Disable lap button during workouts

Agreed, this has ruined one of my workouts.

Requiring confirmation when lapping during a workout seems like it would be acceptable UX, and doesn't require people to know about the lap button lock setting.

Apparently Edge devices have had the following options for workout steps since 2020: Go Back, Pause and Go Forward.

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-530/237193/did-6-0-introduce-the-ability-to-move-back-and-forth-during-a-workout

I wish they would bring this feature to watches. Anecdotally, I was in a group workout recently where someone asked if they could go back to the previous workout step and I had to sadly inform them it was impossible :/.

steven-jackson said:

Requiring confirmation when lapping during a workout seems like it would be acceptable UX, and doesn't require people to know about the lap button lock setting.

Maybe, but it depends on whether the confirmation would end the step retroactively (to when you initially pressed Lap) or not. If the step ended on the confirmation, that wouldn't be great, especially for short intervals. Personally I'd prefer a "Go Back" option instead.

This is such a simple update... just introduce a toggle to disable it also in workout and even better relegate the (lap/skip workout step) to the pause menu, ideally having one option to go back and one to go forward in steps.

There's even a "go back to start" option but why would anyone start from scratch an already started workout, and if I simply wanted to abort/delete it I would simply use "discard"

Favoxhille said:

There's even a "go back to start" option but why would anyone start from scratch an already started workout, and if I simply wanted to abort/delete it I would simply use "discard"

Do you mean the "Back to Start" option that already exists on watches? That navigates back to the starting GPS position.

Or do you mean that Edge literally has a pause menu option to restart the workout?

Yes I meant "back to start", well I didn't know that and got the wrong guess, that is actually a very useful feature when trail running so props to Garmin

Yeah for sure. It even gives you the choice of returning to the start either by going in a straight line, or retracing your steps (reversing the route you've taken so far.)

steven-jackson said:

Agreed, this has ruined one of my workouts.

Requiring confirmation when lapping during a workout seems like it would be acceptable UX, and doesn't require people to know about the lap button lock setting

I agree no lock, instead a UI confirmation question. 

If during a Workout I press the Back / Lap Button popup a Confirmation page "End this Workout?"

with the Start button having a Green Checkmark and literal "End Workout".

and the Down button have a Red X labeled "Continue".

There are other places in the UI with this kind of confirmation, e.g. save LT.

The problem is that the lap button doesn't just end a workout, it also advances to the next step. And there is a specific type of open-ended step which *only* finishes when you press LAP.

That's why I don't think there should be a confirmation. The fact that open-ended workout steps exist is obviously why Garmin prevents the user from disabling LAP during a workout.

When I do group workouts, I don't use a programmed workout -- I just turn off auto-lap and manually press LAP between work and rest intervals so I'm in sync with the rest of the group. (Even though the workouts have defined work and rest times/distances, there's no way everyone is going to run exactly the correct time and distance. And when we're resting, not everyone is going to rest for exactly the same amount of time, since we want to stay in a handful groups of roughly the same pace instead of running individually.)

So obviously if you are not doing a programmed workout, you wouldn't want the watch to prompt for confirmation every time you press LAP.

However, I can easily imagine using a programmed workout, but each interval ends with the LAP button instead of being defined by time or distance. Sure, most people won't do that because it's kind of pointless. Then again, you could still have

For an example of what I'm talking about, imagine an 8 x 800m workout on a track, with 90s rest. Since we're on a track, the runner knows better than the watch as to the exact distances, so they might create a programmed workout such as:

- Repeat 8 times:
  - Run until LAP press
  - Rest for 90 seconds. (Or if they're running in a group, maybe they'll want to rest until LAP press)

In this case, nobody would want each LAP press to be confirmed, especially if it means that the lap isn't ended until the confirmation, because that would mess up their lap times. The only other alternative is that the end of lap would be retroactive to the LAP press, even if you wait for minutes or hours to confirm it, which would also be absurd.

Again we can argue that nobody would bother to actually build a programmed workout like this. But who knows, maybe they still want pace targets and alerts, or notes for each interval.

I get you point about normal runs.

But we should still have the possibility to disable the Lap button for workouts... it's true that some workouts require you to press the Lap button but this could be easily dealt with a data screen showing a countdown and then a confirmation, or even just let the next step start straight away maybe with a ramp timer of 5/10s (like for run repeats), then the user could just decide to stop it anyway if he's not ready.

The BIG problem with the lap button in workouts is when you a doing a long, like half marathon prep long run, and you happen to misclick the back/lap button.

Maybe because you had to stop the activity or wanted to change the music playlist (yeah I know it's not the most common thing but I find myself often preferring to do it whithout stopping), and since some models can be a bit laggy when pressing the back/lap button it can be very easy to mistakenly press back just because I wanted to return to the data screen and accidentally interrupt a workout that could take about 2 hours... yeah that it's extremely painful and frustrating.

Fortunately I am extra careful in those moments to try to avoid to jitter press the button, but it can happen when you are tired.

Overall this also just one of those things that should add to make the Garmin Coach workouts more competitive.

I started the half marathon plan and I'm probably gonna carry out to the end just for the sake of completing it, but I think there's not much point in choosing it instead of daily reccomendations after setting a calendar goal. It's just not refined enough.