You Can Change Garmin Settings Mid-Run Without Losing Any Data

Fix your run settings mid-run — without stopping the activity

You're five minutes in, and the zone 2 heart rate alert you set up for last week's easy run starts buzzing at you. Now you've got three bad options: put up with it for the next hour, stop and restart the activity and lose your data, or cut the run short.

There's a fourth one nobody uses. You can just change the setting right now, mid-run, while the activity keeps recording.

How to do it

Garmin's own manuals put it plainly: you can edit the activity settings while you are exercising. The route in differs slightly by watch.

On a Forerunner (and fēnix, Instinct, epix, Enduro): long-press the MENU button during your run — that's the middle button on the left-hand side — then choose Settings and you're into the same activity settings you'd normally reach before starting.

On a Venu: swipe left during the activity to reach the run controls and settings, and change it there.

Make your change, back out, and you're running again. The timer never stopped.

Your data is completely safe

This is the part that stops people trying it. The activity keeps recording the entire time you're in the menus — GPS, heart rate, cadence, laps, all of it. You don't lose a second, and there's no split or gap in the file. Nothing about the recording pauses just because you're looking at a settings screen.

What's actually worth changing mid-run

Once you know the menu is there, a lot of small annoyances become fixable on the move:

• Training alerts — silence that heart rate or pace alert, or set a new one for the session you're actually doing
• Auto Lap — turn it off for a track session, or switch from 1 km to 1 mile
• Data screens — add the field you forgot, like cadence or lap pace
• Auto Pause — turn it on when you hit an unexpectedly busy stretch of town
• Backlight or gestures — stop the screen lighting up every time you swing your arm at night

The habit worth building

Most people set an alert for one specific session and then forget it exists until it interrupts a completely different run weeks later. Rather than fighting it, fix it in the moment — it takes about fifteen seconds and it's the difference between a ruined run and a slightly interrupted one.

Menu layouts vary quite a bit between Garmin families, and button counts differ too. If you're not sure how your model is laid out — or comparing one that's easier to navigate mid-activity:

Compare Garmin devices →