Garmin coach query

[krs5]

I'm on week 7 out of 11 on a Garmin Coach plan with a goal to run 5k in 30mins. I've just looked ahead at next week's schedules and my Tuesday run is Goal Pace repeats, but it is a huge step up from previous ones. 1000m at almost race pace with 200m jog - 5 times, followed by 200m very fast with 200m jog - 3 times. This is 7.2k plus 10min warm up and 10min cool down, so probably about 10k in total - my longest ever run so far is 9k so this seems a bit of a challenge! I wouldn't mind too much but it's not my long run day! Does anyone with Garmin Coach experience think this is normal or is it some sort of glitch - maybe a hangover from all the issues last week?

[UnfitNoMore Graduate10]

I’m on the HM plan, so there’s a little less speed work, but this seems like a good 5k plan workout. What I’d do here is give it my best, but walk the jog bits if I needed to recover a little more. Remember the plan is going to adapt... if you can’t hold that pace for a km at a time, that’s ok... if you can early on but towards the end it drops a little, that’s more than ok. Back when I had an actual coach, this kind of workout was designed to find my limits... Garmin could well be doing the same thing here. Make sure your warmup is as slow as you can go... and then just try to have fun with it.

[Lizzibeth78]

It can seem like a big jump sometimes. But they do know what they are doing and it does work.

It might be that with everything that’s going on it’s skipped ahead. I had to change something on mine part way through and it missed 2 weeks out so instead of going from 8 reps to 10 it jumped to 12 and my long run increased by 2 miles not 1!

Good luck on reaching your goal - I had the same one and actually managed it a week or so before my race at the end.

[PurpleFish59 Graduate10]

I had a similar thing with Garmin coach although I was on Jeff’s plan. One week I had 8K of speed repeats and then 2 days later an 11K run. In the end it seemed to work though and I smashed the goal at the end of the plan and did 5K in 29:29. Trust the plan and I’m sure you will too, best of luck.

[krs5]

Thanks for your replies. I will give it a go and see how I get on. It doesn't help that I'm not going to be at home so no idea what route to take!

[AlysP Graduate10]

That’s interesting- never used Garmin coach as it seemed quite intense when I set it up for 10k. Your plan does seem pretty tough!! I am doing Ju ju’s plan and up to 9k with 2 weeks left. I have been really pushing one of the shorter runs ( only my mind gets me there as body is screaming to stop!!). The funny thing is, I have also knocked 2 mins off my 5k time in the last 3 weeks- today I managed 30:26 so I think the mix of a long endurance run, a really hard 4 or 5 k and an ‘easy’ run each week must also be good training for a quicker 5k. Best of luck in your quest, it will be amazing when you see your watch finish under 30 mins!! 😀😀💪