Pacepro and Garmin coach plan

First- map out a course and create a pace pro strategy plan either from the app or the garmin connect web site.

download/sync that plan to your watch.

Select Activity (Run).  Hold middle button on left where it brings you to Run Settings.  Scroll down to "Training"

Training >PacePro Plans> Select your downloaded plan

Start the plan with the start button.  And then it's ready to go.  you then start the Run activity like normal and the plan will show you a Pace Pro screen. 

You don't need to have a Pace Pro screen set up as one of your run screens- it will add it.  

Personally- I've found using the "elevation changes" segments to be more useful than per mile or Km, as courses tend not to have ups and downs right on the mile markers.  Also- I've found that it's a bit sporting on the uphill pace (i.e harder to maintain) and too easy on the downhill- so I take that adjustment slider and slide it to the left a ways.

I'm not sure that you can do both a "my workout" and a "pace pro" plan at the same time.  you need to choose one or the other.  So- you'd need to look at the garmin coach workout, and then create a pacepro course and plan based on that.  But, you cannot overlay intervals and such into a pacepro plan.  two different things.  PacePro is for race pacing.  Garmin Coach plans will give you 'workouts'.

like morey000 said. The only thing I'll add to this is that it really only works when your Garmin Coach plan is a simple "run xx distance at xx pace". If it is a structured workout (e.g. 4 x 800m sprints with rest time in between) it obviously wont work.

I used it for both my "easy" runs over the weekend to prevent myself from going too fast to start and also to account for some nasty hills. Worked pretty well in conjunction with the coach workout plan for this purpose.

Thanks this is useful. The problem is that when you want to start the pacepro plan after your warm up. How can you do that?

I want to use pacepro  in my long runs. I will create a course with the required millage as you described. It works but today I wanted to start the pacepro strategy after the warm up and could not find a way to do it. 

Thats bad programming I guess.

Well I guess it wasn't in their requirements when they had this feature to develop. Or not in their acceptance criteria.
Anyway, the trick I use is I copy the pacepro strategy into a custom workout where I have warmup and cooldown lap key steps.

5646821 said:

Sadly we can't start a pacepro strategy within a run in order to have warmup + run in the same activity.

Hmmm. I think that PacePro was designed for race day pacing, so they probably didn't consider that.  But- I guess it could also be used on training days, where you might include a warmup as part of the workout.  Extra features add extra complexity- so, pros and cons here. 

yeah, this bothers me too

You’re right that elevation based pacing seems the obvious choice. But here is the catch. A pace pro strategy also incorporates the negative/positive split amount. The problem comes if you choose the elevation base splitting and your course does not have much elevation changes. You’ll notice that elevation change totally supersedes your negative split so even if you slide the splitting sensitivity slider to maximum on the right, you will get only a few splits; and that kills your gradual negative split strategy. So, I always choose the kilometer split option so to give Pacepro enough opportunities to readjust my pace to my actual pacing during the race.