I have never uploaded a course and followed it on my watch and I want to do that for my long run tomorrow. I have created the course in GC and uploaded it to my watch and I can see it. I know how to start the run with it but I don't know what to expect. Does it give me directions of when to turn and what direction to turn? Does it vibrate or anything when direction changes? It's a 19 mile route which will be my longest to date and while I don't want to mess it up, I really want to try using it. I am running with a group and there will be times when we have to stop. I assume auto pause works the same with a course route? Are the default data fields sufficient or should I add anything that might be helpful? Thanks for any help!
I follow Course all the time, it's pretty easy. Once is created and saved then I usually you GCM to transfer it to the watch. You find the course on there and there's a send to button to send it to the 935. Make sure you sync the 935 after this and you will find it on the watch.
I have assigned a Hotkey to navigation (press and hold start) so I can easily get to the function. When you are ready then Ross start and select your profile and start to get a lock. Then go to navigation and Do Course. It will bring up a map of the course on the screen and if you are at the start of the course it will say you on On the course.
when you are ready to start then you can start the activity by pressing start and you are off. Note I think you need map in your data screens of the activity you are doing to be able to switch the display to other data screens. If you don't I think you need to get back to the map through navigation if you page away from it for any reason.
the course stays active what ever you do with the watch, so you can pause etc. You will see directions whenever there is a turn but sometimes these are spurious if the course you upload jumps from sidewalk to footpath although they are parallel to one another I usually look at the map to see the general direction I am heading in so if it's straight and I get a left turn notification then I ignore it. If you should have turned left you will soon know as you get a vibe and an off course notification you can then look at the map backtrack and take the turn. Typically you get a vibe that a turn is coming up and one again as you are meant to turn. That, along with the off course warnings and the visual map should mean you can use it with no problems, by the way, it is always useful to know the tracks where you are running or at least have studied funny junctions that are tricky as turns in quick succession are difficult to follow. The other thing to do is when it says a turn is coming up then look for the turn with your eyes. It will tell you how far it is off so think, I'm heading down that road so you don't have to slow down. Also after you have taken it, if you are not sure wait to see if you get an off course notification.
it works really well, but you get better at using it after a few tries. Good luck and let us know how you get on!
CW, thank you so much!! I was hoping that is how it worked. These are all mostly residential streets so there shouldn't be anything tricky about it, it should all be simple turns. I went through the navigation settings and made sure the map was turned on and I did a test run (even though I'm miles away from the start location) just to see what data fields I had and the map and navigation screens are there as well as my usual run screen. I just wasn't sure how the turn by turn worked so I feel better about it now. I'll report back on how everything worked. Thanks again!
It worked really well! It would have been even better if we hadn't decided at the last minute to reverse the course of the first 10 mile loop, but that wasn't the watch's fault. :( So the first couple miles was great, I got turn alerts and I could see how far away the turn was, then I was off course for that first 10 miles because we went the other way. But once we got on the last 9 the watch showed that we were on course again so that was nice. I wasn't sure if it would pick it back up again.
What I didn't like was that I was always running just ahead of the turn direction distance, so I had to assume it means to turn down this street even though it was telling me the turn wasn't for another 300 feet. But once I knew what it was doing I was fine. Overall it was very handy and everyone in the group was really impressed with my watch. Oh, the other thing I really liked was the screen that showed the elevation profile so we could see what hills were coming up. It showed the entire 19 mile course on one screen and where we had already run turned green so we knew where we were.
19 MILES DONE!! 6 weeks until my first marathon and Ragnar Reach the Beach in 2 weeks! Who runs their first marathon at 51?? :eek:
