A free data field for Garmin watches
How many times have you wanted to know how long to the next checkpoint?
You asked a volunteer, then got angry at how far off they were. HowFar puts the answer on your wrist: the time to the next checkpoint. It learns how you climb and descend as you run. There's nothing to set up, and it improves the answer every second.
Made for long trail runs and ultras with real climbs and descents, where your average pace says little about the climb ahead. It isn't meant for a flat 5 or 10 km, where the average already works. Try it and tell us how it did: the more feedback, the better.
On your watch
What the field shows
Add HowFar to a data screen, load a course with checkpoints, and run. It shows the next checkpoint, how long it will take to get there, and when you'll arrive. On a full screen, it also shows the points before and after it.
The next main checkpoint, with P if HowFar knows every climb and descent to it, or ~ if it only knows how much higher or lower it is.
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The name comes from your course, or from a point you added on the race prep page, like the top of a climb or a hut. To get P, give HowFar the course profile (see Prepare a race).
The time to get there if you keep moving. The dot shows how far off it may be.
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The dot is green with less than 45 minutes to go: usually within 5 minutes. Yellow up to 2 hours: usually within 15. Red beyond that: often half an hour or more. The other times on a full screen have a dot too. The time is rounded to what can really be known: to 30 minutes beyond four hours, 15 minutes beyond two hours, 5 minutes beyond one hour (2:15 h), whole minutes closer in (42 min), and seconds in the last 5 minutes. For about the first 4 km the number is grey, with (learning) under it: it's only a rough guess while HowFar learns how you're moving today. When it turns white, it's ready. Stops at aid stations are not included, because nobody can guess how long you'll stay.
- The arrival time, in small print next to the number.
On a full screen, with the course profile: the points around it, in the order you'll reach them. Minor points on the way are above the name. The next main checkpoints are below the number.
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Minor points, like a climb top or a hut you added, are grey, with the time from now (Col de la Crosatie in 0:45). If there are too many to fit, the last line counts the rest (Lac du Fond in 1:05 (+2)). Each one you pass makes room for the next. For a main checkpoint, the time is for its leg only, from when you leave the checkpoint before it (then Valgrisenche +1:25). It leaves out your stop there, so add that yourself. You choose which points are main and which are minor on the race prep page. On a smaller field, like half the screen, HowFar shows only the countdown: the checkpoint, the time and the arrival. To have both, put HowFar on two data screens. Without the course profile these extra lines stay empty, because your watch only tells a data field about the next checkpoint.
With no course loaded, the field shows --. On a screen with many fields, it shows only the big number.
Before the race · a few minutes
Prepare your race and get the whole field
On its own, HowFar only knows what your watch tells it: the next checkpoint, and how much higher or lower it is. Prepare your race on the race prep page and HowFar knows the whole course, with the points you choose.
Always: the course on your watch
Put the race course on the watch, from Garmin Connect or by copying its file, and pick it when you start the activity (Navigate → Courses). HowFar knows where you are only from the watch's navigation: with no course running, the field shows --, even with a course profile.
Optional: the course profile
With only the course on the watch, HowFar already counts down to its checkpoints, from your pace and the height difference (~). The profile adds every climb and descent, your own points, and the list of what's coming.
Every climb and descent
HowFar adds up your pace over every slope to the checkpoint, instead of guessing from the total height difference. It's more accurate on trails that go up and down. On the watch, the checkpoint then shows P instead of ~.
Points added for you
One click adds the top and bottom of every climb, from 100 to 500 m of climbing. Another adds named huts, shelters and villages from OpenStreetMap. You can also add any point of your own, like a spring.
Main or minor: you choose
Main points are where you stop or face a cutoff, like aid stations: the big number and the arrival time are for them. Minor points are landmarks in between, like cols and huts, each with its own time. The course's checkpoints start as main and the points you add as minor; switch any of them. The course on your watch doesn't change.
See what's coming
On a full screen, HowFar lists the minor points before the next checkpoint and the main checkpoints after it, with their times. Without the profile it can't: your watch only tells it about the next checkpoint.
- Add the course file of your race on the race prep page: the same GPX or FIT you load on the watch.
- Add points and choose which are main (where you stop) and which are minor (landmarks on the way).
- Copy the text into HowFar's settings in the Garmin Connect app, then sync the watch.
Open race prep Free, in your browser. Your files never leave your device.
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- It's optional: without it, HowFar still counts down to your watch's checkpoints and learns your pace.
- It needs HowFar from the Connect IQ Store. If you copied it onto the watch with a cable, Garmin Connect has no settings for it.
- Where to paste: Garmin Connect app → your watch → Connect IQ apps → HowFar → Settings → Course profile.
- For a race in stages, like the Tor, make one profile per stage, and paste the next one at each life base. Race prep keeps them all in a library.
Try the demo
A real race, sped up
Tor des Géants 2026 (TORX), section 1: Courmayeur to Valgrisenche. 48.5 km with 3,800 m of climbing, run in 13½ hours. The watch below shows what HowFar would have shown at each moment, worked out from the recorded run.
Press Play or drag the slider to any moment. Then compare the lines on the “how far off” chart.
How to use the demo
- Press Play. The race plays 300 times faster than real life: all 13½ hours in under 3 minutes. Pick 60× to go slower or 900× to go faster.
- Drag the slider to jump to any moment, or click on the elevation chart.
- Compare the three lines on the “how far off” chart: HowFar with the course profile, HowFar without it, and the usual estimate (the distance left at your average pace so far).
This is your first race with HowFar, with the course profile in its settings, so it knows every climb and descent to the checkpoint (P). It learns your pace on each slope as you run. Col d'Arp, Col Passo Alto, Col de la Crosatie and Lac du Fond are minor points, shown on the way.
- Race time
- Where
- Next checkpoint
- HowFar says
- It really took
- HowFar was off by
- Your pace today
- Last couple of km
Where you are on the course
Green: the trail to the next checkpoint. Click to jump there.How far off HowFar was
How to read this chart
At each point of the course: the time HowFar predicted (before rounding) to the next main checkpoint, the one the big number counts down to, minus the time it really took (stops not counted). Above zero, you arrived sooner than predicted; below zero, later. The green band is ±5 minutes, and the dot marks where you are, with the same number as “HowFar was off by”. See how the error shrinks as each checkpoint gets closer, and how much closer HowFar stays than the average pace, which knows nothing about the climbs ahead.
How it works
It learns how you move in the mountains
Nothing to set up: HowFar learns your pace as you run, and keeps learning all race long.
Your pace on every slope
Every 25 m, it notes how steep the trail is and how fast you're going, on climbs and descents alike. On steep climbs it counts metres climbed per hour, as mountain runners do.
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For slopes you haven't run yet today, it estimates from the nearest ones you have. It needs no practice run: in your first race it adapts within the first few kilometres. What it remembers from earlier runs helps a little later in the race, and counts less and less as the race goes on. With the course profile, every slope steeper than 12% shares one climbing rate in metres per hour, learned from all your steep stretches so far: one long climb teaches it every steep slope, and on steep climbs it is about 10% closer. Without the profile it knows only the average slope to the checkpoint, which mixes steep and gentle parts, so there it keeps each slope's own pace.
The trail ahead
With the course profile, it knows every climb and descent to the checkpoint, and adds up your pace on each one. Without it, it only knows the total height difference, which is less accurate on up-and-down trails.
How your day is going
It watches your last couple of kilometres. If you slow down or speed up, the time ahead changes with you.
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It also allows for your watch measuring more distance than the map: switchbacks and GPS wobble add about 15% on the Tor.
Does it work?
Tested on six real races
HowFar works best on what it was made and tested for: trail runs of 25 km or more, with real climbs and descents. Here are six races, from 26 to 337 km. Behind them are 129 training runs of at least 25 km.
Each race was replayed, and the prediction was checked against what really happened at every moment. Each time, it was as if it were the runner's first race with HowFar, with nothing remembered from earlier runs. “Average pace so far” is the usual estimate: the distance left at your average moving speed since the start. Fewer minutes off, and a higher “less than 5 min off”, are better.
About these numbers
- Race columns and Average: how many minutes HowFar was off, on average, whenever the next checkpoint was less than an hour away.
- Less than 5 or 15 min off: out of every 100 times HowFar showed a time, how many were less than 5 (or 15) minutes off.
- Off by, 2 km before: how far off HowFar was 2 km before each checkpoint, when you often decide whether to eat or drink now.
- Stops are left out of the time it really took, as HowFar counts only time moving. A stop is less than 30 m covered in two minutes, or less than 90 m with the altitude unchanged: at an aid station the GPS position drifts while you stand still.
- STL25 had no checkpoints on its route, so it was split into two 13 km parts.
- Abbots Way: the race file has no checkpoints, so they were placed where the runner stopped (mostly aid stations), plus one every 20 km where stops were far apart.
- Tor des Géants: the 2023 race replayed on the official 2026 course. The few legs where the route has changed are left out.
- TORX100: the 2025 race replayed on the official 2026 course, which matches it all the way. Almost every checkpoint is a col or a hut, so each leg is a single climb or descent. Knowing the height difference is nearly enough, so the course profile adds little.
What else was tried
The same races were used to test other ways to predict: classic hiking rules (Naismith, Tobler), ITRA's km-effort, an energy-cost model of running uphill and downhill, a machine-learning model, a correction for slowing down over distance, carrying today's trend forward, a correction every few kilometres based on the last stretch, a pace from your past races pasted before the start, your heart rate (against earlier in the race, or against your usual on that slope), and one descending speed in metres per hour on steep descents. None did better, so HowFar doesn't use them. The pasted pace helped in the first hours of races similar to the ones it came from, and hurt in different ones. Learning on the run catches up within a few kilometres anyway.
- Minetti A.E. et al. (2002), Energy cost of walking and running at extreme uphill and downhill slopes.
- Naismith's rule, and Tobler's hiking function in a crowd-sourced revalidation.
- ITRA, km-effort.
- Pacing decline in a 173 km trail race, PeerJ 2016.
- Real-time performance prediction in long-distance trail running, Sports 2025.
Install
Put it on your watch
HowFar is free in the Garmin Connect IQ Store, for the fēnix 5 Plus to 9, the fēnix E, the epix, the Enduro, the MARQ, the Forerunner 945 to 970 and, in a lite version, older watches down to the fēnix 5, the first Enduro and the Instinct 2 (the full list is under “Which watches does it work on?” below). You install it from your phone; no computer needed. After your run, tell us how it did.
1. Install it from the store
- On your phone, open the Connect IQ Store. It's in your watch's menu in the Garmin Connect app, or in the separate Connect IQ app.
- Search for HowFar and open it, or open its store page on your phone.
- Tap Install, and pick your watch if it asks.
- Sync the watch with your phone. After the sync, HowFar is on the watch.
2. Add it to a data screen
- On the watch, open the activity you race with, for example Trail Run. Don't start it yet.
- Hold MENU (the middle button on the left), open the activity's settings, then Data Screens.
- Pick a screen, choose the field to replace, then Connect IQ → HowFar.
- Tip: on a full data screen, HowFar lists the points ahead. On a screen with two fields, it shows only the countdown. You can have both, on two data screens.
3. Race with a course
- Load the race course on the watch as usual (Navigate → Courses), ideally one with the checkpoints marked. For the whole field, prepare the race first.
- Start the activity. HowFar shows the next checkpoint and counts down.
- For about the first 4 km, the time is grey with (learning) under it: a rough guess while HowFar learns how you're moving today. Then it turns white. No practice run is needed.
- Save the activity at the end. HowFar remembers what it learned for your next race.
No phone at hand? Copy it with a cable
- Download the file for your watch from the latest release on GitHub, for example HowFar-enduro3.prg for an Enduro 3.
- Connect the watch to your computer with its charging cable.
- Windows: open File Explorer; the watch shows up like a phone. Mac: install the free app OpenMTP and open it (quit Garmin Express first if it's running).
- Open the GARMIN folder, then Apps, and drag the file into it. Unplug the watch: after a few seconds HowFar is installed.
Good to know: installed this way, HowFar works fully but has no settings, so you can't paste the course profile. To switch to the store version later, first delete the file from GARMIN → Apps, so you don't have two copies.
Questions
Good to know
Do I need to load the course on the watch?
Yes, always. HowFar follows your watch's navigation to know where you are and how far the next checkpoint is. Put the race course on the watch, from Garmin Connect or by copying its file, and pick it when you start the activity (Navigate → Courses). With no course running, the field shows --, even with a course profile in its settings.
Does it work without the course profile?
Yes. With only the course on the watch, HowFar counts down to the watch's checkpoints, from your pace and how much higher or lower the next one is (~ on the watch). The course profile makes it more accurate on up-and-down trails, adds the points you choose, and lets a full screen list what's coming (P).
Does it need a phone or a signal during the race?
No. Everything happens on the watch. You only need your phone before the race, to paste the optional course profile.
Does it use more battery?
Hardly. It uses no sensors of its own: it reads the distance, altitude and course data your watch already records, and does a little math once a second. The GPS and the screen use far more.
My watch announces turns: does HowFar count down to them?
Not with the course profile: HowFar shows only the points in the profile, and the turns your watch announces just help it know where you are. Without the profile, HowFar can't tell a turn from a checkpoint and counts down to each one. In that case, turn off turn guidance for the course on the watch.
What about time at aid stations?
HowFar only counts the time you'll spend moving. It can't know if you'll stop for two minutes or twenty, so stops are never included, neither in the countdown nor in the arrival time. If you plan to stop on the way, add that time yourself: with 1:10 h on the watch and a 15-minute stop before the checkpoint, expect to get there in about 1:25 h. The times of the next main checkpoints (then Valgrisenche +1:25) leave stops out too: each is the moving time for that leg, from when you leave the checkpoint before it. While you're stopped, the countdown pauses, and it carries on when you set off again.
What if I go off course?
HowFar uses the distance to the next checkpoint from your watch's navigation. While you're off the course, the estimate is rougher. Once you're back on it, it settles again. The same goes for a shortcut: HowFar has no map of its own, so it follows what the watch says.
What if my watch's course has checkpoints the course profile doesn't?
No problem. HowFar finds where each checkpoint is on the profile from its distance to the finish, so it still knows every climb and descent to it. It also copes with checkpoints the profile has and the watch doesn't, and with a course file that's a slightly different version of the race.
What if I slow down, or speed up, during the race?
It follows you. Over the last couple of kilometres, it compares how fast you're moving on each slope with what it expected. If you're, say, 10% slower, it assumes you'll stay that way, and the time to the next checkpoint gets about 10% longer. When you speed up again, it follows within a kilometre or two. A stop doesn't change it, even a short one to tie a shoe or read the watch: the time you stand still isn't counted.
Does it keep up as my fitness changes?
Yes. At the end of every activity with HowFar on a data screen, it adds what it learned to what it remembers. Older activities count a little less each time: after five more activities an old one counts less than half, after ten about a fifth. During a race, what it remembers counts less and less as you go, so today's running soon takes over.
Why is it off at the start of a race?
It's still learning how you're moving today. That's why, for about the first 4 km, the time is grey with (learning) under it: treat it as a rough guess. When the time turns white, it's ready.
Should I run with HowFar before a race?
No need. In tests, a first race with HowFar was about as accurate as one where it remembered earlier runs. It adapts within the first few kilometres. What it remembers helps only a little, later in the race.
Can I give it my pace from past races?
Not any more. Early versions had a setting for it. In tests it helped only in the first hours of races like the ones it came from, and made things worse in different ones. Learning on the run catches up within a few kilometres, and HowFar already remembers your runs on its own.
Where does my data go?
Nowhere. The watch keeps what it learns, and the race files you use stay on your own computer or phone. One optional exception: on the race prep page, “Add huts and villages” asks OpenStreetMap what's around your course. It sends only the corners of a rectangle around it.
How do I send feedback, or report a problem?
Use the feedback form on GitHub (it needs a free GitHub account). Say which watch you have and what happened: photos of the watch, the activity file and the course file help most. Everything there is public, so leave out what you'd rather not share. You can also rate HowFar or contact the developer from its page in the Connect IQ Store.
Which watches does it work on?
Garmin fēnix 5 Plus, 5S Plus, 5X and 5X Plus, fēnix 6 Pro, 6S Pro and 6X Pro, fēnix 7, 7S and 7X (also Pro), fēnix 8 (also Solar and Pro), fēnix 9 (also Pro and Pro Solar), fēnix E, epix (Gen 2), epix Pro (Gen 2), Enduro 2, Enduro 3 and Enduro 4, Forerunner 945, 945 LTE, 955, 965 and 970, MARQ (every generation) and Venu X1.
In a lite version, on older watches with less memory: the first Enduro, fēnix 5, 5S, 6 and 6S, Forerunner 935, and Instinct 2, 2S, 2X and Crossover. The lite version has no course profile: it counts down to the course points the watch knows, from the average slope to each, and doesn't show the points around them. It still learns your pace on every slope and remembers your past runs.
Other Forerunner, vívoactive, Venu and Instinct models don't tell apps where the course's next point is, so HowFar can't work on them.