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No Run-Walk Alerts During Garmin Coach Jeff Galloway Half-Marathon Training Sessions

BarryG46
8 months ago

I am posting this in the Forerunner 645 section.  I have owned a 645 since 2018, and continue to use it.  There is no dedicated section for Garmin Coach issues in the forums to my knowledge, so I am posting this here..  I have been using the Coach Jeff Galloway half-marathon program over the past several weeks (as of August 9, 2023).

A number of posters have reported that the built-in Run-Walk alert feature does not function during user programmed workouts or Coach workouts, going back 4 years across multiple watches. They expressed disappointment and/or frustration.  I join them.  I encountered this issue when I tried to use the Run-Walk alert feature during Coach workouts, but no alerts occurred.

There is a Connect IQ workaround for this problem that is compatible with many Garmin watches, but it is not listed as being compatible with 645.

I read a post somewhere a few days ago, which recommended using the lap button to skip past the run and cool down portions of a Coach workout, and then resuming the run, so that Run-Walk alerts become active; and then continuing to do the intended run.  I tried this a few days ago and the watch behaved as expected.  However, I do not know if the Virtual "Coach" even "knows" that I completed the intended run in this scenario.  I suspect that it does not, but that is a guess.  Who can tell me?  Where can I find the information that would tell me?

A solution would be that the Run-Walk intervals would be user selectable in Garrmin Connect; a simple concept; other have mentioned this.

For me right now, the only options I see are: (1) do run-walk alerts in my head by monitoring elapsed time on the watch,  (2) wear a second device to provide the alerts, or (3) purchase a watch which is compatible with the Connect IQ workaround, and use the Connect IQ workaround, which is not supported by Garmin.

Suggestions, corrections,, ideas, etc welcome.  Thank you for reading this.

  • 0 5 months ago

    I was on a Facebook group dedicated to Garmin Coach training, and all the Galloway people used a second device to manage their Run-Walk intervals (and disparaged Garmin for not programming the device to do it, when clearly it's a feature it should support). I don't believe there is any Garmin watch with the Virtual Coach that gives Run-Walk prompts in the workout. Garmin just didn't code the workout that way for import. My strong suspicion is that skipping past the workout with the lap buttons and then doing the workout with Connect as you suggest will result in the Coach 'believing' you have done the workout but telling you that you have 'Room to Grow' (its disappointed message) and lowering its confidence in your success.  If you just want the scheduled runs sent to your watch and don't care about the electronic cheerleading, that might be an effective solution for you.

    A fourth workaround would be to take the workout described, and manually code the entire thing, including each Run-Walk segment of the run, but then you would be bypassing the Coach and it wouldn't know you had done the run. It is not my experience, having done multiple Virtual Coach programs, that the Virtual Coach does much in the way of 'adapting' to me. It doesn't seem to change the target distances or speeds, but perhaps asks me to repeat workouts that I have missed or done poorly on.

    I hope your half marathon went well.

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to Aviatrix

    Thanks for the response.  I chose to do the Run-Walks using my old Forerunner 25 Run-Walk feature for timing the Run-Walk intervals. I wore the 645 and the 25 simultaneously.   I did one workout using the skip-append approach, and I suspect the the virtual coach treated that as a missed workout.  I do believe that the virtual coach adapted to my performance and missed workouts.

  • 0 5 months ago

    why not try R & T pacer pro as a datafield? just program the timers as a data string. easy

  • 0 4 months ago

    I'm two weeks into a Coach Jeff Half plan.  I had my first walk/run thing on Sunday and since there was no obvious run/walk signals, I just ran.  

    This Garmin Coach Jeff program is just kindof broken, if his main technique "run/walk" is not supported..