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Trail mode VO2 Max

7709459
over 4 years ago

Hey everyone,

I was wandering when to use the trail mode to estimate VO2Max. I have for example a mixted route with street and woods / 300 height meters. Is this already a case for trail to adjust for hieght? Or better stick to the normal runnning mode?

Thanks,
7709459

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    In my experience road running VO2 max does already factor in elevation changes. What it doesn't take into account is soft ground or technical terrain where your pace slows down with the same level of effort. That is where trail running VO2max is supposed to help. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I wouldn't get too bogged down in the detail. I've used the Run activity to record all my runs over the years I've had Garmin watches despite running mostly on trails. My estimated VO2max has remained in the mid- to high 40s despite that (I am 64). If you look at the First Beat papers you will see there is some allowance for elevation as noted anyway.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Dr Phil

    I would obsess about details. My VO2max was penalized every time I ran on a trail while in road running mode. I suspect the problem wasn't as much with the loss if efficiency while running on a trail surface but rather inability of Fenix 6 to measure pace accurately when there is tree cover and the path isn't ideally straight. In fact even on a reasonably straight forested trail, Fenix reports a noticeably slower than actual pace. If you used something like Stryd for trail running than I can see how VO2max estimate would be reasonably accurate even when using road running mode.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to silentvoyager
    silentvoyager said:
    If you used something like Stryd for trail running than I can see how VO2max estimate would be reasonably accurate even when using road running mode.

    I don't. Some people focus too much on the daily or per activity fluctuation of the VO2max estimate. The reality is that VO2max is a trend measurement better assessed over a period of time usually 4 plus weeks.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Thank you all for the suggestions and comments. I'll stick to the road running mode, Maybe try out Trail mode if trully on mountain Trail.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 7709459

    It doesn’t make any difference to VO2max what mode you use, road or trail. The underlying VO2max calculation has been updated to use the accelerometer to draw inferences about surface and compensate for them, and it’s the same for all run types. If it’s giving you bad values, then use trail run and turn it off; if not, just use whichever you think better reflects your run surface  average. 
    Source: Firstbeat engineer Herman Bonner quoted extensively in dcrainmaker’sreview of the Enduro.

    That source also mentions that it’s been compensating for hills for some time.

    My experience so far hasn’t been on very challlenging routs because of COVID travel restrictions, but I’m seeing similar numbers across flat road and undulating trail, using Runalyze to dig a bit deeper into day to day variations than the Garmin website or the watch expose.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to silentvoyager

    Stryd is useless for actual real trail running (I'm talking about running through streams, jumoing over boulders, fairly rough tracks with lots of mud)

    I only got reasonable results on flat road runs with Styrd, even then I found distance accuracy to be only within +/-5% - GPS can do that level of accuracy just fine, albeit with more spotty instant pace.

    I don't think it would make any difference to your VO2Max score vs. GPS

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 7709459
    7709459 said:
    I'll stick to the road running mode, Maybe try out Trail mode if trully on mountain Trail.

    I mainly see two reasons for the trail running activity:

    • Possibility to have a different setup and configuration of data screens and features.
    • My runs will automatically be tagged as trail runs making search and filtering easier afterwards.

    The ability to have a different setup can be accomplished by making a copy of the standard run activity but then all activities won't be tagged as trail runs.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 5135968

    I find Stryd to be useful when running in forests where GPS signal is difficult to acquire or maintain. Gives me much closer to accurate results.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Recently VO2MAX changes no longer make sense to me. For a few times in a row I observed VO2MAX going down after a run which had a positive performance condition change or vice versa - VO2MAX going up after a run with a negative performance condition change.

    But also on almost every run I have a large spike in performance condition in the beginning in the first 10 minutes where it goes up or down by 3-4 points and then very quickly, within minutes, returns back to zero. The algorithm seems unstable and changes in VO2MAX seem arbitrary to me.