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Garmin Coach & Daily suggested workout options

Paulr707
1 month ago

I'm looking to set up a training plan for half marathon events, one in March, the other in June next year.

There seem to be a number of options.

1) Enter the two events in the "Races & Events" section in Garmin Connect and let daily suggested workout choose some activities for the week ahead. No need to set up any Garmin Coach.

2) Use one of the Garmin Coach plans to follow a predetermined set of training activities. By "Garmin Coach" in this case, I mean one of Greg, Amy or Jeff. I've used these before to complete races so have a reasonable idea of the activities and intensities involved. 

3) There also seem to be a set of "self guided plans" for the various race distances for beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. For half marathon these are all 16 week duration. The one advantage of these is that you can see the full program for the 16 weeks mapped out whereas for 1) and 2) above you only get to see a week ahead.

4) Finally there seems to be a new option "Garmin Run Coach" plan which follows similar configuration steps as Greg/Jeff/Amy, but actually guides through the training with daily suggested workouts.

I understand 1, 2 and 3. But I'm confused as to how 4 differs from 1. Does anyone have any insight?

Thanks!

  • 0 1 month ago

    I couldn't find some official information about your exact question. I just set up a marathon plan and tried both ways with the same result: either just add the event in the calendar, and the DSW become a race plan, or use connect to set up a Garmin Run Coach and end up with the same behavior on the watch: workouts are scheduled, a primary race is shown, etc.

    I guess that the Garmin Run Coach is a UI layer to enter/edit all the information in one workflow, rather than entering your event(s) with your goal on the web/mobile, then adjusting your DSW preferences on the watch (training days, long run day).

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to Etupes25

    Thank you for the reply. I just saw your responses to similar questions on the FR965 forum too Slight smile

    After a little more experimentation I have found some subtle differences.

    I have 2 half marathon events set up in the calendar. If I don't set up the Garmin training plan, the periodisation is visible for both events with base/build/peak/taper etc phases showing up twice. If I set up a garmin coach plan, this is only shown for one event (the one that is set up as having priority). If the second event has priority, the first event would be in the middle of the training plan and it's not clear if it would adapt to ensure sufficient preparation is done for the first.

    If a change is made (coach plan is started or cancelled), it seems the periodisation is reset as discussed in the other thread. It then looks like less time is given to each phase. It does seem there are subtle changes to exercises/intensities for the following week as a result. In my case I still have 22 weeks until the first event so it's not a huge issue but mildly irritating. I think the advice would be to choose a strategy and then stick with it!

    I've decided to go for the Garmin training plan with priority given to the first event. 

    One slight inflexibility seems to be that Garmin insists I should only allocate 2 rest days per week. I enjoy running but I don't have that much time to dedicate to it. I followed coach Jeff this year and was fine on the scheduled 3 workouts per week.

    My plan is to ignore a couple of runs a week and just pick the ones I like the look of. I will also make sure that the long runs are building up at a similar rate as the previous coach plan I followed. Can anyone say what the peak distance/time prescribed for half marathon training would be when using DSW?