Suggested Workout - Four Identical Workouts in a Row?

Yeah, what Suggested Workout needs to do is recommend 7 day a week anaerobic workouts to fix that problem. I mean running really fast all the time will obviously make you a faster runner.

Seriously though, like many training plans it starts you off with moderate workouts, and increases things from there.

Have you been doing other training than that suggested by Garmin?

Hello Fredrik_Coulter, as you know I follow the daily suggested workout since October. I started after a 3 months pause (foot bend over) with very little training load visible for Garmin. That can be a root cause for my lower training load compared to you. In December all my training load comes from daily suggested training plan (2 days pause in all this months). Since 1 month I really improved my pacing to run exactly what is expected.

So I share with you my experience:

1. My Garmin Training focus state “Balanced” even when I’m short in the Anaerob (see attached picture).

2. Garmin suggested me an Anaerob Training session (Sprint, Anaerob) only after a complete recovery (Recovery Run / Base Run the day before , 0 recovery time already for ½ day before, resting heart rate near lowest value, 100% Body Battery, …).

3. After performing the session it was not always registered as Anaerob, but as Base even that I was faster in the intervals than requested. Perhaps my heart rate was not high enough. At the moment it is cold in Germany. I see that it need nearly 30min until my heart rate is in the correct zone for my pace. But the intervals started after 15min warm up. There is also no heart rate target for the intervals.

4. In the prognosis I should also get an Anaerob Training Effect of 2.0 also for Tempo and Threshold runs. I always have 0.0 even with perfect pacing in the correct zone (pace & heart rate).

I'm now on the third day of relatively identical suggested workouts.  The only difference is that between day 1 and day 2 my pace was increased by 0:05/mile.  This occurred when by VO2 increased by one, but those may not be related.

The real test may happen this weekend.  Every time I've done a long run -- not a suggested workout -- the next day's suggested workout was a Rest Day.  I'm planning on a 14 mile run this weekend, so we'll see what happens.

Wrong prognosis.

I've been doing the suggested workouts for a while.  I've never had the same workout suggested two days in a row.  I've has sprints, tempo runs (which are about 2 minutes a mile faster), these base runs, and hour and a half suggested workouts.  So this isn't an example of a newbie workout program.

Have you looked at the daily suggested workout feature that was added in (I think) 5.5, or are you basing this on the older training programs?

As for non-suggested workouts, yes.  I generally do a long run on the weekend, no matter what Garmin suggests.  In the past, the suggested workout on the day following a fourteen mile run has been a Rest Day, so Garmin's Suggested Workouts in the past definitely took into account what I actually did.

I'm thinking about another long run this weekend.  Let's see what Garmin does with that data point.

Yeah, it's quite possible that it's just not looking as closely at the Anaerobic balance as I am.  And that's fine.

However, in your three months of the Suggested Workouts, have you ever gotten three days of almost identical workouts?  My previous suggestions were never even close to identical.  (The only difference is that the suggested pace went up by 0:05/mile between day 1 and day 2.  This might be related to my VO2 increasing by 1.)

1. I can't remember 3 base runs in a row. I already had 2 Base Runs with different length in a row. All other workouts make no sense to have in a row, due to recovery. Was you completely recovered after your Base Runs to be ready for harder workouts?

2. I can confirm that an increased/reduced VO2max increase/reduce the pace for a workout.

Is it possible that your effort in the Base Runs is too high, so that it is counted as a "High Aerobic" Training Session in Garmin Connect?

In your training focus you have 100% more "High Aerobic" than "Low Aerobic". In this perspective is seems not totally wrong to suggest a "Low Aerobic" workout.

Its similar to me: Im lacking anaerobic training these days, my distribution in training effort looks like yours. I also get base training after base training suggested (but didn't stick to it :-D )

I think, Garmin trained the algorithm to give us some holiday between Christmas and new year.