When I’m training for a long-distance running event like a marathon, there’s one feature I use on my Garmin Epix Pro—and now the Garmin Fenix 8—that proves more useful than almost any other: route generation. With a few taps in Garmin Connect, I can ask the app to automatically generate a circular route that starts and ends in the same spot. Sometimes the distance has to be adjusted—it might yield an 11.5-mile run when I’d selected 12.5 miles—but overall the feature works great.
Once I have the route, I send the GPX file to my best Garmin watch by syncing it – a quick job – and bam, I have turn-by-turn directions on my watch via maps and notifications to make the right turns at the right times. This allows me to completely disconnect from navigating the route and just focus on my run.
Many of the best running watches come packed with this kind of automation, from virtual pacers to target heart rate zones, which can help take some of the mental strain out of a long run. In my extensive testing of nearly every running watch brand, though, only Garmin could pull off this kind of route-creation feature in a way that made it easy and seamless to use while running. And thanks to the new Garmin Fenix 8 and Garmin Enduro 3, things only get better.
In an exclusive chat with TechRadar, Jon Hosler, Garmin Fenix 8 product manager during development, told us about the new dynamic routing feature on the Garmin Fenix 8 and Enduro 3. Dynamic routing allows you to run a set distance, finishing at your starting point, without having to plan ahead much. Even if you deviate from the route you originally planned, your watch will intelligently recognize what you’re up to and send you on a new route with your originally selected distance in mind.
“We’ve found that a lot of people want to deviate from their route and do something different, or maybe there’s a road closed that day and they have to go another direction,” Hosler said, “and that can completely mess up that route if you don’t know where you are.
“It’s more adaptive now. If you change your route halfway through, [your Garmin watch] “You’ll remember that you wanted to run that 5 or 10K and at that point you want to create a new route that will get you back to the same distance. If you want to run a second around the lake and still get back to 5K, you know, we try to make that happen.”
When I was in Paris during the Olympics, I had to deviate from my planned running route due to road closures for the cycling events and this feature certainly helped me stay on track. But there’s more to dynamic routing: it can also guide you back to your starting point during unplanned runs of fixed distances.
“The second half of [this feature] is that some people know where they are running, but just as a little bit of confidence that they can easily get back to where they started. If you go into a run and set a goal, we will give you a reminder during the run, but we will not give you turn-by-turn guidance.
“At 40%, for example, once you reach two miles, we would automatically create a route back to the start point and ask you, ‘Do you want to drive back?’ and [if the runner selects yes] “We give you that route suggestion, only for the second half of your run.”
These changes to one of my favorite features in a running watch will be invaluable for people like me: runners who travel a lot and train for long distances. It’s often difficult to find circular routes to run the distances we need to train, especially in new areas, but Garmin is determined to make it easier.
