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Upgrade from FR 745 to FR 255 seems downgrade

Matthias
over 2 years ago

Hi everyone,

Here's my personal experience and disappointment. Maybe some comments here can be helpful.

I bought the FR 745 about a year ago. I followed daily suggested workouts from the beginning. I also ran with the hrm pro chest band from the beginning for lactate based zones.

The watch brought me in about 9  to 10 months from VO2 52 to 59. Base runs from 5:50 up to 5:00min/km in the end.

This all seemed to go gradually, feeling a little faster and fitter every day. Trained almost always productive or holding on.

My 5k prognose went for example to 18:30, and in reality i ran a race in 18:15, so it was pretty close and always kust little above what i could.

The last day i was wearing the watch, my prognose for 5k was 18:07.

Then i sold the watch and switched over to my new FR 255. I bought it specifically for the race widget so it could let me peak me to my races, hrv, and some other new features.

But while I continued training, already from the beginning, it prognosed a 19:07 at the 5k instead of 18:07 days before.. I thought it would drop after i was wearing it for a couple of weeks, but i turned out to be not the case.

After wearing it now for 2 months for 23 our a day, and following his daily suggested workouts, my VO2 has dropped every single day from 59 to 57 right now. My curve has been going down for 2 months now. 

My prognose at 5k is 19:17, while in reality i run at around 18 flat..

It tells me to do my base runs at 5:15 instead of the 5:00min/km to where i builded up for so long..

So to me it is clear that the data of the FR 255 are way more off then the data off the FR 745.

It's not encouraging to see your fitness dropping, almost never reach the productive state, although i follow all his plans almost every day to the second and train 5 days a week.

At this point, I don't know what to do and consider just running with other plans or just follow my own feeling, but then the watch beeing useless and money wasted..

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    For me, the 255 does have more realistic race predictions when compared to the 245.

    Seems like the big issue that is influencing your daily workout suggestion is your reduced v02max readings. This could be due to the fact that the 255 does not have heat and altitude acclimation? How is the weather on your side of world? Is it summer by any chance?

    Try running a flat out 5k to adjust your v02max higher?

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Aslam

    Thanks for the reply Aslam.

    Well that's the problem:

    1: i'm from Belgium and it's winter now here. So indeed, things should go easier then in summer, but apparently they don't..

    2 : I ran a flat out 5k race 2 weeks ago. But the watch still keeps me predicting a time of almost a minute above the time that i've shown the watch already that i am capable of..

  • 0 over 2 years ago
    Matthias said:
    VO2 has dropped every single day

    Hi Mathias,

    what shows Runalyse about your vo2max in a last 3 months? I mean, the raw data you got from different models will be analysed from  third side and you can see the development and see what model is closer to your feeling.

    By the way - why you wear the watch only 23 hour a day? :)

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to global_local

    Probably removing the watch when he showers.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    What is your max heart rate on the 745 compared to 255? I sold my 945LTE for 255S and I have gone from 74 v02 to 69 but I've only had the 255 2.5 weeks.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to global_local

    Hi global_local,

    Thanks for the tip, never heard of runalyse and it's a helpful site.

    I found out this : 

    You can clearly see that my VO2 (black curve) has dropped since I bought the new watch on 15 november.

    My condition (green curve) however only gets better..

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Matthias

    Hi Matthias,

    runalyse calculates vo2max uses its own algorithm and not take values from Garmin.  It's more conservative as Garmin - you can see it ;)

    i would say new algorithm on Garmin has no impact on your data if runalyse shows the same. It gets cold, the blood goes thicker, HRV falls a.s.o.

    I would not recommend comparing between watches. Use only the new data. The watch is only helper and and accept the results quite critically.

    I go tomorrow to the ocean for some nice running days, will see what shows garmin to me :)

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 9386496

    Max HR is currently set at 188, automatically based on my lactate.

    But I don't know what it was with my 745. Do you know where I can find what it was?

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to global_local

    Yeah I was about to ask if the black line was Garmin's or Runalyze's v02max. Garmin's v02max is stated as "v02max by file". Would be nice to be able to plot Garmin's v02max against Runalyze's one, but that does not seem possible at present.

    If both are trending downwards, then it may be something else.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Matthias

    I don't really mind it up to some settings you can tune. If you set your HR bands on LT - its ok, i have the same. And fr255 expand HR max automatically if you goes over the limit (don't do it he-he) .

    HR sensor on fr255 is really good and i finally got rid of my old sweaty  hr-belt.