distance recorded will always be the GPS distance and not the adjusted distance as shown during race.

So long story short, whenever you press the lap button or whenever the automatic lap fires there will be a lap split marker.

I think in Peter's (Race) Pacer having the extra lap marker is actually an extra value as it helps with the analysis of the ahead/behind time graph especially if you're restrict to standard Garmin Connect (Example: Sporttracks graph: https://forums.garmin.com/forum/developers/connect-iq/connect-iq-showcase/149939-data-field-peter-s-race-pacer?p=1095790#post1095790 Garmin Connect Graph: https://forums.garmin.com/forum/developers/connect-iq/connect-iq-showcase/149939-data-field-peter-s-race-pacer?p=1096815#post1096815 )

And finally to answer your question: if you don't want short correction laps it's easy to avoid them, turn off the autolap function and manually press the lap button at each mile/kilometer marker.

dekritischelezer over 6 years ago

Thanks for the quick reply. Sorry to hear there is no way to set the split marker differently. I suppose triggering your split just in the app by using a different button (like the light button) is no option? In any case, you're right disabling autolaps is a way around this. I just don't see me thinking about this 42 times this sunday :D

webvan over 6 years ago

Non issue as far as I'm concerned as I've never seen the point of using Autolap during a race (I suppose it would be different if you only had markers every 5 km but I've never seen such a race) and even less so with a great tool like PRP that recalculates your Time Ahead/Behind on the fly.

Having said that it would be nice to have a little "heads up" that a marker is coming with a vibration maybe 100 meters before the expected marker (like in one of the first pacing apps, called Gold Race or something like that) hence my previous suggestions ;-)

chrisC92 over 6 years ago

After my marathon using forerunner 935 and saving ahead time the synchronization is taking long time and after the end the activity doesn’t appear in Garmin .
I have also tried to manually upload the fit file into strava it says that the "The upload appears to be malformed and we are unable to process it".

Into garmin connect same problem : an error occur during file import.
I tested yetserday but on a smaller test session and everything was automatically synchronised on garmin and strava.

peterdedecker over 6 years ago

As developers we don't have the possibility to purposely corrupt fit files, we just say which data we want to have recorded and the underlying garmin eco system takes care of the actual recording so if the fit file is corrupted it's more something to report towards Garmin Support...

This doesn't mean your corrupt fit file can not be fixed. There's a tool that's called Fit File Repair that can fix broken fit files, just create a thread like this person did https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into...air-a-fit-file and someone will fix the file for you (I haven't purchased the fit file repair tool so I can't do the fix for you)

As to taking a long time to upload: To limit the size of future recordings you can use smart recording instead of one second recording.

chrisC92 over 6 years ago

As developers we don't have the possibility to purposely corrupt fit files, we just say which data we want to have recorded and the underlying garmin eco system takes care of the actual recording so if the fit file is corrupted it's more something to report towards Garmin Support...

Thanks I have submitted my fit file in the garmin discussion.

Just for my knowledge, you just add developer field "ahead time" in the fit file (In fitfilerepairinfo ahead time is always to 0) and you don't record the corrected displayed distance when the lap is pressed ?

I made further researchs with fitSDK on my file and it reported the following corruption issue :
Caused by: com.garmin.fit.FitRuntimeException: FIT decode error: Endian 35 not supported. Error at byte: 298252

peterdedecker over 6 years ago

no when you select the option to record ahead time, it records the ahead time every second, there are a few examples in this thread of how that looks, eg here: https://forums.garmin.com/forum/developers/connect-iq/connect-iq-showcase/149939-data-field-peter-s-race-pacer?p=1146302#post1146302

when you select the option to not record ahead time there's no additional fields in the fit file.

Guillaume over 6 years ago

Hello Peter,
First of all, thank you for this great and usefull datafield !! it works fine on my Fenix 5x.
I saw that there is a new graph on Garmin connect with the "ahead time", very usefull !!
However, on Garmin connect mobile (with Samsung Galaxy S8), the graph doesn't seem to be correct.
You can find enclosed the 2 screenshots
Thanks a lot

Guillaume