Workout Data Screen

Although I've had Garmin watches for years, I've never before uploaded to the watch a workout that I created on Garmin Connect. This week I tried this for a 800m repeat workout, and I pre-programmed in a particular pace that I wanted to hit for the intervals. For the most part it worked well, but the watch displayed a data screen for the workout that I wasn't familiar with, and I wasn't 100% sure what everything meant. So I wanted to ask here to make sure I understood some of the key elements, particularly which parts are instant vs average paces.

Colored bar across top of screen with a moving arrow: At the very top of the screen there was a bar with green in the middle and red on both sides. Overlaying the bar was an arrow that jumped between the red and green spaces. I'm assuming this is a measure of instant pace, with green representing the pre-programmed pace target range and red being anything faster or slower than that range?
Big pace number: The biggest data field on the screen was pace. I'm assuming this is average pace for the entire interval? Meaning early on during the 800m interval it's a lot more variable, and by the end of the 800 it reflects the average pace for the entire 800.
Target pace achieved message: When I hit the target pace, I'd get a full screen message saying that I was within the target pace range. I think this is for the average pace, but I wasn't sure?
Pace warnings: At various times in the 800s I would get a full screen image with a stop watch icon and a numerical pace. I think this is an alert about the instant pace being too fast or too slow?

Just wanted to try to figure out which things were instant vs average pace. I don't think the manual covers this very well, but please point me in right direction if I just missed it.

0 runningfan97 over 8 years ago

Workouts and this screen in particular are badly documented so I can only guess from my experiences. I asked Garmin support a while ago some similar questions and the answers were, well, nothing.

So I assume:

1) Instant pace plays no role in workouts, it is a somehow n-seconds-average pace where I would say n = 10 seconds or something. Might be even dependent on the length of the interval, but this is just pure guessing
2) The arrow displays this n-seconds-average pace
3) The big pace number is the pace for the entire interval
4) pace warnings and pace confirmation are based on n-seconds-average pace

Would be really fine if Garmin could explain this.

0 frankenstein777_ over 7 years ago

*BUMP*
I too am wondering about this too. I bought a Fenix 5 a few days ago and have run two workouts on it with different pace range targets for different segments. I agree with fischest's explanations as they seem the most logical. It's a shame that there is absolutely no explanation of this screen in the documentation - why the hell have a feature and not explain what it means?

If anyone from Garmin reads this I think a reply is warranted, as I paid a lot of money for this new toy

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

I have had my Garmin for about two weeks now, I have done two runs where I also used the workout function as a guide with my pace per interval. This worked very well for me as I have compartment syndrome and have to stretch in between my run.

However I have tried creating a workout on Garmin Connect for the Duathlon activity, but it does not seem to show any of the workout categories when you try and select the workout on the watch face in the activity.

I then found a way to save the workout to my calendar and got to select the workout that way through the Duathlon activity. The workout worked perfectly for my first stage which was the bike, but when I pushed the lap button to go into the transition stage the workout stopped and only the normal Duathlon activity continued which means that no guide or pace alerts came up during my run.

Does anyone know how to better use the workout function in the Duathlon or Triathlon activities?

I have also asked Garmin about this with no response.

0 francois_delorme over 7 years ago

In the same vein, is there a way to customize the fields produced during a workout? I find the font too small during very intense workouts and I would rather have 1) single field and 2) each single field scrolling sequentially.

0 chunkywizard over 7 years ago

When in a workout you can just scroll to your normal data screens. So I set up a profile called workout or intervals or something like that and put in the data screens you would like to see and use them instead.

0 runningfan97 over 7 years ago

In the same vein, is there a way to customize the fields produced during a workout?

The extra screen? No.

0 francois_delorme over 7 years ago

Chunkywizard: Do you mean this? http://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/fenix5/EN-US/GUID-7B574BD8-05BB-410D-9A2A-7646D0B037B6.html

0 chunkywizard over 7 years ago

Yep, exactly. Copy run for example and name it 'intervals' and then customise the screens as you want them. I have 1 data field - lap pace as my main one and then time and distance on another, and that's it.

0 francois_delorme over 7 years ago

Yep, exactly. Copy run for example and name it 'intervals' and then customise the screens as you want them. I have 1 data field - lap pace as my main one and then time and distance on another, and that's it.

Thanks a lot!

0 francois_delorme over 7 years ago

If I set "lap time" as a single field for my new activity, is it going to give me the elapsed time for each step of my workout as it goes through the entire workout? I want to be able to follow the progress of my workout using a single datascreen (even if it means scrolling through different single datascreen- I want to look at BIG fonts on every datascreen featuring only one datafield)