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.
  • Hi Peter,

    I used your Race Pacer yesterday for the first time and have the same issue as gattosilvestro. Seems like turning off autolap is still the only option to get things working. Right? Is this issue still pending?

    Greetings, Renntier

  • it's still pending to look at this and it's not at top of my list (my to do list only seems to grow larger and larger, having many apps to maintain doesn't help :/ )

    you can race with auto lap on as long if you don't press the lap button within 30 seconds after the lap, but racing with auto lap turned of will be the easier option for now.

  • Hello

    does is possible to activate a second screeen, with 2 fields, with 2 specific fields: ETA (because is very very little dimension and when i run i cannot read it) and maybe Ahead/Perfect/behind field?

    thanks

  • The ETA is too wide to put into the narrow fields why it's not available there.

    My other app "hi vis pacer" may suit you better there you have a big field where you can put ETA + 2 smaller ones with data of your choice.

  • Back in this thread and since I'm not running with Stryd I was happy to find out that there is an (undocumented in the setup guide it seems?) option to display Power, that's great ! If Power Zones are configured I'm guessing the color of the top part of the field will change ?

    Reading recent messages it seems there's a bit of an issue with Autolap which I was planning to use for the first time on Sunday. So it works provided you don't press the Lap button to correct to a marker within 30 seconds. That's going to be a bit hard to time while running so I suppose I'll just rely on Stryd which is very accurate anyway and hope that the course has been correctly measured !

  • Hi Peter, 

    Will this data field still works with PacePro? maybe it's not a problem when using the PacePro with every KM lap pacing, but what about PacePro using the pacing guide according to elevation change? 

    I tried this PacePro with pacing guide according to elevation this morning. I notice that the lap still every 1km in the connect app. But I don't use peter's (race) in this run.

    For example: The PacePro suggest first 2.8K at 5:35/K. Will the peter's racer data field take the Pacepro notification at 2.8K as a correction lap to 3K? 

  • I don't know, but if PacePro doesn't create lap splits on the notification then it should work. Something to try on a training run.

  • Ran an HM today with auto-lap (since I use a calibrated Stryd now and it's very accurate) and can confirm that the correction worked when I used it at the 15k mark that I hit BEFORE the auto-lap kicked in. The power indication worked fine on the main screen but after settling in to my pace I switched to the Stryd Zones DF and monitored Average Power and 3s Power to avoid any "over/underpowering".