Using the Garmin Coach Feature (and my review)

[@Juli-ol2ec]

Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed review. I was searching for details on how to use the coach and Drill Workout specifically. So you answered my question with a tutorial. I'm that one who bought the Venu, added the Run Walk Run coaching sessions to learn how to run! My goal is to run (walk, run) a 5k and beyond. Thanks again!

[@michaeltilstdk]

Hi. Loved your video! Actually it might be the best demonstration of the Garmin Coach feature I’ve seen on KZbin to this day. I’m looking forward to try it myself on my Forerunner 265 for the first time. I’ve completed the half marathon distance about 10 times but want to get faster and better :-) Keep up the good work👏

[@williamtaylor5899]

This was a great talk. I appreciate this and it was helpful to me . Thanks you .

[@maureenferrel6243]

Wow! I've spent countless hours trying to figure out the lap button. Your video is the best one I've run across. Thank you for the clarification. Now I'm going out for a test run. Using the Galloway coach and there are so many lap button presses!

[@jt714]

I just did same thing with lap button today - thanks for explaining it.

[@edladd212]

I’m 2 weeks from the end of a HM training (Jeff Galloway version) and the long run suggested was 19.5 miles. I only did 13, since I thought it was too risky. The ‘extra mile’ thing is confusing, it’s because the warmup is update #1 and then every mile in the main run is an extra +1. One thing I didn’t like is the lack of feedback from the app. During drills it often gives a target, but then there’s no easy way to find out how you performed. Thanks for the vid, there still isn’t much info available about these plans online.

[@briandeal8927]

I would think that the last two weeks should be a tamper? Ether way, anything over 16 miles is insane for a HM long run. Good job calling an audible on that one. There’s no need to risk wearing out your legs or bonking two weeks before your attempted race.

[@edladd212]

Worked out well in the end. Ran a 1:50 and it felt mostly comfortable. For the last mile or so I did have some leg cramps that never came up in training, but I did bump up the pace for the last 2 miles to take advantage of feeling good.

[@briandeal8927]

@@edladd212Congrats! When I’m running half’s I want to keep a fairly even comfortable pace up until mile 10 and then speed up the last 5k. I’m currently working on trying to work on negative split my long runs to get the feeling down to negative split my marathon.

[@sebas_ruel]

Great review, I hope Garmin is watching your videos :) I agree that the PacePro Plan feature should be available when doing a Coach Workout.

[@usernameenabled]

I made the exact same mistakes this morning on my first Stride repeats. Thanks you so much for the clarification.

[@FagnerSerrano]

Thank you for the review. I loved it.

[@biancaboonen9130]

In my experience, the plan only adapts when you change the settings (the date of your race, the time goal or the days of the week that you choose to do your runs) or when you pause the plan.

[@gghbcffhhih]

That's a great review, thanks! About extra miles. I had the same problem and I think that garmin shows laps instead miles on that screen when you finish a lap. For example, I have a new lap after each 1 kilometer. And after finishing warm up(5 minutes) they will show me 1 and it will be about lap

[@gallolocoparisien]

I hope Garmin watches and will add a full marathon plan, especially for beginners.

[@marionmcnee8759]

I'm just thinking of starting a Garmin training plan. This is such a useful review... thank you.

[@pgtips73]

This is a really good video. I’ve hit the same snags on scheduling & pressing the lap button as yourself. I have an old 645 Music & I only discovered this about 6 weeks ago, it blows my mind I’m still finding new features on it! Beware - I was starting out on the Cambridge Half marathon and there was scheduled workout for my 5k on that day, make sure you reschedule beforehand. I was on the start line messing about with my watch when I should’ve been concentrating on running.

[@BrendadeVries78]

I bought my Garmin for hiking and later started running. I started using the training suggestions, but they did not have a lot of speedwork, almost only basic training. But I could use it to reach 10k. Then I decided to do the Garmin Coach plan with Jeff Galloway. I decided to do the plan for the half marathon and set it to the timelimit of 2.5 hours. I am a very slow runner, and at that time, 80 minutes for 10k was my fastest (now it is still 75 minutes as fastest). I expected that after the benchmarkrun something would be shown that the half marathon was not an option for me, but I got a 'well done'. So I decided to give it a chance. I choosed Jeff because of the run-walk-run. I never walk or run painfree because of an achillestendonproblem due to antibiotics use in the past, and the 3 times a week with only 1 run longer than 30 minutes sounds great. But after 1 week I had to do a slow long run already of 11.4km. Ok, this was doable. But the second training of the week was 6 times 800m with some other excersises. No problem, but it is in total around 8.5km and I need 75 minutes to finish this training. The short training is always the same, or hillsprints, or a magic mile. And then 2 weeks hills, 2 weeks magic miles. This can be done in 30 minutes. But the long run went up from 11.4 to 17 km in 1 step and then to 22km and the last time I had 27.4km. These steps are too fast and too big for me. I know I am allowed to walk. So I did 1 time now 25.5km, but it took 4 hours. My fastes half marathon in the training is 3 hours and 4 minutes. There are 2 weeks of long runs and then 2 weeks of speed training, which is now today in week 17 out of 23 (I changed the end date) 14 times 800m in a speed I can do only 1 or 2 800m's in. Then I am sooo tired that I need to slow down. Another problem I found with all these 800m's intervalls and only 2 long runs a month is that my body is adapting to 800m, but that the long runs became to got a problem. 1.5 week ago, even 3km without walking was not possible anymore. And this was not because of overtraining, but because of running too fast for a too short distance. So I decided to make my own training for a while (and let the coach programm run in background while I was doing something else with running. I have now done again a 10k and a 7km competition run (no run walk run this time). My body needs more long slow runs a month than only 2. Another thing I found that is a problem with the coach is that I sometimes do 10km runs and they cannot be implemented as a training. Sometimes I prefer to skip one of the 800m interval trainingruns and do a 10km competition run. I do them as run-walk-run and try to be as fast as possible. The last 10k competition run I said to myself: at least 2.5km without walking and then less than 30 second walking. So I finish the 10km runs with my fastest now 75 minutes. In training I have now done a max of 2 hours and 14.4km without walking and then started doing run-walk-run till I reached 22km. Officially my Coach programm will finish next week, but I had decided to do a real competition run as first half marathon. This is why the coach adapted to 23 weeks. The Garmincoach is showing my training till now in 'purple' which means I am ahead of the schema to do it in 2.5 hours. But I really see that 3 hours is more realistic. I have met only 2 times with 6 times 800m the required speed, and all other times I am too slow. but it is always a 'well done'. And my endurance on a long run sticks a little bit now around 12km. Sometimes I can do 14, sometimes only 10. but till now after 2 hours I am still very tired and it does not feel well to go further without some walking. So yes I think I can do a half marathon in a few weeks, but only with run-walk-run. Not running the whole distance at once. And I also will not do it in 2.5 hours. Also the racepredictor shows a slower time than 2.5 hours (last time 2.40 hours). So I am almost at the end of the coach program. There are some shortcomings sadly. But what I like is that it gives me more to do than the trainingsuggestions. EDIT: My next long run must be 30.5km, very long for a half marathon.

[@AH87saxo]

Hello, I think that that “Extra Mile” that appears usually occurs in all training programs, whether automatic like the Garmin coach, as it has happened to me once when I have exceeded the intervals of an app (“10K Runner”) to a workout using the Garmin Connect utility… (it has sometimes happened to me that, in the training program, an extra “Lap” was counted, the “warm-up” one, for example). The Garmin settings are based on “laps” (in Europe by kilometers and in the US by miles, I suppose, when you make them finish laps automatically) and counts this warm-up period as one lap, just as it counts (I suppose ) like the cool down, only since it is usually the last interval and we stop the clock, you are at the end, and you don't usually/you can see the warning on the Garmin screen

[@fatherdome5457]

Hi. Thanks for your review! I have tried two of the three coaches and neither of them did get me near my desired pace for HM, despite a very “happy” and motivating confidence ring. My goal is HM 1:48 (pace 5:07) (I am close to 51 y.o and 1.65 meters of hight.) No matter what i do, and again despite what the confidence ring shows, along with a very optimistic estimate, i can not run at pace 5:07 for more than about 10 minutes at a time. Todays run said warm up 5 min., run 30 min. at pace 6.30-5.42 and 10 minutes at pace 4:48. I was able to run at pace 4:48 for only 2.5 minutes before break. My pulse at complete rest is about 42. It is like I can’t do any progress🙁 Maybe I am one of those socalled none responders…

[@carolchen3866]

Wow, such a thorough review! Good job. I enjoyed that. But these training programs are so complicated. I just got a Venu 2s a couple of days ago and tried the 10k training program. The 2nd day is the hill repeats and I was completely flummoxed. I could not figure out when it expected a lap button push and when it didn’t. I’m surprised I couldn’t find more videos explaining it.

[@thewrinkledrunner]

Yes, it is frustrating! I do wish there was more consistency so it could be determined easily when a lap push is needed, without having to memorize the steps in the middle of a run!

[@carolchen3866]

@@thewrinkledrunner yes that’s exactly what it takes I figure it out by really studying and memorizing the program steps. It’s kind of fun now. And I do love having the garmin, with the training program on the watch and recording the lap times.

[@nevertoolate8589]

That was really helpful thank you. I see you have a lot of useful videos I need to catch up on. I have messed up with the lap button too! Loving the FR245 so far but the lap thing I’m not getting. First run with drills I totally messed up and ram during the wrong interval, then nearly cancelled it by mistake!

[@dontlikecheese123]

Thanks for such a great review. I have the vivoactive 4 and am using the coaching feature för my first 5k. I fell in the same trap as you with the lap button drill. Very annoying!p Thanks for the tip about changing training days. I too live in a cold snowy area and sometimes need to change plans. Generally, I am still getting to grips with the watch so am maybe not making best use of it yet, but I think as im a newbie to running, its not so critical för me to understand every feature of the watch yet.

[@TERABYTEPILANTRAPILANTRA]

Hello, firstly, congratulations on the content, it was very explanatory, I also apologize, I had to use the translator to send this message. I started training for the half marathon a month ago and chose Amy as my coach. I've run a few half marathons and had some coaches so I could give my opinion with some basis. I set an achievable goal, 10 seconds less per km and started training. Honestly, I found it very confusing and the opposite of what 99% of the coaches I spoke to preach; I chose 5x a week, with the long training on Sunday. In Amy's methodology, I have two intense races after the long training (Sunday long training, Monday tiring race and Tuesday is speed training), Wednesday and Saturdays are rest runs and Thursdays and Fridays are light runs. In Monday's races you are asked to do your best, WITHOUT EXAGGERATING, without a stipulated pace and with your legs tired from the long run, on Tuesday, again, without any rest, comes another intense training session. I will continue training with her as a trainer because I was very curious about this unorthodox line, but the training is different from anything that is taught.

[@hroche5014]

Great video, thank you!

[@TheLashLady_Basingstoke]

Great review! Thanks

[@MrShanebizzle]

Helpful video! Thank you!

[@docartistwong4929]

Love your hat

[@anitaberendsen9525]

c restrictions? war