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Meters for Track and Miles for Runs?

Former Member
Former Member
I'm a brand new FR 645 owner and would love a way to set my units for track work to meters and my units for road and trail runs to miles. So really this is a feature request. I'm surprised there aren't a lot of people with this request, but searching the forum I couldn't find any discussion of it. If you'd also be interested in this feature, I'd love to hear from you on this thread.

Sure I can set my lap distance to 0.25mi, but that's not very satisfying when I'm working hard to shave a second or two off of my 400 intervals. How many seconds did that extra 2.3 meters take me? What about when I'm pushing to finish 1200 intervals in under 4:30? What's the adjustment for that?

Another alternative is to go into settings and change the units for the whole device to km before every track workout. There's two problems with that, though: 1) who wants to do all that extra button pushing every time they're ready to start their track work, and 2) it's very frustrating when I forget to switch it back to miles before I do my next road or trail run.

I noticed a year ago that my wife's FR 35 didn't seem to have this feature, but I hoped for more from the new 645.

Billy

  • As far as data display goes:

    There are some Connect IQ data fields in the store with "distance in opposite units", but that usually means km or miles, not meters, afaik.
    https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/search...art=0&count=30

    If you want distance in meters, my data field AppBuilder 5 can give you that:
    https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/f...e-3b7f39aa67c5

    Use the following app settings:

    Formula: distance_raw
    Display Format: Auto

    As far as auto-laps go, if you set up different activity profiles for track, road and trail runs, then you should be able to have auto-laps in the distance/units you want, regardless of the units that are currently set on the device:
    1) Set your device units to the desired setting for auto laps (km or miles)
    2) Edit your activity auto lap settings
    3) Set your device units back to your preferred display setting

    IIRC, the auto-lap setting will still be correct, even if it's rounded off when you go back into the settings to look at it.

    ---

    EDIT: Since you like track work, I will leave just one more app suggestion here:
    Lap+
    https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/7...b-e97269c3cdb9

    You get 6 fields, a ton of lap metrics including Last Lap Max HR (which Garmin doesn't provide), and a built-in lap viewer. I use it for my own workouts every week, as well as regular runs.
  • I was wondering myself if my watch was rounding distance during workouts. For example, I setup some 200m intervals on my phone but on my watch it shows as .12 miles which is a bit short of an actual 200m. Thought maybe it just displayed to 2 decimals but actually tracked the distance correctly. For what I’m using intervals for, this isn’t a big deal but it would be nice to seamlessly track workouts in the correct distance as setup in garmin connect.
  • I really understand your question: but at the same time “it makes no sence” since during track workouts you just need time because you know the distance...

    i set a profile for track workouts that on first screen (as a single field) i see Lap Time... on second screen i set one layout too with Last Lap Time and on 3 screen i use Lap

    another point is to set Auto Lap off

    so if you wanna do 10 x 400m with 1:30 min rest you can create an workout on connect mobile (and as a tip put 500m on the workout so as you are going to run 400m you will do manual lap and antecipate the fake 500m you set so you avoid a GPS miss to make a lap and you are ate 390m at track marker)

    so as you manually lap it will start rest time and after that it will make a lap so you run again your 400m and manually lap to rest again...

    i hope i could help

    ps: during the interval i just see lap time (not pace) to know if im on right speed at each 100m (simple math to knoe how many seconds i need to be at each 100m like 24s for a 15km/h or 4:00min/km) and during rest time i see Last lap time to check if i did the 400m on target time
  • I'll just add that when I do intervals myself:
    - I usually don't do a programmed workout
    - I do press the lap button manually, so I never have to worry about the distances being off
    - I don't worry too much about the pace on the watch. I only care about the time on the laps. I can always figure out the real pace after the fact.

    DrGabrielSilva there's no need to put 500m on a 400m programmed workout to account for GPS discrepancies. Simply select "Lap Button Press" for the step duration, which is what you wanted in the first place. I guess the only downside of that is you won't know what the "real distance" is unless you add notes.

    Also, if you create a programmed workout, you can choose distance/duration in metres, miles, or km, so that covers the OP's case.

    I already also mentioned that you can temporarily switch your device units just to set auto-laps for an activity profile (if not using a programmed workout), so that also covers the OP's case (as long as you have a dedicated activity profile for your track workouts).
  • You are right!!! You can set on the structured workout to “Lap Button Press”, but i suggested to add 100m so i know that if its 500m i have to run 400m and if its 900m i have to run 800m so i dont need to use notes :P
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Thanks FlowState. I've downloaded Lap+ and hope to give it a try tomorrow. I'll also delete the "Track" activity and recreate it with my units set to metric. DrGabrielSilva your suggestion of turning off Autolap and just relying on the manual lap button is not a bad one either. Except sometimes when I'm coming across the finish at maximum exertion it's hard to remember which button was the lap button and then press it without accidentally mashing a different one. That problem might get better with practice, though.

    Thanks again,
    Billy

  • BillyH No worries. I don't think you need to delete your Track activity at all. Just set device units to metric, set your auto lap distance, then set device units back to imperial. Or you could just use programmed workouts, which would let you specify distances in metres, miles, or km.

    Personally I prefer manual laps myself for interval workouts, since the GPS/footpod distance is often wrong.

    I've had the same problem with mashing the wrong button during a hard interval workout too. Kinda amazes me that anyone could use the VA3 and double-tap the screen for a manual lap.... (Which is why I would never use that watch.)
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    So I tried it out this morning. Setting my units to metric and then changing settings in my Track activity didn't seem to help. Maybe that's because I took the advice I've seen in this forum and turned off auto lap for my track workout. If I go into Track->Training->Intervals, I can only create intervals in miles.

    I created my 10 favorite workouts online using Garmin Connect using meters and loaded them onto the device. Because my system units are set to miles, the 645 still displays those in miles, but it does appear to have the correct distances. My 1600's show as .99 miles.

    Today I did 3 x [800 (400 recovery) 400 (~1:00 recovery) 400 (~1:00 recovery)] which was one of the workouts I created and downloaded from Garmin Connect. Post workout, I can see my lap times nicely on the watch, but I don't see any way to view lap times on Garmin Connect? I was hoping to make Garmin Connect web site my primary source for reviewing my workout since I get my full laptop screen and the graphs are better than on the watch. Without getting the lap results, I can't get all the info on the web site, though.

    The watch worked great overall for the track workout. I didn't have any trouble with the lap button. For some reason, I had much less trouble remembering and accurately hitting the lap button with this watch than with my former Apple Watch or my wife's FR 35. On my wife's FR 35, I always had trouble accidentally mashing the button on the opposite side of the lap button. I didn't experience that problem with the FR 645, maybe because if I did press it accidentally it was harmless because the opposite button just turns on the light. So that was a relief.

    The GPS worked fine for me in stopping my hard intervals. I have my workouts set so the hard intervals end at the appropriate distance and the recovery intervals end when I press the lap button. The 645 consistently ended my hard laps a couple of strides before I got back to the start. I was running on a pretty old elementary school track, so it might be a quarter mile instead of 400m, in which case this couple of strides short would be pretty accurate. Anyway, I like using the distance for the hard intervals because it prevents me from having to mess with the lap button when I'm running a peak effort.

    Overall the watch worked great. The only improvement is that I need to tailor my alerts a little better. I was getting way too many. I had turned off auto lap and some of the other alerts, but I still kept getting a bunch. They seemed to mostly be heart rate or effort related. I set the 800s to target heart rate zone 5 and my 400s to zone 3. I suspect a number of the alerts were trying to tell me that I wasn't in the correct zone (800's might have been close to zone 5, but not quite there and 400's were probably solidly zone 4). I was probably getting 4-5 alerts per lap. Maybe I'll just delete the heart rate zone targets from my workout. (This 800-400-400 is the only one I created with a target heart rate zone because I like to make the 800s the most intense part of the workout. I can do that the old fashioned way, just by looking at my lap time instead.)

    On one lap, I got an error message several times. Unfortunately the font was so small, I couldn't read it without my glasses, which I don't wear while running. I think it said something about "unable to get data", but I couldn't really tell. It popped up 4-5 times on that one lap, and that was it.

    I'm afraid in the end I didn't try Lap+. I loaded it, but I was concerned that it shows too much data for me to a) read without my glasses, or b) comprehend when suffering from oxygen shortage. I think the sweet spot for me is the three number layout, which I'm using for lap #, lap pace and heart rate. Lap pace may get changed to lap time, tho.

    Anyway, thanks again for the advice,
    Billy
  • BillyH Strange that your interval settings (on the watch) are stuck on miles, but workouts in GC are more flexible anyway.

    Re Lap times on GC: When you click on the "Splits" tab, your lap times don't show up? It can be confusing, but GC uses the words "splits" and "laps" pretty interchangeably.

    If you want the most comprehensive stats possible, you can also check out https://www.runalyze.com (for free). It syncs with GC and allows you to chop up your activity in laps of arbitrary time and distance. You can also use it to figure out your best 200m, 30s, etc. GC is more than enough for most, tho.

    Re Lap+: no worries, Lap+ isn't for everyone. I just wrote it because:
    - Some people wanted auto laps separate from manual laps, because they're used to other watches from other companies
    - I wanted a lap viewer in the same app as a "6 field all-in-one runners field" for myself

    Your feedback that 6 fields is too many is useful for me tho. I do find that it's harder to look at smaller text when you're running hard as opposed to standing still, obviously. However, I will say that the font size for 6 fields in Lap+ should be exactly the same as the font size for a 4 field layout on your watch (although everything is obviously a bit closer together).

    Maybe I'll consider adding layouts with fewer fields to the app, but I always thought having 6 fields was one of the reasons to download it. I'm also not sure if there's actually any room left to add anything to that app (for most watches).

    If you just want to view your laps in a list before your workout is complete, I have an app called...Lap Viewer. It does have a setting for "large" fonts, although to be honest, it's still not using the max font size possible (since I don't think that's useful for a list of laps). I've got mine set to three columns: lap time, lap HR and lap max HR. You can set it to only list even or odd laps, so you can omit rest intervals.

    Here's what Lap Viewer looks like with large fonts, two columns and no column titles. (Column titles are optional) [IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/services.garmin.com\/appsLibraryBusinessServices_v0\/rest\/apps\/14e5c6b5-c9e8-44f9-a1ff-28a44148c170\/screenshots\/6b39dbe6-4d86-4342-8647-28a108ef5f7b"}[/IMG2]