Suggested Workout Final Recovery Step Skipped

For any Suggested Workout Garmin always skips the final recovery step, leading you straight into the Cool Down phase. Is this by design, or is this a bug? In terms of the sprint suggestions, this always feels like a massive lift. For example, you finish running full pelt for 40 seconds, and then rather than any kind of recovery you're expected to run at your warm up pace again, which always feels harder than it should.

An example from today's suggested workout, see the pictures below.

You can see this suggestion looks like it will have you do 6 Runs followed by 6 Recovers, but I know from experience that this will actually look more like:

Warm up > Run > Recovery > Run > Recovery > Run > Recovery > Run > Recovery > Run > Cool Down.

Note the missing Recovery after the last run. This is consistent across all the non-Base/Recovery runs which the watch will suggest - Threshold, Tempo and Anaerobic.

I'm interested to know if this is by design or by accident. This workout is a good example of where jumping straight into the Cool Down will be a little bit challenging. Typically my behaviour here, as the Step Pace is shown on the watch, is that I'm blowing out my backside for the first 30-60 seconds of the Cool Down, which brings me below the target pace for the step, resulting in my over-exerting for the remainder of the Cool Down to average out the pace across the step.

0 Dallace over 3 years ago

I actually like this, because I feel like the last recovery would be too much. I also personally think most of the sprint cool downs are too long and typically shorten them a bit with the lap button. I had suggested sprints last night. 3 sets of (3x 15sec sprints @ 5:20mi pace). Each sprint had 3 minute recovery between. Then after 3, a 5 minute recovery before starting the second set of 3.

I'm not sure what I'm suppose to do for 3 minutes between 15 second sprints. I typically walk until my HR goes "low" then try to run very slow or walk fast to stay in range. But 3 minutes is a long recovery IMHO

As for the last sprint, I do the same for the auto-skipped recovery that goes straight to cool down. I just walk a bit until my HR gets within zone, then finish out the cool-down keeping my HR in range. These walks, of course ruin my overall pace, but I'm not too worried about that as long as I get the workout in. I'm doing this in the neighborhood across the street, so I rarely finish the cool-down exactly at 10 minutes, but I try to stay close. for instance last night I missed it by quite a bit (about 6 minutes) so I ran over a little. I was still within the workout time since I shortened the recovery's a bit.

I also target HR not Pace, however sprints are pace based. Today is an 84 minute base run, and it's likely gonna be pouring rain here.

0 Former Member over 3 years ago

This also happens with the built-in interval option in the Run app; the last recovery step is skipped. Maybe it is intentional, I don't know. It did take me some getting used to because it was different on previous watches I have used. I re-created (and tweaked) some my favorite Suggested Workouts in Connect and then the last recovery step is included.

And now off into the pouring rain and high winds. Again.

0 Fozzee1970 over 3 years ago in reply to Dallace

I do the same on the recovery sections wasn’t sure if I’m supposed to walk or what. But just try to keep the heart rate in the recovery range. Will shortening the recovery stage by pressing the lap button affect the effectiveness of the workout?

0 Dallace over 3 years ago in reply to Fozzee1970

I'm no expert so won't pretend to know. I do sometimes follow them fully, and other times I cut them short depending on the difficulty of the workout.