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Is there a way to make a marker during the run?

AK_19_08
over 1 year ago

Hello there,

Is there a way to set marker during an activity (e.g run), so you could see it in the log post activity?

For example: I would like to mark time when I took a gel during the run.

I know, we can use lap button. I will reset lap distance and you can find that point in the log. But it will reset lap counts, so it makes it inconvenient. 

Ideally, if there would be a way to leave markers, so you could annotate them later (or simply know when they happen).

Thanks. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I generally use screen shot. So far, I still remember what those screen shots were for after a run.
    It won't be seen as a mark in the log, but it can help in remembering something that was done or happened in certain time during the activity.
    I hope it can help you.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Hypothetically someone could write a CIQ app that would increment a numerical counter every time you pause and unpause the watch twice in a row really quickly. This counter could be recorded on the activity FIT file (to be viewed on Connect afterwards), so you could take note of the times (and corresponding locations) when it was incremented.

    Obviously the usability of such an app would be really poor. For one thing, it would be too easy to accidentally trigger the counter increment. Another issue is that you could mess up the pause action so that you fail to increment the counter (but that would probably not be a big deal, since the counter would be displayed by the app.)

    Another annoyance is that you can’t really correlate times and locations in the Connect app, only in the website.

    Furthermore, it might be tough to eyeball the exact moment when the counter is incremented (since you’d get a stairstep graph). That might not be a huge deal assuming you only need a rough marker (within a couple of seconds / meters). Since you’re running and not cycling/driving, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

    Finally, you may not wish to have extra pauses in your activity, even if they’re just for a second or two. For example, you may wish to use this during a race (in which case you might want a pristine record of your activity), or you may wish to take advantage of the strava feature which removes non-moving time, but only when the activity does not contain any pauses.

    Having said all that, I have a way to do a simplified version of this concept with an existing app of mine, which means you could take advantage of it today.

    Basically it will increment a counter whenever you pause the activity, then unpause it within less than 5 seconds (*), and record the counter to the FIT file.

    (* also, the length of the paused time has to be at least 1 second)

    The app is called Appbuilder 5 - it’s a data field which is available for FR955: https://apps.garmin.com/apps/fd690281-9c22-4fee-a81e-3b7f39aa67c5?tid=0

    Use the following settings:

    - Label: Pause < 5s (or whatever you want)

    - Formula: 

    setv(0, max(if (prev(timer) eq null, elapsedtime, null))); setv(1, if (prev(timer) eq null, prev(elapsedtime, 1), getv(1))); setv(2, if ((getv(0) - getv(1)) lt 5, 1, 0)); setv(0, if (getv(2), null, getv(0))); setv(1, if (getv(2), null, getv(1))); sum(getv(2))

    (the formula is entered as a single line in the settings)

    - Data Format: Auto

    Yeah, the formula is a doozy. Obviously I recommend copying and pasting it into the app settings, rather than trying to type it in manually. You can change the part that says lt 5 to any number you want (in seconds), if you need a different threshold.

    I tested this on my 955 — the counter is incremented and the graph is visible in the Connect app and website. If you customize the site to move the app’s graph to the top (under the map), you can roll over the graph and see the corresponding location on the map.

    (*) EDIT: One problem with this method is that it doesn’t work if you pause for less than one second, due to the fact that CIQ data fields are only updated once per second :/. I’ll have to see if I can fix this issue by changing the formula.

    Since the data field displays the counter, hopefully it should be obvious when the counter fails to increment.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to FlowState

    Another possibility would be for someone to create a Connect IQ data field that (ab)uses the on-device settings feature so that you could select a menu item in the app “settings” to increment a counter on demand. That way you wouldn’t have to pause the activity or take a lap, but the downside is that there’s a huge number of button presses to even access CIQ data field settings, so it wouldn’t be viable during a race (for example).