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Personal records

Sorry if this has been asked before (it probably has!) but I have done a few searches, and havent quite found the specific answer I am looking for.

It appears that for personal records (running specifically) Garmin connect uses the total activity time, whereas Strava is "clever" enough to find a specific distance anywhere within an activity, and attribute a record for that section. i.e. 5km, 10km, 15km inside a longer 21.1km + run.

I guess my question is, am I correct, and if so, why is Garmin so dumb? I ran a 21.16km today, and got a new PR on both Strava and Garmin. The Strava PR time is the time taken to do the 21.1km distance, so the little extra I ran wasnt included. Garmin just used the total activity time. Is there a way to change this behaviour? Clearly the Garmin PR is 15 - 20 seconds longer

What if I had ran for 25km, but still beaten my previous record for 21.1km? Would my total 25km activity time be used as the 21.1km record, or is there a point at which it will start looking for distances within an activity?

Thanks in advance

0 chunkywizard over 7 years ago

Most PRs come from race after you have been running for a bit. Race are measured distances so therefore you probably start your watch when you cross the start line and stop it when you cross the finish. Even if GPS says you have done 10K before finishing a 10K race, your 10K time is actually from crossing the start to crossing the finish. I much prefer the way Garmin does this, over Strava as it’s true to race distance, not GPS which is how it should be IMHO

CW

0 Scout40000 over 7 years ago

Gareth,

when your at your trophy case, it says Personal Records in the very top. Behin that is a question mark.

When you click it it will show you the following text:

How does Garmin Connect determine a Personal Record?

Personal Records are created when you upload data that closely matches one of our predetermined distances, and it's the fastest time you've ever uploaded for that distance.

You don't have to exactly match a distance, but it must be close. (For example, a Half Marathon Personal Record may be created if your activity is 13.2 miles.) Connect only scans for a Personal Record the first time an activity is uploaded, so an edited activity won't be listed as a Personal Record.

I hope that helps you.

Best regards
Christian

0 GarethDPhillips over 7 years ago

Thanks, I guess that confirms things. What I dont understand is how close the activity needs to be in terms of distance. If I continued on for another 3km yesterday, and somehow beat my previous half marathon time, would it use the full 24.1km activity time as my new half marathon time? or is there a cut-off at which it isnt a close enough match.

I much prefer the Strava method personally, it makes sense to me, but I understand why people may have other preferences.

0 Scout40000 over 7 years ago

You´re welcome.

I can not tell you exactly how it works but I can give you two examples:

On February 4th I ran an activity of 21,49 km in 1:55:55, it took the half marathon with 1:53:44.

Yesterday I ran an activity of 10,13 km in 48:05, it took the 10k with 48:05. According to the splits I finished the 10k at 47:35.

Best reagrds
Christian

0 GarethDPhillips over 7 years ago

interesting, so on the 4th Feb, it did something similar to Strava, in that it didnt use the total elapsed activity time, but instead used some other time from within it?

0 mark.yarvis over 7 years ago

I hate to complicate things, but I'm pretty sure that I've had sub-segments of a run count as a PR. I believe I once ran a 10k for which I earned a fasted 5K (for the first 5K of the race) and a fastest 10K. (truth be told it was a downhill course, but that's not really the point here :-)

0 mark.yarvis over 7 years ago

I should have also said ... those PRs were recorded on Garmin.

I'm actually noticing that my current 1 mi record is on a 3 mile course, and it is showing the time and pace just for that mile, not the overall event. Also,the aforementioned 10K and 5K PRs are still my current PRs, and the 5K time is just for the 5K portion of the overall 10K race.

0 alexwhittemore over 7 years ago

So it sounds a lot like Garmin is "snapping" the time to the nearest standard length - if your activity is within a couple percent of a race distance, it assumes you ran a race (or training race). If it's way over a given distance (ran 7k, for example), it might give you a record for a sub-distance (i.e. 5k), but not necessarily aligned to start and finish. So on a 13.3mi half marathon, I might get a half marathon 13.1 record for the total activity elapsed time, but a 5k record for some subsection. That would actually be pretty ideal. More opaque than the help text lets on, but probably ideal.

Confusing matters, on my trophy case, my best 5k is currently listed at 0:05.2 (yes, 5.2 seconds), and the activity is a multi-sport olympic distance triathlon. So a LOT of weirdness going on there.

0 alexwhittemore over 7 years ago

Looking at it now on watch AND GC, I've got a bunch of new records on the watch that aren't on GC, so that's weird. I guess probably they just weren't pushed into place because of that errant activity that calculated as lighting speed for 1mi/5k/10k. But it looks like there's "push to watch" functionality on the GC trophy case? I guess there's no such thing in reverse?

0 ASmugDill over 7 years ago

More opaque than the help text lets on, but probably ideal.

The help text in question only tells you how Garmin Connect would detect personal records, and not how the Garmin wearable device (if that model supports the feature) would do so.

Confusing matters, on my trophy case, my best 5k is currently listed at 0:05.2 (yes, 5.2 seconds), and the activity is a multi-sport olympic distance triathlon. So a LOT of weirdness going on there.

I would suggest you remove those obviously invalid PRs on the watch, then send the PRs in Garmin Connect to the device and sync.