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Daily Suggestions / Do they 'work' ?

3673816
over 2 years ago

I'm in the middle of a training plan for an October marathon, adapted as it happens from a +Garmin+ Intermediate Marathon plan, that I've adapted to Running Power based zones.

I've got a 3h10m long run this Sunday and next, then those long runs start to reduce over the final 3 or 4 weeks. All is going well.

I have my race in the Race Calendar as the Primary Race, and have been glancing occasionally at the Suggested Workouts, considering whether to use the adaptive workout schedule on the Watch for a future marathon or not.

BUT - it seems it would either leave me ludicrously underprepared.

The Plan Overview on the watch seems to read right, its talking about being in a build phase until next week, before a Peak Phase and then a taper...but if I look at the individual workouts, its got tomorrow as a "long run" of just 1hr11mins, Monday/Tuesday have 42mins base runs (that look pretty easy), and a 30min recovery run on Wednesday before a 42min Threshold on Thursday, rest on Friday.

I don't think I've noticed it recommending a long run beyond 2hrs, the weekly load seems far far reduced compared to the regular Garmin training plans.

My question is - is this because the Watch is seeing and reacting to 'something', and I'd pop out in October and knock out a good marathon time if I followed them - or are the suggested plans just not really working for me? Has anyone actually used the Suggested Workouts for race prep and seen good results?


(its also predicting me a time 25mins faster than my target, and a full 20mins faster than my PB - which is kind of ridiculous given I'd have to beat my half marathon PB twice in a row by some minutes to achieve that!)


I guess what I should maybe do, once this marathon is out of the way, is follow the suggestions for a shorter distance target race.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    You can take a look on my journey...i'm not an expert to give any real opinion but at least you can see the list of workouts done. 

    forums.garmin.com/.../general-daily-suggestion-and-training-readiness

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Mladen T

    That was with your half race added as primary race, so the suggestions were built specifically for that half, rather than just generic background fitness suggestions?

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 3673816

    Yep, that's correct. In the second half of the next week, i should start with the Taper phase.

    Not sure how much the target is affecting the workouts as i'm within the target for a while already but i don't see any decrease of intensity or the length of workouts.

    Generally, i would say that also the previous "daily suggestions" were working pretty well as the increase in load looks fair enough(started to follow them end of April/beginning of May and continued with the race plan when it became available during the first alphas).

    If you have any other questions let me know.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    If you have a race plan, the workout suggestions are built for this race (the plan includes plan phases like base, build, peak and race). If you don't have a race plan, the workout suggestions are generic, to give you a balanced workout (anaerobic, high aerobic, low aerobic).

    Garmin confirmed that the workout targets (pace, power) are based on a % of your VO2 Max. I will guess that the workout design (duration, intervals, repetition) are based primarily on the target workout benefit.

    Since your race prediction is higher than what you know you can do, it means the watch is overestimating your VO2 Max. This can be because of a lack of balance in your training (most likely not enough high intensity workouts), or because core data like HR Max, weight or age is off.

    In my case, I had to tinker with HR max a bit until my pace targets were aligned with my FTP % zones, and achievable.

    I have not been using running suggestions for the last 2 months though, as I recently focused on indoor biking for training.  Unfortunately, the biking power-based suggestions don't work (known bug) with 9.33. Maybe the issue (a problem of synching Connect and the watch data) does affect running as well, I do not know.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Etupes25
    Etupes25 said:
    Since your race prediction is higher than what you know you can do, it means the watch is overestimating your VO2 Max

    It’s not that simple. The predictions also appear to be based on flat road runs. As soon as you move away from that the predictions become wildly inaccurate. The runs I have in my calendar are lumpy trail runs where I know what I will be able to achieve. Where I have 3 hours for a gnarly trail half marathon, Garmin insists I will be able to do it in around 2 hours. The training suggestions are probably ok just the predictions are a lot off the mark. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Dr Phil

    Correct. The race predictions are *ideal race" predictions based on several weeks of data. If you mix wildely different terrains, you'll get an average of these conditions. If you train in similar conditions, you should get a closer prediction. Although no prediction will be good enough to match the specificity of a particular race (trail vs road, elevation, terrain, weather, etc.)

    To the point that Garmin has enabled users to disabled VO2 Max input from trail running and Ultra runs so that these types of running don't throw off VO2 Max for road and track running. But then, if you are interested only in trail running, you are a bit out of luck, because there is no way to disable VO2 Max detection from walking, road running and track running.

    So, if you want to refine the predictions, you'd better train on conditions similar to your target type of race several weeks before the race. But then, it is not really a surprise, is it?

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Dr Phil

    Wait, domt the predictions take into consideration the elevation of the course you upload?

    I mean, I have a 10k in my calendar next week, with a course added,  that has a very different prediction to the prediction I see for a generic 10k if I look in the VO2max widget?

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 3673816

    Yes, they do.

    "It’s important that your event has an attached course so your race prediction can incorporate information like terrain, direction, windspeed and more into your race time prediction. "

    www.garmin.com/.../

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Etupes25

    So given I DO have an event with an attached course and location etc, I guess the question remains...why, in a marathon plan 5 weeks out from race day, is it suggesting long run days of just 1h11mins?