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Bug in the interval workout screen with "pace as target": for the first minute the watch displays in the interval screen a slower pace when starting from a stationary state

SETTINGS: Firmware beta 2.64. Runscribe footpod paired and connected with the watch as "source of speed =always" and "source of distance =always".

EDIT: The initial thread was wrong, so I edited the title and this is the correct issue.

When the footpod is set as source of “pace” and “distance”, the watch gives in all screen instant pace, lap pace and distance with source footpod. I tested this writing an absurd value of 150 as calibration factor, end everything is ok.

The issue has nothing to do with gps pace or foopod pace, but it has another cause, and the issue is present always, when using as source of pace and distance “gps” and when using as source of pace and distance the “footpod”.

I tried to execute the workout and I continued running in the rest periods, without stopping, and everything was fine.

In the interval screen the pace was always near the correct value.

The problem is when I start from a stationary state.

Starting from a stationary state, for the first minute the watch gives wrong pace value in the interval screen, slower than the real value. Probably the watch displays a pace that is an average of X seconds, and for the first minute it takes in account even the seconds before starting the lap, when speed was = 0 (because I was stationary). The pace shown in the workout screen is slower than instant pace and than lap pace (with lap pace I mean the average pace from the beginning of the interval). The pace displayed in the interval screen is probably an average value of seconds that don’t begin with the start of the interval, like lap pace, but contains also some seconds of the previous rest period.

I’m going to change the title of this thread in: “Bug of the firmware 2.64 with watch FR945: for the first minute the watch displays in the interval screen a slower pace when starting from a stationary state”.

EDIT: This was the old post,  I don't erase it, but I discovered that the real issue is what I described above and not what I was thinking when I wrote this post.

OLD POST:  When doing an interval workout with pace as a target, in the  interval screen with the "pace gauge" the watch shows not the footpod pace but gps pace.In another page I had "pace field" and this was displaying the correct pace of the footpod (for example 3:45/km). When I start the interval, for the first 10 seconds approximately in the interval screen is displayed "pace of footpod" for example 3:45. But after about 10 seconds, the watch alarm beeps and the watch displays the gps pace, for example 5/km. The watch then continues beeping and the speed shown changes slowly toward the real speed.

For example   I set today an audio alarm when outside the desired pace (larget from  3:40/km to 3:50/km), but with gps pace it's not useful. For short intervals of 400 m, for example, if I'm running at 3:45 /km pace (instant pace of Runscribe footpod), gps pace especially at the beginning in the first 100 meters is very far  from true value (for example 5:00/km), then at 200 m is about 4:30/km. at 300 meters is 4:00/km and it's near the true value only at the end of the interval.

I started the intervals from a stationary state.

In the other thread I opened ("Bug in the interval workout screen with "pace" as target. The watch doesn't use instant pace.") the conclusion was that  Garmin has always used  in the interval screen "step (lap)  pace" instead of "instant pace"  by design. But if I set in the watch "speed and distance always from footpod", if the watch uses gps pace this is a bug for sure.  

The interval workout screen is very nice for the graphic and colors. It reminds me what step to do and what iteration to do, and how much time I have to rest. But now I can't use the audio alarms and I can't use the "pace gauge".  I hope that Garmin will fix it.

If someone can confirm this behavior, I ask Roland to put this in the list of bugs.

  • First: Garmin doesn't really listen here. Second: writing mails to support does not help, they basically do not understand such a problem. Sad but true.

    We have to live with this as it is. Meaning for me, that I will probably switch to an Apple Watch in autumn, when the new model is ok. I am in contact with the developer of iSmoothrun, a very promising running app for the AW and he told me, his interval feature does behave as one would expect so. Also with Stryd support.

  • I sent a mail to [email protected], I hope that they listen. After all this is a 600 € watch and the basic things should function perfectly: music, pulse ox, garminpay , ok ... but first of all this is a running watch!!!

    @Roland: also fischest confirmed that "Did today some short and fast intervals with jog in-between and I am always starting "too slow" in the fast laps. When I do steady runs as structured workouts (e.g. 20x1km@pace), a new lap does not start with a "too slow" or "too fast" alert.

    On my very fast intervals, I can not really look on the watch, but what I see though, is that the arrow always starts from left (too slow), when I go from jog to run and then it moves right": can you insert in the list of bugs?

  • I found a tentative solution for this bug. Today I did some intervals of 1 km lenght.

    If I start from a stationary state, even if my pace is correct the watch beeps at the beginning and shows a totally wrong speed in the initial part. For example I was running at 4:00/km, at the initial beep the watch was saying I was at 5 min/km, after 200 m 4:30/km, after 400m 4:10 /km, and only at 600m it displayed the correct speed of 4:00/km ( in the meanwhile my speed was stable).

    Then I found this solution: I started running and I pressed the manual lap button to begin the interval only when my speed was near 4/km. In this interval the watch displayed the real step/lap pace (the average for the step/lap) from the beginning to the end.

    A possible explanation is some bug of the firmware of the new gps chip Sony, that has some trouble to record correctly the initial distance when  starting from still.