I did a TR workout outside using a Garmin 540 device today (latest firmware), and I think the TR workout could have been represented much more accurately. The workout was Howard, a fairly straightforward over/under threshold workout with a profile like this:
The warmup is represented as 9 minutes at 161-257W with a target of 209W. This should have been a 3 x 3 minute step ramp as shown in the profile. I think it would be better to map it as 3 steps rather than combining it into 1 generic warmup step.
The time between the over-under intervals, and the cooldown, are all mapped to rest steps with the same power range of 1-161W. The top-end is 50% of FTP while the mid-point of the range is just 25% of FTP. This is completely different to the workout requirements. The rider would have to ride at the very top of the presented range to approximate the workout. I suggest giving a more reasonable, tight range for the power target and not start at 1W. If that is not possible, then map it to an active step not a rest step. The “wait for lap button” steps before entering the intervals are cool though.
Step 6 is given an intensity of “warmup” but is actually the “over” threshold interval at 324W! Maybe, that’s specific to this particular workout definition in your database rather than the mapping?
The “notes” don’t actually display on the Garmin, but instead there is generic wording based on the intensity. I guess that’s a Garmin choice though.
Maybe this is a feature enhancement, but the RPE of the activity is not automatically synced into TR. Garmin asks for the RPE (on a 10 point scale) after completion of the workout and this is recorded in the session data of the FIT file (as a percentage). Actually, Zwift does the same thing. It would be good to sync this data rather than relying on the user to input it again.
Ramps are not represented at all. This is a limitation of the Garmin format, but you could step up or step down the power every 30 seconds or minute to represent a ramp. If the ramp is too short, then best not to do so.
There also seems to be a recurring bug where a Garmin workout is scheduled, synced to device, executed, synced back to TR, and meanwhile TR has changed the prescribed workout to a similar but different one. Very annoying.
I think that fixing things like this will improve the TR experience when doing workouts outside. I actually did a mediocre job at executing the workout today, but hope to get better with more practice and less UI friction. Thanks!
FWIW: I find the workout screen on my 840 to be really bad. The data fields to create a better one aren’t there either. It’s like whoever designed it never rode a workout. Of course I have gotten by with it, but it could easily be so much better. There has to be better ones in the IQ store but I haven’t done an exhaustive search.
I have a garmin edge 1040. I rarely do outside workouts and like you said, you can get by with it. I’ve never fiddled around with the settings to see if I can make it better.
I’ve people display what the hammerhead workout display is like and it seems so much better
How about this workout screen? This is using the BigScreen ConnectIQ datafield on a Garmin. If you don’t like the layout or the selected metrics, you can easily change them through settings. This is a screenshot from a simulator, but it looks the same on device except that the colors aren’t as vibrant.
Some time ago I did a detailed post about how badly the default workout page sux and specifically what was lacking in or wrong with the related available workout fields. Rather than repeat it, I’ll just say what I’m looking for. Target power for the interval, my 3 sec power, my current interval average power. Cadence and HR. Time to end of interval, next interval target and duration. Which of all the intervals of the workout I’m on, e.g. 7/12, or preferably a graph of the overall workout and where I am in it. The graph should not show my power. Nice would be a secondary target, like cadence for example.
Well, BigScreen can do 90% of that list. I’ll put the fields in the order you list them, but they can be displayed in any order and the grid format can be highly customized:
The fundamental limitation is that the ConnectIQ APIs only give information for the current interval and the next interval. So a ConnectIQ app can’t show a graph of the entire workout, and doesn’t even know the total number of steps. At most, I could do a graph of the workout from the beginning up to the next interval, and update it each time an interval is completed - but this seems a bit lame to me.
The only way to get the whole picture would be to bypass Garmin altogether and load the workout directly into the ConnectIQ app. This requires a bunch more infrastructure and code. Probably most people won’t use it because of the friction for getting the workout data into the app.
I have no issues with the 840 workout screen, but have been having on going discussions with support about some outdoor workouts not really matching their indoor counterparts
Is there any hope that TrainerRoad will update their workout mappings into Garmin to correctly represent warmups and rests between intervals? It seems to me that it should be a fairly simple piece of code that translates between their internal workout representation and the Garmin format.
Many of us want outdoor workouts to work properly on the platform and in combination with TrainerRoad AI features. Surely representing the workout correctly is a significant part of that!
Yeah. That looks pretty good. Is that INT NUMBER the number out of the total in the workout. One gripe I had was that the native Workout Step field only showed the number of the interval within a repeated set.
Also, the native Duration and Time To Go fields showed the same thing, the interval time. There was no field that showed the time left for the total workout.
Then there’s the Step Distance field. IDK what that means, where it comes from, or its utility.
Anyway, I haven’t done any outdoor workouts using the 840 since a year and a half ago. Probably won’t try any again until early next spring.
Yes, INT NUMBER simply increments every interval, and counts up to the total in the workout. Actually, there’s no information in the ConnecIQ API to expose the sets or repeated steps.
I have “INT TIME” that is the remaining time for the current interval, and “LAP TIME” will show the time spent in the current interval. Again, no information from the ConnectIQ API on total workout time.
Garmin uses step as a synonym for interval, so Step Distance is just the distance travelled in the current interval. They have a lot of ways to define intervals (not just time based), and I think an interval can be defined in terms of distance. Maybe that makes sense for runners?
