Race prep
Get HowFar ready for your next race
HowFar learns your pace on every slope as you run. What it can't learn on its own is the course ahead. Give it the course profile, with every climb and descent between checkpoints, and it knows what's coming. The profile also lets it show the points before and after the checkpoint, including points you add. Make it here, then paste it into the Garmin Connect app. It's optional: without it, HowFar still counts down to your watch's checkpoints. Either way, load the race course on the watch and start it as usual: HowFar knows where you are only from the watch's navigation.
- Your checkpoints. Add your race's course file, and any extra points you want.
- Paste on the watch. Copy the text into HowFar's settings in Garmin Connect.
Everything happens in this browser. Your files aren't uploaded anywhere, and what you save stays on this device. The only exception is the optional “Add huts and villages” button, which asks OpenStreetMap what's around your course.
Step 1
Your checkpoints
Use the race's course file, the same one you load on the watch. HowFar finds its checkpoints and the slope of every stretch between them, so it knows every climb and descent ahead (the P on the watch).
Your watch tells HowFar only about the checkpoints in the course you load. Here you can add more: tops and bottoms of big climbs, huts and villages along the way. HowFar shows them too. The course on your watch, with its alerts and checkpoint list, stays as it is: only HowFar knows the points you add.
Course and checkpoints
Big dots: main checkpoints, where you stop or face a cutoff; the big number shows the time to them. Small dots: minor points, landmarks on the way.Untick a point you don't want at all; the text below updates. Make main the points where you stop or face a cutoff, like aid stations and life bases: the big number and the arrival time are for them. Make minor the landmarks in between, like cols and huts: on a full screen each shows in small print above the checkpoint's name, with its own time, as in Col d'Arp in 0:35. Points you add start as minor. Press Main or Minor to switch a point. With the course profile, HowFar shows only the ticked points, even if the course on your watch has others, like the turn directions some watches announce.
| Checkpoint | At km | From the previous | Climb on the way | Main or minor |
|---|
This course was saved by an older version and can't be changed. To change its checkpoints or add points, add its course file again and save it.
Add more points
HowFar shows these too: climbs and huts found for you, or any point of your own, like a spring or a viewpoint. They start as minor points, landmarks shown on the way. Make one main if you'll stop there or it has a cutoff: the big number then shows the time to it. They appear in the list above, where you can switch or untick them.
Want your watch itself to know these points too?
HowFar doesn't need this, except in its lite version on older watches (see step 2). But if you want your watch's own alerts, checkpoint list and ClimbPro to show the added points, download the course with every ticked checkpoint. Load it on the watch instead of the original: in Garmin Connect on a computer, Training & Planning → Courses → Import.
With some watches, Garmin Connect loses the added points on the way. If they're missing on the watch, copy the file onto it with its cable instead, into the GARMIN → NewFiles folder (on a Mac, with the free app OpenMTP). Unplug the watch: the course appears in Navigate → Courses, with every point.
Detail level
HowFar stores one slope value every 25 to 400 m, as fine as fits in the setting. Garmin Connect's text length limit isn't documented; 4,000 characters works. If the app refuses the paste, choose a lower value.
Step 2
Paste the text on the watch
HowFar's settings are in the Garmin Connect app on your phone (if you installed HowFar from the Connect IQ Store). Made the text on a computer? See below for easy ways to get it there.
- Open the Garmin Connect app and go to your watch.
- Open Connect IQ apps (or Activities & apps), then HowFar, then Settings.
- Paste the text into “Course profile”. Tap Save.
- Sync the watch. On your next run with that course, the watch shows P next to the checkpoint.
On a watch with the lite version (the first Enduro, fēnix 5, 5S, 6 and 6S, Forerunner 935, Instinct 2) there's no “Course profile” setting: these watches don't have the memory for it. HowFar counts down to the course points the watch itself knows, so load a course with your checkpoints in it. “Want your watch itself to know these points too?” in step 1 makes one.
Made it on a computer?
Your library stays in the browser where you made it, so the text has to get to where the settings are. Easiest first:
- Garmin Express, no phone needed. Connect the watch to the computer with its cable and open Garmin Express. Choose your watch, then HowFar and its Settings, and paste the text there.
- Mac and iPhone. With the same Apple ID on both and Handoff on, press Copy on this page and paste straight into the Garmin Connect app on the iPhone.
- Any phone. Paste the text into a note, an email or a message to yourself, then copy it from there on the phone.
- Your whole library. Press Save a backup file below. Open this page on the phone, press Load a backup file, and copy from there.
Your library
Saved course profiles
Kept in this browser, on this device. Clearing the browser's data deletes them, so keep a backup file. A backup also moves your library to another device.