[Matthias]

When following a workout on my training plan my Garmin Forunner 920XT displays my PACE RANGE I am supposed to be in – but the pace displayed is the AVERAGE PACE which is not only inconvenient but also distracting because I get an alarm every few seconds that I am not in the desired range. I went through the data screen display settings and made sure that I have the desired values displayed – but once I start the workout it seems like there is a default data screen set-up that I can not change/customize and that overrides all my customized screen settings. Has anyone experienced the same issue and was able to solve this? Thx.

Matthias

[Charles]

I train with a 630, but I suspect the behavior is the same as you are experiencing.

I load the 80/20 workouts on the watch and select the workouts from the daily calendar. But, once I start the workout I scroll over to another screen, one that displays pace, HR, cadence, etc. The pace is then the current, not average pace. I still get alerts if I deviate from the program while the alternate screen is displayed. The downside is I have to scroll back to the workout screen from time to time to know where I am in a segment.

I agree, this is not ideal and would like to see it fixed.

Another annoying feature is not with the watch, but with Training Peaks. I’ve often finished interval workouts only to be disappointed when I look at the pace in the workout analysis section. It turns out that data smoothing applied makes the graphics look horrible, especially for short intervals. You can adjust the data smoothing, but this is a case where again the raw data should be the default.

[David Warden]

Matthias, I loaded a Pace workout on Garmin device to prove you wrong…and I could duplicate the issue, on both a Garmin 920xt and a 645. This is new, and I’m confident it did not used to work this way. Further, when using a HR-based workout the real-time, not average, is used, so there is a glaring inconsistency between the Pace and HR workout behavior.

I’ve contacted my rep at TP and asked for an explanation. In the meantime, there are two workarounds. The first, as Charles states, is create your own custom screen that displays whatever you want. As Charles describes, this is inconvenient in that it will only tell you your custom zones on the structured workout screen, so you can’t see both.

You can set autoscroll to rotate between the two screens every X seconds, and that way you can see each of the two screens without manually switching.

Additionally, consider the Garmin 80/20 App. This is not a complete solution, but it does provide the advantage of giving you both real-time pace and current 80/20 zone in the same screen.

David

[Matthias]

Hi David and Charles,

Thank you for the prompt responses and suggestions.

Let’s hope either your TP contact or Garmin (I will call them tomorrow during business hours) will be able to provide a direct fix. They have been pretty good in the past so I am hoping they will be able to fix this in the near future. In the meantime I will try the temp fixes you suggested. The Garmin 80/20 App or the auto scroll might be a quick fix. Either should work for training purposes.

I will report back….

Matthias

[Charles]

I tried and like the 80/20 Garmin App for pace.

Not so for the heart rate app. Having to compress the 7 zone 80/20 zones onto the 5 zone Garmin system just doesn’t work for me. The compression masks zones for recovery runs as well as the X & Y zones essential to the 80/20 protocol.

With the growing popularity of 80/20 running hopefully Garmin can step up and add some flexibility to the heart rate zone settings (like Training Peaks did).

[David Warden]

TP got back to me, they are laying the responsibility of the average pace field squarely on Garmin, say they have not control over which data is displayed. Off to my Garmin rep to demand answers!

David

[Matthias]

Thanks for the update.

I have been following your/Charles’ suggestion from yesterday (using the auto-scroll function) and that has worked well today. So will continue to use that for the time being.

I downloaded Garmin’s 80/20 App but I was not able to figure out how to run this instantly – and decided to test the auto-scroll option first. I might still test the App since Charles seems to like it.

Hopefully Garmin will be able to make needed fixes.

One thing that might also be valuable (not sure if it is possible though): the font size of the target range is very small and numbers are very difficult to read while running. Might be a default font size that can’t be changed. But maybe worth inquiring…

Cheers,

Matthias

[Charles]

Matthias,

I also found setting up a bit confusing. I was not able to edit an existing data screen include the app on my 630. So, instead I created a new activity profile on the watch (I called it “Train”) and was able to load the 80/20 Pace and Heart Rate data screens.

I will continue to use the Pace app; just a quick glance during a workout and I know exactly where I am without distractions.

Charles

[Matthias]

HI Charles,

Thank you for explaining. I like the idea of setting up a new profile and seem like that might solve it. I might test that.

Cheers,

Matthias

[damon.lebeouf]

to add to the conversation, i ran into this exact “issue” a while back. on a structured workout the nice handy screen that tells you your zone pace does in fact display the average pace for that interval, NOT the instant pace.

i did some digging and there is a thread on garmin’s message board pages and pages long with people complaining about it. its just how they designed that screen and its apparently an older complaint that hasnt been addressed by garmin.

i dont even use that page anymore as an average pace doesnt tell me crap as i start falling off at the end of an interval because i went out too hard at the start.

[thetrickster]

Glad I’m not the only one – I tried a pace based workout this morning, a speed play workout with 1min at Z4, 2min at Z1 x6, and I was getting audio alerts very delayed saying I was outside or over Z4 – very annoying – and the workout gauge was for sure was off.

I hope Garmin fix this issue, as I’m getting increasingly frustrated with all this tech hindering my prescriptive workouts, more than helping. I got a Stryd thinking it would enable to me train without the HR lag issues – alas its not fully supported by any of the watch companies (doesnt work with the builtin structured workouts) and so reverted back to HR / Pace plans – and now this pace issue.

Sigh…

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