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

gattosilvestro over 5 years ago

I don't see issues in your description, normally it should indeed correct the distance you see in the screen to 1 for your 2nd lap push. Note that the distance only corrects in Peter's (race) pacer and not on other screens. The recorded distance will still be 1.15....

Does the distance correct correctly when you disable autolap?

The issue is that I see 1.15 in field "dist" in "Peter's race pacer" data field, no correction. Tomorrow I'll do some other test including disabling autolap

gattosilvestro over 5 years ago

I don't see issues in your description, normally it should indeed correct the distance you see in the screen to 1 for your 2nd lap push. Note that the distance only corrects in Peter's (race) pacer and not on other screens. The recorded distance will still be 1.15....

Does the distance correct correctly when you disable autolap?

Peter, I'm a little confused...
With autolap set to OFF your data field works very well. When I press lap button distance will correct and also ahead/behind time.
With autolap set to ON (and obviously to the same distance of your data field settings, 1 lap = 1000 meters) it seems that sometimes works fine and sometimes nothing happens when I press lap button. for example I have pressed lap button after 2.18 km and distance in your data filed has not corrected to 2, it remained at 2.18. Then I tried it again when distance was 6.75 and it has been corrected to 7 km.
I will make some other test in next days and I'll let you know

peterdedecker over 5 years ago

It could be that the cancel adjustment gets in the way if you do the lap push within the cancel adjustment timeframe (I think it was 30 seconds), but normally that cancel should be ignored if the previous lap push was an auto lap push (lap size = 1000, auto-lap-size = 1k)

gattosilvestro over 5 years ago

It could be that the cancel adjustment gets in the way if you do the lap push within the cancel adjustment timeframe (I think it was 30 seconds), but normally that cancel should be ignored if the previous lap push was an auto lap push (lap size = 1000, auto-lap-size = 1k)

I have a marathon next Sunday, not a good time to do some debugging test :-)
Anyway I'll let you know when I have further test

gattosilvestro over 5 years ago

It could be that the cancel adjustment gets in the way if you do the lap push within the cancel adjustment timeframe (I think it was 30 seconds), but normally that cancel should be ignored if the previous lap push was an auto lap push (lap size = 1000, auto-lap-size = 1k)

Hi Peter,
today I have made a consistent test and I think you have understand the issue.

with autolap set to OFF: everything is ok

with autolap set to ON:
1) if I press manual lap BEFORE autolap (i.e 1.88 or 2.93 km) it will adjust correctly the distance
2) if I press manual lap AFTER autolap WAITING AT LEAST 30 seconds (i.e 3.21 or 4.19) it will adjust correctly the distance
3) if I press manual lap AFTER autolap WAITING LESS THAN 30 seconds (i.e 5.06) it will NOT adjust correctly the distance. So it seems that pressing lap button was interpretated as a cancel adjustement of last autolap but I know it should not do that

peterdedecker over 5 years ago

I've added it to my to do to look into the issue, I'd suggest to turn auto lap off for now.

A.E... over 5 years ago

I love the App and at the last Marathon the "take back"-function helped me a lot. 4 KM-Markers (KM 31-34) were 300m wrong (I was sure because the time didn't also match and km 35 was right again), so I only pushed the lap-button again and the distance was correct again.

I have a question: I have an upcoming race with 508m for the first lap then 48 laps with 868.5m. Any idea how to use the race pacer for this event?

peterdedecker over 5 years ago in reply to A.E...

this scenario is not supported by Peter's (Race) Pacer.

diki. over 5 years ago

Hi Peter,

Is it possible to provide option to get the lap correction off?

When I do manual interval plus easy run (for example 10x of 0.5K and 60 seconds recovery between with manually pressing lap button), I want to set the overall target distance and time. With the lap correction, it's not possible to use this race data field.

Currently I use the built-in virtual pacer for such interval. But it provides datas in two field, not in one as I want.

peterdedecker over 5 years ago in reply to diki.

I'm not sure, the lap correction is a pretty essential part of the functionality for the Race Pacer.
Have you considered using All In One instead for intervals? (you can create an extra Run activity profile by copying it to a new activity profile and eg name it Interval Running)