Course Wizard

Overview

This dialog can be found in ‘Menu-Project-Course Wizard’.

The wizard is designed to create training courses for fitness devices, e.g. the Garmin fitness watches.

A route or track can be converted to a FIT/GPX/TCX-file here. If not already contained the wizard adds the necessary timing and elevation data to the course.

See also GPS Device Offline Synchronization.

Usage

  1. Select a single track or route.

  2. Call this Course Wizard.

  3. Update the field ‘Course Name’. This name will later appear in the fitness device’s training course list. An empty course name results in an unnamed course on most of the fit watches. CAUTION: Some fit watches do not accept German umlauts. To be on the safe side use literals and numerals only.

  4. If necessary limit the number of course trackpoints. Most devices can handle at least 500 points - the 910XT for example can handle up to 14000 course trackpoints. Enable the ‘Max Trackpoints’ limit if the wizard is ought to reduce the number of points to the specified value. Slight deviations from the wanted course are possible (a few meters).

  5. Some devices tend to not properly show or even skip long segments. A segment is the straight line between two subsequent course trackpoints. By enabling ‘Max Segment Length’ additional points will be created to shorten long segments. This can interfere with the maximum allowed number of course points (if enabled).

  6. Tick ‘Average Speed’ and specify the average speed for the course. This causes to display a target speed on some fitness watches or a virtual training partner.

    For all pace units (seconds per …) the value can be specified in format: HH:MM:SS (hour:minute:second).

    • 00:04:45 s/km means 4 minutes and 45 seconds per kilometer.
    • 00:06:10 s/mi means 6 minutes and 10 seconds per mile.

    The checkbox ‘Average Speed’ has three options:

    • Unchecked: The wizard uses the timing values already contained in the route/track. If the route/track does not contain or contains incomplete timing data the wizard will show an error message.
    • Checked: The wizards overwrites the existing route/track timing data with recalculated values based on the given speed.
    • Indeterminate (default option): If the route/track timing is incomplete or missing the wizard recalculates the timing. In case the timing is already complete no changes will be applied.

  7. Tick ‘Update Elevation’ in order to force the wizard to update the elevation values of all calculated course points. The course profile will then be visible on the watch. (see also Elevation Tutorial)

    This checkbox has three options:

    • Unchecked: The wizard takes the elevation contained in the route/track. If the route/track does not contain or contains incomplete elevation data the fit watch will not show the elevation profile.
    • Checked: The wizards overwrites the existing route/track elevation data with data from an offline elevation data source. This operation fails if no offline elevation data source is available.
    • Indeterminate (default option): If the route/track elevation data is incomplete or missing the wizard tries to retrieve the data from an offline elevation data source (if installed). It doesn’t show an error if this operation fails.

  8. Save the course to a FIT/GPX/TCX-file (depends on your device, see next chapter) by pressing the related ‘Save’-button. A file dialog appears for choosing destination folder and file name.

If desired use the ‘Default’ button to reset all settings of this wizard to an optimum.

Tip: Tick the checkbox ‘Close wizard after saving’ in order to save a button press and close the wizard automatically after having successfully saved the course.

Device Best Practice

The following section describes how to use the course wizard with particular devices. Prepare the course wizard as described above then follow the procedure for the related device.

Garmin Edge 830

  • Connect the device to the computer using the USB-cable. In the Windows Explorer the watch appears as own drive letter, e.g. F:.

  • Set the wanted average speed, e.g. 25km/h

  • Save the course as FIT-file to F:\Garmin\NewFiles

  • Remove the USB cable from the device

  • On the device:

    1. Select your activity profile
    2. Press the symbol named “Navigation”
    3. Go to Courses, then Saved Courses
    4. Choose the course just created
    5. Press “Ride”

Garmin Forerunner 935/945

  • Connect the watch to the computer using the USB-cable. In the Windows Explorer the watch appears under Computer as Forerunner 935/945 1.

  • Set the wanted average speed, e.g. 10km/h or 00:06:00 s/km

  • Save the course as FIT-file to a local folder, keep the folder in mind

  • Open the Windows Explorer, copy the FIT-file created in the step above to Computer\Forerunner 945\Primary\GARMIN\NewFiles.

  • Remove the USB cable from the watch

  • On the watch:

    1. Press Start-Stop
    2. Select your sport by pressing Up/Down - then press Start-Stop
    3. Press and hold Up until “Run Settings” appears
    4. Go down to “Navigation” - press Start-Stop
    5. Go down to “Courses” - press Start-Stop
    6. Choose the course just created
    7. Choose “Do Course”

Garmin Forerunner 920XT

  • Connect the watch to the computer using the USB-charger, the watch appears as new drive titled “Garmin Forerunner 920XT”

  • Limit the segment length to 25m

  • Set the wanted average speed, e.g. 10km/h or 00:06:00 s/km

  • Save the course as FIT-file to the ‘Garmin\Courses’ folder of your watch’s drive. The watch later renames this file.

    Important: Avoid diacritics (e.g. äöüéíó) in file names otherwise the files will not be accepted.

  • Dismount the watch from the USB-charger. The watch automatically updates the courses now.

  • On the watch:

    1. Press the bottom left button to get to the menu
    2. Select ‘Navigation’ -> Enter
    3. Select ‘Courses’ -> Enter
    4. Select your course name you entered in 4.

Garmin Forerunner 910XT

  • Install the ant-agent (depreciated, but still downloadable from Garmin), it works without a Garmin account.

  • Limit the segment length to 25m

  • Set the wanted average speed, e.g. 10km/h or 00:06:00 s/km

  • Option A: FIT-file
    Save the FIT-file to c:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Roaming\Garmin\Devices\<your device ID>\NewFiles. This is a hot directory. As soon as the fitness device is connected the FIT-files residing in that folder will be sent to the device automatically. The FIT-file disappears and re-appears in the Courses folder - as FIT-file with the current date as file name.

  • Option B: TCX-file
    Save the TCX-file to c:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Roaming\Garmin\Devices\<your device ID>\Courses. This is a hot directory. As soon as the fitness device is connected the TCX-files residing in that folder will be converted to fit-files and will be sent to the device automatically. The TCX-file disappears and a fit-file with different name but same data appears instead of.

  • On the watch:

    1. Press the bottom left button twice until the History/Training/GPS/… screen appears
    2. Select ‘Training’ -> Enter
    3. Select ‘Courses’ -> Enter
    4. Here should the course name be listed (the one you entered in 4.)

Garmin eTrex (eTrex 10/20/30/…)

This recommendation applies to all GPX-file based devices, like the modern eTrex series from Garmin and many other brands that accept tracks as GPX-file.

  • On the device: Make sure the interface is set to ‘USB mass storage mode’ (system settings). This is the default setting for most of the Garmin devices. You have to do it only once, the device keeps this setting.

  • Connect the device to the computer using the USB-cable. The device should appear as new drive letter in the Windows Explorer. Keep the drive letter in mind, e.g. f:

  • In this wizard: Set the wanted average speed, e.g. 10km/h or 00:06:00 s/km

  • Save the course as GPX-file to the device’s target folder, e.g. f:\Garmin\GPX

  • Remove the USB cable from the device

  • On the device:

    1. Got to tracks
    2. Select the track you just saved
    3. Start navigating the track

Import a track to Garmin Connect

Garmin Connect allows to import tracks/activities/courses using GPX-files. The activity to be imported must contain timing data. Otherwise Garmin would not accept the files.

The following recipe describes the way to create such an activity and how to import it to Garmin Connect.

  • Create a track in FancyRoute. Open this Course Wizard.
  • Set the wanted average speed, e.g. 10km/h or 00:06:00 s/km.
  • Save the course as GPX-file to your computer, keep the path in mind.
  • Close the Course Wizard.
  • Login to Garmin Connect and import the GPX-file just created. Drag and drop the file created two steps above into the import section of Garmin Connect.

Garmin Connect denies to import FIT-files that contain courses2. Even FIT-courses that have been created with Garmin Connect itself won’t be accepted. So the recommended way to import 3rd party files into Garmin Connect is using GPX as exchange format in a way as described above.

Sophisticated race time forecast

Whereas this wizard can only set an average race pace there is sometimes the need for more detailed time planning, especially in long distant races. FancyRoute comes with a time planning tool called Time Planner.

Use the Time Planner to calculate the race timing. Then start this Course Wizard and transfer the course to the watch. You have to disable ‘Average Speed’, otherwise the wizard would overwrite the precalculated course timing.

Manage settings

At the top of the wizard a combobox labeled ‘Profile’ can be found. Press the ‘+’ button to the right of this combobox in order to save the current settings and assign a name to them.

Settings saved in a profile are persistent and can be used to quickly arrange a certain setup, e.g. for a particular workout or sports activity. Use the combobox in order to restore saved settings.

Use the ‘-’ button to delete a profile. Deleting a profile does not change the current settings, the settings remain unchanged until a different profile is selected.

  1. Garmin recently migrated from an actual drive mapping (USB mass storage mode, the watch appears as normal drive) to a new technology called MTP (media transfer protocol). MTP is more modern and more fail safe but is unfortunately not very handy for the user. So it is more complex to transfer tracks to the watch. ↩︎

  2. It seems that the only FIT file accepted by Garmin Connect is from recorded activities, not from created courses. Last tested on 2022-06-29. ↩︎