After my surgery I changed from a half marathon training plan to a 10k training plan. I did wait a little long to do it so I couldn't even get a race on the date of my actual race since all the plans are long. I was coming from nothing for a month so I actually switched trainers because the runs would be too long. Then I switched again. Coach Greg had the closest to actual race date and also the shortest runs that I would be able to handle.
I changed my goal time twice throughout training. I'm currently on week 7 of 12. When you open Garmin Coach it has how confident it thinks you will do in your race based on your current runs and your goal time. See the screen shots above. I increased my goal time by 2 minutes and you can see that the green circle is still confident but not as overly confident.
When you transition to the next thing to do, it pops up on your watch.
It took some time to get used to how the watch displays things for the training plan. I'm still not liking the warm-up and cool down intervals. Then it's impossible to see mile splits since you have 5 minutes or whatever before a split. It took me awhile to realize you can swipe up on your watch to actually see your pace on the warm up and cool down. You don't need to know the pace but it's just fun to see what you are up to.
The training plan started with a bunch of Easy runs. Then it added 1 speed run a week. There are 2 now.
My easy pace has improved. I'm faster now after weeks of running. I'm surprised how much my speed workouts have improved based on the slow times of the easy runs.
Once you complete the workout, you can't actually view what the workout was with the goals. I always take a screen shot before I run so I can compare what I did to it after. On almost every speed workout, I'm way faster than I should be.
On August 1 I updated my goal time. Then on August 31 after my run, I updated my goal time again. I initially had trouble picking a goal time based on how weak my core was from surgery. Depending on how I think about the goal I think it's too fast or I think it's too slow. The Easy runs have a pace range of 1-2 min slower than your goal pace. So initially it was 11:47-12:47 then 11:37-12:37 and then 11:18-12:18.
I like the optional portion of the train plans because at the beginning I needed to cut out optional.
I have been doing intervals and increasing my run time as I got more into shape. I just keep wanting to run to get more stats. The training plan only gives you 4 runs at a time. It might give you more if you have it schedule more than 4 runs in a week. As soon as I complete a run then a new one in the training plan shows up. I have noticed that the duration is increasing weekly. Also on runs, repeats are increasing.At first it had me do 4 sets of striders and then next time it was 8 and then 12.
Once you run, I don't like how you can't see the plan/goals. You can see what you ran and the title of the run but you can't see what the suggested was.
You can see from the Pace on the chart how I do intervals as I run.
After almost every run, I take a screen shot of my stats and then I label it in some way to know what the goal was so I can easily see later.
Every run has a warm up and cool down. Most are 5 minutes but sometimes they are up to 15 minutes each. The warm up and cool down are always part of the overall pace in the summary photo. I wish there was an easier way to get the pace for the run that wasn't warm-up and cool down.
It automatically puts "Speed Repeats" if that's the run. But I have to look elsewhere to actually see what I had to do. I had a goal for the first 5 then a different goal for the next 4. Each repeat was 1 minute long. Without my screen shots I wouldn't remember this.
Normally I do intervals for an entire workout. But I created a special one for shorter run intervals for the warm up and cool down.
I started to try to manually edit the title so I remember later how many and how long I did the Goal Pace Repeats.
You can see the workout schedule. The check marks are what you completed. My plan has 4 days a week but I moved stuff so I ended up running 5 times here.
You can view all your past weeks.
I ran with a water bottle in my pocket for the first time on August 29. It was pretty nice.
On one of the training runs it had 5 minute intervals I decided to change my watch to beep at .5 instead of .25 so that I could get an entire interval in the 5 minutes instead of it being broken. Then I didn't change the watch back so I did my first run ever without my watch showing me .25 splits. The previous run didn't really count since it had a bunch of smaller segments so it had new intervals anyway. I don't like it that you don't get a time popping up as you run for the recent time when you are one one of the repeats or pace runs. All the segments are smaller than a watch interval so nothing pops up. Or if you have a 5 minute segment and it buzzes at .25 then at like 3 minutes you get your split but then the next 2 nothing pops up.
Sometimes it's fun to overlay various things to compare.
Sometimes I mark down my interval so later it's easy to see what I ran.
Garmin labels the picture you save with a date and title which I like. But it doesn't save the photo so I can't easily scroll down in a feed and save all the stats like I can for mapmyrun. Here are 2 collages of almost all my runs in August easily saved from mapmyrun.
I started propping my phone to show off my tanks with words.
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| 8/31 Progression Run - I was too fast. |
While you run the Easy Run you can see where your current pace is or you can swipe up and get displays more similar to ones I'm used to without following a training plan.
Sometimes I label my too slow and too fast intervals.
It was so confident I'd make my goal!
I planned to make this post flow a lot better with way more explanations but it was hard enough as it was. I wish you could pick shorter training plans. Like after I do my 10k, I want to train for another race but I already have a base so don't need so many weeks. I still have to actually figure out how to change my race registration from a half marathon to a 10k. I have more screen shots but google photos doesn't auto backup for me anymore and I had to dig and find the photos to manually back up.
