Calories burned during a run

Hey there, you are not alone! Today I ran 10.54km in 56:41 and burnt 112 kcal according to the watch. According to Endomondo-App it would be 879 kcal.

Strangely though, in the previous 2 weeks it was calculated correct (my last run was 3 days ago). I am not sure what has changed in the last 3 days. One data is completely different for the today's run: The TE-Value (Training-Effect) is 1.0, whereas before it was always around 4 and 5. I have no idea why and what this could allude to. Some speak of a learning process of the watch and I don't know if this has concluded today (after 2 weeks in use) and is way off track now.

If TE is 1.0 something has gone rather wrong somewhere. Can you post the GC link so we can try and work out what has gone wrong.

Here's a link to a 4.4km run of mine which gives my training effect as just 1.1 and a calorie burn of only 62 (I weigh 108kg). Given that I was in heart rate zone 5 for 66% of the run, surely a training effect of 1.1 is completely barmy?

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1000724432

Was a maniac with a sword chasing you through town?

Something is definitely off. 29% Z4 & 66% Z5 should have you kneeling at the roadside with dry heaves. It also shouldn't have a TE that low.

First I'd check if something is set incorrectly with your user settings. Can't see those from the link though.

On the watch under My Stats what does it think is your VO2max? Under User Profile are all the personal items correct? What does it show for MaxHR, Resting HR, and what do you have set up under Zones?

If all those are correct my best thought is do a full reset of the watch and see if that clears it. Then maybe a reflash of the firmware using WebUpdater. Finally swap it out as a defective unit.

Was a maniac with a sword chasing you through town?

Something is definitely off. 29% Z4 & 66% Z5 should have you kneeling at the roadside with dry heaves. It also shouldn't have a TE that low.

First I'd check if something is set incorrectly with your user settings. Can't see those from the link though.

On the watch under My Stats what does it think is your VO2max? Under User Profile are all the personal items correct? What does it show for MaxHR, Resting HR, and what do you have set up under Zones?

If all those are correct my best thought is do a full reset of the watch and see if that clears it. Then maybe a reflash of the firmware using WebUpdater. Finally swap it out as a defective unit.

LOL. Yes, running doesn't come naturally to me. There's certainly no such thing as an "easy run" in my world!

The watch doesn't currently have a VO2max setting for me though I'm guessing that I haven't run enough with it yet for it to make such an estimate. For what it's worth, I'd reckon my VO2max should be pretty low in maybe the 28-30 range based on my previous experiences. My MaxHR is set at 185 and this fits well with what I've found from other devices when I've been working eyeballs out. The watch already had this figure but I don't know where it came from. The watch had a zero down for my resting heart rate so I manually put in a figure of 55 which again I know pretty well from past testing. My zones are set at Z1 (92-110), Z2 (111-128), Z3 (129-147), Z4 (148-165), Z5 (166-185). I've also double checked my other stats and my age (47), weight (108kg) and height (185cm) are all correct.

I'll try a full reset of the watch. This is probably a very silly question but I'm assuming that all of my previously synced data at Garmin Connect should be unaffected by this shouldn't it?

Okay, that it hasn't yet yielded a VO2max figure suggests it's not bedded in yet, so any numbers may be suspect.

Your zones are set for %HR not %HRR; make sure the watch is using the same (under MyStats>UserProfiles>HR Zones). Personally I prefer using %HRR (Heart Rate Reserve) as it factors in resting HR and %maxHR ignores it. I setup my zones as 50-60/61-70/71-80/81-90/91-100 based on %HRR and my usual runs mostly sit in Z3 71-80%HRR, with a bit of Z4 particularly due to hills. Interval and tempo workouts will push more Z4 time, with some Z5 time. Races will usually end up Z4/Z5 with the distribution skewed higher for shorter races. Don't get the illusion I'm some 25yo star athlete, as I'm slightly older than you. :D

It seems Garmin Connect is having trouble right this moment as I cannot bring up your activity again(*) to look at the actual HR values measured, but based on the time in zones I saw earlier I feel there's a good chance your maxHR setting is not your real maxHR. That said, HR tends to be elevated a bunch when someone is just starting (or returning to) a running program, but I don't remember seeing anything like that when I've come back after a hiatus.

So do the reset and look again at your maxHR. Something is definitely off, whether it's the watch is confused or whether your maxHR is too low, or some combination I don't know.

Here are a couple of articles to consider:
How To Determine Maximum Heart Rate
Training With 5 Exercise Heart Rate Training Zones
I have no affiliation, that material is just aligned with my view of the matter. There are other ways to do similar which may be equally valid, these were something I had handy.

(*) can't open any of my activities on Garmin Connect either, they must be having trouble

If TE is 1.0 something has gone rather wrong somewhere. Can you post the GC link so we can try and work out what has gone wrong.

Here is my yesterday's activity with TE=1.0:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1007489917

This morning I installed Firmware 2.41 and the calculations became better (though Endomondo still is 36% higher with 529 kcal):
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1008769894

But I am not sure this was thanks to the firmware update. As said, previous activities were all ok. ONly yesterday was an odd one. Will keep an eye on this.

(PS: I have a VO2-Max of 48 ml/kg/min and all configs seem legit)

How many times have you run with the 235 so far? And how many times with your current user profile settings?

It typically needs at least 5 runs or so before the TE values start making sense (either out of the box or after changing them) although you can get a VO2 Max value after one run.

A reset would restart this process so worth doing if you have run a lot already. Maybe less so otherwise.

Without wishing this to come over the wrong way, it is possible that your pace is being interpreted as somewhat slower than whatever it thinks is a default (maybe 9:00 min/mile pace based on what have seen on other devices) and the "effect" of running slower than this is "low" although 1.1 is very very low. Given the HR max you mentioned and what you got to here and how far you ran, I think it should have been at least 2.5 and maybe up to about 3.0.

The fact you only TE of 1.1 probably explains why you did not get a VO2 Max as it is just not thinking it is seeing an effort it can make an informed judgement on. Why that is, is however not clear to me.

How many times have you run with the 235 so far? And how many times with your current user profile settings?

It typically needs at least 5 runs or so before the TE values start making sense (either out of the box or after changing them) although you can get a VO2 Max value after one run.

A reset would restart this process so worth doing if you have run a lot already. Maybe less so otherwise.

Without wishing this to come over the wrong way, it is possible that your pace is being interpreted as somewhat slower than whatever it thinks is a default (maybe 9:00 min/mile pace based on what have seen on other devices) and the "effect" of running slower than this is "low" although 1.1 is very very low. Given the HR max you mentioned and what you got to here and how far you ran, I think it should have been at least 2.5 and maybe up to about 3.0.

The fact you only TE of 1.1 probably explains why you did not get a VO2 Max as it is just not thinking it is seeing an effort it can make an informed judgement on. Why that is, is however not clear to me.

I'd only done four runs (three outside and one treadmill) before I reset the watch yesterday. Since then I've done one more run with similarly peculiar results: 122 calorie recorded burn for a 7.53km run with an average heart rate of 158 and a TE of just 1.3. The run was subsequently exported to Strava which reckoned the calorie burn was 1010 and gave me a "Suffer Score" (their equivalent of TE I guess?) of 153 which they rate as "Extreme".

I'll keep running and see if things settle down when the watch has more information to play with.

No offence taken at the possibility of my slow pace being an issue - I'd been wondering if that might be a factor myself. However, and for what it's worth, I did have a previous Garmin unit a few years back. I ran a similar pace then but I was generally credited with a TE of over 4 on most of my runs.

I can't believe that this is a hardware issue as the watch is clearly recording correct information for GPS and heart rate. It seems to be the software's analysis of the data which is going awry somewhere and perhaps there's something about my stats that is falling outside of some expected parameter?

1340

Hey there, you are not alone! Today I ran 10.54km in 56:41 and burnt 112 kcal according to the watch. According to Endomondo-App it would be 879 kcal.

Strangely though, in the previous 2 weeks it was calculated correct (my last run was 3 days ago). I am not sure what has changed in the last 3 days. One data is completely different for the today's run: The TE-Value (Training-Effect) is 1.0, whereas before it was always around 4 and 5. I have no idea why and what this could allude to. Some speak of a learning process of the watch and I don't know if this has concluded today (after 2 weeks in use) and is way off track now.

Sofaklecks, it looks like your experience is very similar to mine. You say that your data looked fine initially but has now changed. Had you changed any particular setting in the meantime?