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Why is this classified as a tempo run?

tboooe
over 1 year ago

Today I did my usual Sunday easy run where I keep my HR in Zone 1 and Zone 2.  Towards the end of my run is a steady incline which I like to run a bit harder just to get my HR up.  For this run, I spent 84% of the time in Zone 1 or 2 and only 14% in Zone 3 yet the run was classified as Tempo.  I would have expected this to be Base.  Can anyone explain this to me?

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  • over 1 year ago +1
    tboooe said:
    only 14% in Zone 3 yet the run was classified as Tempo.

    The watch doesn't use your heart rate zones when classifying workouts. It only uses the kinetics and thresholds of peak EPOC estimated…

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  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Mentioned in a thread a bit lower - mine had no zone 3 at all and zones are all correct based on LTHR% - max heart rate also correct and tested. This was also called a Tempo for my Fenix 7 Pro.

    All I can put it down to is higher than normal pace since I had dogs pulling me.

    Just to add, my exercise load on the watch has it down as high aerobic in the exercise load graph too which makes no sense.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I had similar issue Saturday and Sunday.
    Same workouts (30 minutes Base runs), Saturday was classified as Base and Sunday, same results but classified as TEMPO.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    any differences in the running power metric?

  • 0 over 1 year ago
    tboooe said:
    only 14% in Zone 3 yet the run was classified as Tempo.

    The watch doesn't use your heart rate zones when classifying workouts. It only uses the kinetics and thresholds of peak EPOC estimated during the workout and further qualified by your recent training history to get to the training effect.

    Tempo seems to be a catch-all workout label when the criteria for other types are not met. Do a mediocre threshold, vo2 max or anaerobic workout and you get a tempo label. Yesterday I ran for 1h40mn at base pace, and only ran a small hill for 3 mn at the end, and I got a tempo label :-( 

    What is more meaningful and useful is the combination of training effect components "aerobic" and "anaerobic". Look at the value along the Garmin scale to determine how impactful your workout was.

    0 – None, 1 – Minor, 2 – Maintaining, 3 – Improving, 4 – Highly Improving, 5 – Overreaching.

    Usual information here: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=Vi2undejXR5Mmq662o4lO9

    dxbydy said:
    the watch has it down as high aerobic in the exercise load graph too which makes no sense.

    I agree it doesn't make sense to make the whole workout high aerobic when only marginal patterns make the algorithm default to "tempo". I don't know whether this is by design or whether it is a bug.

    I assume that as soon as a workout is deemed "enough above the first ventilation threshold but sill mainly below the second one", then it is high aerobic.