Suggested Workout Suggestion - DISTANCE

Garmin workouts know different workout targets. For the overall activity, you can set time or distance. DSW uses time because they set normale a Pace range, not a fixed pace, as guideline for each stepped. Running 1h of the same workout can differ in distance a lot, but you will still be in the target area of each step. Its a decision wich was made.

Would be nice to switch it, but to be honest: im estimating how far im gonna run and can do a little loop at the end or stop a little bit ahead.

I get the "want" but in some cases in can't be done - for example if the workout target is an HR range then there is no pace data associated, and therefore distance can't be derived.

My suggested workout for today is 1 step long.  1:30:00 at 10:55.  There's nothing approximate about the distance.

Last week I had one with (after repeats) of 13 different steps.  Each of the steps had a pace and a duration.  Again, there's nothing approximate about that distance.

In fact, every one of my daily suggested workouts had specific paces and durations (except for the rest day).  So all of them had a distance associated with them.

But I had to open up Excel to determine what the distance was.  And that's dumb.

@BeneGi Nope, the displayed pace is not a range.  (It may be underneath it all, but that's a different issue)  There is a specific target pace for each duration.  Have you looked at the steps in the Suggested Daily Workout, or just at the gauge?

@badbri True, if you've changed the default from pace to heart rate zone, you can't calculate a specific distance.  But how many people have actually changed from the default?  (There's a reason it's called the default.)

Fredrik_Coulter, I think it is a very good suggestion to show the distance of the workout, if I do a pace run (pace & time are given).

I have several tracks with different distances around me. If I could see the distance I easily know which track to take.

At the moment I often run a track back and forth to finish the workout. People are wondering what I’m doing.

Fredrik_Coulter said:

@BeneGi Nope, the displayed pace is not a range.  (It may be underneath it all, but that's a different issue)  There is a specific target pace for each duration.  Have you looked at the steps in the Suggested Daily Workout, or just at the gauge?

I think, we interpret it in different ways. I have looked at the steps in the SDWs. In my opinion, its always put in the average of the pace range because it is not able of whatever reason to display the range there. If it wouldn't be a range, there would be no gauge with an upper and lower limit.

Like I said, I support the idea to give us a setting for switching from time based training plan to distance based training.

At first I was thinking you just wanted the training in Distance, but then it became clear you just want the total distance so you know what route to choose.  Makes sense to me, but at the same time... it could give you approx distance, but it will likely be way off, work/recovery pace range should be all over the place... not sitting right in the middle, maybe even walking or standing if needed to hit the paces in the work.  If doing workouts in any type of terrain that will also drastically effect it.  Plenty of people would be pissed if it said 10mile, then you complete the workout in 8 and still have to march your way home! 

I guess for me if it says 90min w/ threshold intervals... I know that is my 90min longer workout loop... or roughly 10-11miles.  If it says short intervals and 50min... i know it is just roughly my normal 50min loop.  Because with decent length warmup and cooldown plus pace of work intv and pace of recovery are so different... it ends up being pretty close to my easy every day pace.   If you are doing these, really they shouldn't be really that 'new'... you will know oh-that is a not easy 60min... so should I do X , Y or Z route...  

I have often ended up walking after a workout because I didn't hit the target pace.  But at least I was close to home.

(Not to mention that several times the route created on Connect didn't match up to my watch's distance on the ground.)

If I get home before the workout is over, I can usually look at the remaining time and figure out how many of my local blocks I need to add.

The Training Center software did allow you yo set a loop for either a set number of repetitions, or to a certain time, or to a certain distance. Annoyingly, they didn't implement this in Garmin Connect (only choice is number of repetitions), so I often still use the old software that they deemed obsolete.