So today I tried something new. I want to incorporate intervals into my training. I came across an interval plan (albeit for a treadmill) and decided to make a custom interval set and load it into my garmin.
http://www.itsbettereveryday.com/2011/07/5-treadmill-interval-workouts/
I figured this would be a good chance to test one of the features of the Garmin 305. I was on the website and chose "Workout #5: Got to run like they do in Boston". I honestly didn't know what the outcome would be. I am a fairly strong runner and I am not on a treadmill.
...But this happened to have very complex steps in it, so I chose to use it as an example.
This is how you download custom training intervals:
Actual Results of doing this:
Unfortunately, this routine is a bit too complicated for a real-life run. The program was made for treadmill which I completely anticipated it might not work out, but real-world running workouts need to have more drastic goal changes and have the steps be much more simplified. I did it just to try an interval workout attempt and see how the watch works with it.
Here is my course:
If you look at the details, you can see that it really isn't easy to tell what the interval steps were supposed to be vs what I really did. Before the run, I was sort of anticipating to see clean interval steps in my speed results...but I spent a lot of time looking down at my watch and trying to appropriately adjust my pace. Ultimately, it turns out I might as well have just run a good pace and kept it at that.
These are the issues that I was dealing with:
Granted, many of these problems can be boiled down to 1 reason: Keep it simple, Stupid.
The next time I try downloading workouts, I will do 1 of 2 things:
http://www.itsbettereveryday.com/2011/07/5-treadmill-interval-workouts/
I figured this would be a good chance to test one of the features of the Garmin 305. I was on the website and chose "Workout #5: Got to run like they do in Boston". I honestly didn't know what the outcome would be. I am a fairly strong runner and I am not on a treadmill.
...But this happened to have very complex steps in it, so I chose to use it as an example.
This is how you download custom training intervals:
- Find an interval set that meets your needs
- Open up Garmin Training Center
- Click "View" then "Workouts"
- Right click on "My Workouts". Select "New Workout..."
- Give your workout a name
- You can now enter as many steps as you like.
- You must select the step duration.
- You must select the step target. (It can be speed, heart rate, cadence, or power)
- Select the step options.
- After you create your workout, click "OK".
- Now since that is done, go to "File" and click "Send to Device".
Actual Results of doing this:
Unfortunately, this routine is a bit too complicated for a real-life run. The program was made for treadmill which I completely anticipated it might not work out, but real-world running workouts need to have more drastic goal changes and have the steps be much more simplified. I did it just to try an interval workout attempt and see how the watch works with it.
Here is my course:
If you look at the details, you can see that it really isn't easy to tell what the interval steps were supposed to be vs what I really did. Before the run, I was sort of anticipating to see clean interval steps in my speed results...but I spent a lot of time looking down at my watch and trying to appropriately adjust my pace. Ultimately, it turns out I might as well have just run a good pace and kept it at that.
These are the issues that I was dealing with:
- Treadmill work outs are not real-life workouts. You can set the treadmill to a speed and it is locked there. In real-life, your speed is constantly changing based on your muscles and the terrain. The treadmill steps were a bit too precise for actual runs.
- Garmin seems to have a bit slower screen update time. You are constantly changing your pace trying to match what your program says. When you are looking at the screen, it won't tell you immediately what your pace is (naturally) so you have to keep on guessing as to how fast to go. In the process, your garmin will beep at you to speed up or slow down to stay in the range. It takes some time to learn how to cleanly moderate your speed.
- When the interval time changes, it shows you what pace range you should be aiming for. Unfortunately, it shows it very small and only for a couple of seconds. If you have your interval memorized it isn't a problem since you don't need to look at it...but if you are are trying to read the screen, you can count on your pace changing and more beeping.
Granted, many of these problems can be boiled down to 1 reason: Keep it simple, Stupid.
The next time I try downloading workouts, I will do 1 of 2 things:
- create a program of running at a 9 minute pace for 4 minutes, running at a 6 minute pace for 2 minutes, and repeating. The difference is that the paces are drastically different from each other and I can anticipate what the next interval will be.
- Create a program with goals based off of heartrate. "Keep heartrate at 145 for 4 minutes then put heartrate up to 170 for 2 minutes, repeat"
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