training shows tempo for easy runs

The run classification is based on % of maxHR, not LT.

This just started happening to me too. We had an outage in my region and right after that, I did a z2 run. Under the "heart rate zone" in Garmin connect, it shows that I ran 80% of my run in z2. But under, "Primary benefit" it says "tempo." The same thing happened with a swim and then another run today. And thanks to this incorrect measurement, my VO2 max dropped a point, whereas I'm quite sure it was about to go up a point from where it was.

I put in a request to Garmin for help. Someone is apparently going to go into my Garmin connect account to see what's happening (you'll have to give them permission if you decide to go this route). Sorry this happened to you, but I'm glad to hear it's not just me. I have a feeling this might be the result of whatever happened with Garmin Connect going down (Monday Oct 17 for three or four hours in the afternoon EST). I'd send this directly to Garmin for a look: [email protected] 

I've noticed that as well. At the moment I'm recovering from a hamstring injury meaning all my runs are easy so was surprised to it say tempo. I didn't care enough to dig into it as will be a few weeks before I get back to something like more normal training.

I hate to say I'm relieved to know this isn't just me, but I am! I'm really hoping that Garmin can address this quickly. I presume that whatever caused them to go down affected these metrics and that they can resolve it asap. It makes any training data collected pretty useless currently. Maybe it's a sign to run by feel rather than technology?! lol. Hope it clears up by the time you're recovered. And good luck with your recovery. I had the same injury this summer. Not fun.

Any update from support?

They are sending the issue to engineering so I'm waiting on hearing from them. They told me to try resetting all of my sport zones (run, bike, swim), so I did that yesterday, rode my trainer this morning and it seems both the heart rate zone and primary benefit were in the correct zones for the workout I did. So I'm hoping the issue is resolved.

They did say, however, that anyone else who's having a problem should definitely contact product support (at the email above) to report it as it might be some sort of bug in the software. The more people that report it the more data they'll have to figure out what might have happened. So if you haven't already, definitely submit a report.

What is your *actual* max HR? Ensure that your actual max heart rate is entered into the watch to get an accurate training load measurement. 220-Age is a bad estimator. 

My actual heart rate max is 210 for running; 200 for cycling, I don't know for swimming. But the issue is with the software itself. It was recording everything properly until we had an outage on Monday afternoon. Then Tuesday this issue suddenly cropped up. It's the actual data that's problematic. The heart rate zone shouldn't show 80% in z2 with primary benefit being tempo.

Have you checked the settings on the watch?

Yeah, checked all of them. I ended up resetting all my heart rate zones. I had my first run since doing so this morning and it worked properly. So I really don't know what happened. Whatever it was seems resolved now. Frustrating though because it messed up my VO2 max reading. Hopefully it will rebound fairly quickly.