10 Garmin Tips That Make Your Runs Better

10 Garmin tips that make your runs better

Most runners use their Garmin as a stopwatch with GPS. It is a lot more than that, and nearly everything below takes about a minute to set up once and then works on every run afterwards.

1. Race yourself against an old run

Running alone on a familiar route gets dull, and with nobody to chase you settle into the same comfortable pace every time. Your watch can put one of your own recorded runs on the start line next to you.

Press start and select Run, but don't start the timer yet. Scroll down to Training, select Race Yourself, then pick From History for a run you've recorded or Downloaded for a course from Garmin Connect. It works with Virtual Partner, so the whole way round you see how far ahead or behind your old self you are.

Two things make it a real race: pick the same route you ran before, and pick a run you can actually beat. Chasing a personal best from two years ago stops being motivating around kilometre two. It's in the manuals for the fēnix 7 and 8, epix, and the Forerunner 255, 265, 570, 955, 965 and 970, and goes back as far as the Forerunner 245, though some older watches call it Race an Activity.

2. Keep the screen on, but only while you run

Flicking your wrist mid-run to check your pace is annoying, and leaving always-on display on all day is the most expensive display setting there is. You can have it during activities only.

Hold MENU, then go to Watch Settings → Focus Modes → Activity → Display & Brightness → Always On Display. From your next run the screen stays lit, and the moment you save the activity your watch goes back to waking on a wrist flick. On older AMOLED watches without focus modes, the same switch sits under Settings → System → Display, in the section for during activity.

The full setup, model by model →

3. Put a heart rate alert on your easy runs

Staring at your screen to stay in Zone 2 ruins the run, and looking away is how the easy run quietly becomes a medium one. Let the watch watch it for you.

In your run activity's settings, open Alerts, choose Add New, select Heart Rate, and set a high alert at the top of the zone you want to stay in. Your watch buzzes the moment you drift over it, and you can go back to looking at the road.

The Zone 2 alert, step by step →

4. Add cadence to your data screen

Almost everyone runs with pace, distance, time and heart rate, and ignores cadence. Your steps per minute is one of the best clues for why a run feels harder than it should, and unlike your pace on a hill, it's something you can fix immediately by taking shorter, quicker steps.

Open the activity's settings, go to Data Screens, pick the screen you actually look at and swap one field for Cadence. Watch your own numbers for a few runs before chasing anyone else's target.

Why cadence is the field to add →

5. Let your watch call out your pace

If you run with headphones, you don't need to look at your wrist at all. Audio prompts read your pace, lap time and heart rate into your ears, so you learn you're going too fast while there's still time to do something about it. They're especially good on race day, when you're surrounded by people running the wrong pace for you.

Setting up voice pace alerts →

6. Build the interval workout before you leave home

Running intervals off the lap button means doing maths while out of breath. Build the workout once in Garmin Connect, send it to your watch, and it counts the reps, times the recoveries, and buzzes when it's time to go again. Your watch also shows the target pace for each rep, so you stop guessing.

Build your own interval workout →, or let Claude build it for you.

7. Let your watch count your shoe mileage

Shoe foam breaks down somewhere around 500 to 800 km, and you can't feel it happening. Your body adapts to the lost cushioning until your knees or shins point it out.

In the Garmin Connect app, go to More → Gear, add your shoes, set a maximum distance, and assign them to your Run activity. Every run counts towards that total automatically, and Garmin tells you when the pair is done.

The complete gear tracking guide →

8. Pick the right GPS mode for where you run

Multi-band is the most accurate satellite mode and the most expensive one for your battery. On open roads you won't see the difference, so the default is fine. Between tall buildings, in a narrow valley or under heavy tree cover, it's the setting that stops your track from cutting corners.

It lives in the activity's settings under Satellites. Switch it on for the runs that need it rather than leaving it on everywhere.

Which GPS mode to use, and when →

9. Fix a setting mid-run instead of putting up with it

An alert buzzing at you from a setting you changed last week doesn't have to ruin today's run. You can open the activity settings while the timer is still running, change what's annoying you, and carry on without losing any data.

How to change settings mid-run →

10. Get ready for dark evenings

Two settings make autumn and winter running safer. Your watch can warn you a set time before sunset, so you know to turn back or grab a light, and it has a flashlight, even on models without a dedicated LED.

Set a sunset alert → · Use your Garmin as a flashlight →

A few more worth setting up

• Your parkrun barcode on your wrist, so you stop forgetting the paper one: here's how
• Calibrate your treadmill distance, because the belt and your watch rarely agree: the calibration trick
• Check Training Readiness before you decide whether today is the hard session or the easy one: what the score is actually made of
• Broadcast your heart rate to a treadmill, a bike computer or a gym screen: how broadcasting works

Where to start

If you only do two of these today, set the heart rate alert and add cadence to your data screen. Neither costs you any battery, both change how you run rather than how you look at your watch, and you'll notice them on your next run.