How to Set Up Running Intervals On Your Garmin Watch

Adding short walking intervals to your runs is easy with your Garmin fitness tracker.

Running intervals let you add walk breaks into your runs, which can help you on your journey to increase endurance and up your distances. With a Garmin fitness watch, you can do this without constantly glancing at your watch by setting up running intervals. The watch then will then tell you exactly when to run and when to enjoy a walk break. Here's how you can set up a custom interval workout on your Garmin watch so you can focus on what matters most: your run.

Breaking your workout into smaller pieces is a popular tactic, as the many apps for interval training workouts demonstrate. It's a helpful way to maintain focus and avoid getting overly fatigued during a demanding workout.

The same logic applies to running, as well. The Galloway run-walk-run method is one popular guideline, and there are many more training programs that schedule a walk break into your run. By taking breaks, you can reduce overall fatigue and potentially avoid overuse injuries.

Manually tracking interval runs on a Garmin watch means keeping a close eye on the time and hitting the Back button to record every transition, which can get annoying. Here's how to automate the process.

Current Forerunner watches have an option for interval training, with some slight differences between the models. As a helpful YouTube video from TRIAX Performance shows, navigating to your watch's interval screen takes a few moments. Here's how to set up intervals on some of the most common models.

Follow these steps for the Forerunner 945 / 945 LTE, Forerunner 255 / 255S / 255 Music / 255 S Music, and Forerunner 955:

Here's how to create an interval workout on the Forerunner 245 / 245 Music and Forerunner 745:

To create your own interval sets for these models, follow these steps:

You can see the steps in action in this YouTube video by SportsTechGuides.

The vívoactive watches have one of the most straightforward approaches to run/walk intervals.

A helpful YouTube video from Avoiding Chores demonstrates these steps.

The rugged outdoor watch can also handle running intervals. Here's how to set them up:

YouTuber Avoiding Chores shows how to perform these steps. Because there are so many models of Garmin watches, yours may operate a little differently. Double-check your instruction manual if you have questions about setting up interval runs.

To run with intervals on most Forerunner watches, navigate to the Run screen, hold the Up button, and navigate to Training > Intervals > Do Workout. (An additional step to select between Open Repeats or Structured Repeats may be necessary as well.)

Select your desired interval training, then hit the Start button to get going. Simply follow the prompts to run or walk.

On fēnix watches, navigate to Run > Menu > Training > Intervals > Do Workout.

For Instinct watches, select GPS > Run > Menu. Next, tap Training > Intervals > Do Workout. Finally, hit the GPS button again to get going.

There's also the option to set up intervals from your Garmin Connect app.

Send the workout to your watch using the Smartphone button in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. The next time you're ready to work out, navigate to this new run on your watch on the My Workouts screen.

When you're ready for an interval run, let your watch do the hard part. By automating run and walk breaks for your Garmin watch, you'll get in an effective workout without wasting time staring at your watch. It's one of the simplest ways to make your workout a little easier and more efficient.

Lindsay E. Mack is a seasoned writer with a focus on health and fitness technology, having authored over 2,000 articles for various industries over the past decade. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Business Administration. As an active athlete and early adopter of fitness apps, she loves testing new technology for MUO's readers.