How Garmin’s New Epic Feature Helps Me See the Big Picture of My Workouts
Garmin’s new Epic training log feature got lost in the shuffle of the latest Fenix 9 watch announcement, but it deserves its own headline. It’s a shareable digital travel diary, and Garmin positions it as a tool for posting after major hikes or races. Personally, I think that wording misses the point. Epic is also a great tool for training analysis, which is exactly how I plan to use it for my upcoming marathon this fall.
First off, don’t confuse the Garmin Epic watch with Garmin’s older line of watches, the Epix , with an “x.” This feature is called the Epic , with a “c.” The names are so similar that searching for one will return the other, so double-check your spelling.
What is Garmin Epic?
Garmin Epic is a digital travel journal that combines your activities, maps, photos, and key health and performance metrics into a single interactive timeline you can revisit and share. With the Fenix 9 smartwatch, you can create and launch an Epic directly from the watch. For older watch models, you can still create Epics in the Garmin Connect app.
Once you’ve created an Epic, you’ll be able to see all your activities on a single map, along with photos, an activity feed, daily notes, and selected performance and health reports for the entire period. This is a free feature of Garmin Connect, and Garmin’s demo at launch showed a “Reports” tab with sleep scores, resting heart rate, and heart rate variability status for the same dates.
How to Use the Garmin Epic as a Training Tool
Again, although the Garmin Epic launch is timed to coincide with the Fenix 9, you don’t need that smartwatch to use the Epic in the Connect app: you can find it in the “Activities” menu. You can also merge past workouts into the Epic after they’ve been completed, which is what makes the Epic a great workout hack.
The Epic program can last up to 92 days and tracks total distance traveled and calories burned, as well as sleep, recovery, and heart rate variability. That’s approximately 13 weeks, which is convenient for a typical half-marathon-level training block. Here are some ways to use it:
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Create an entire training block. For each block, create a separate epic, such as “Fall Marathon” or “Base Phase.” You’ll get the overall volume and recovery dynamics in one window and can compare them with the next block.
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Analyze the results of a training camp or a busy week. Garmin uses training camps as an example: group days, view total training volume, and see how your fitness and recovery have changed over time.
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Analyze your race preparation afterward. Conduct a retrospective analysis of your data for the past 10 weeks and see if your heart rate variability and sleep quality have been maintained. Then you can decide what to repeat next time.
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Monitor your return after an injury or a period of reduced load. Sometimes during such periods, the trend is more important than any single success.
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Use your daily entries as a subjective diary. “My legs are heavy,” “I slept poorly,” “I felt great.” These indicators reflect what was happening in your body, but your entries reflect how you felt, and that’s what usually explains a strange week.
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Plan ahead. You can schedule up to five future epic events for up to 366 days. Schedule your next block of events before it starts.
Garmin Epic wasn’t designed as a comprehensive training analysis tool, so it’s not a flawless system. However, while Epic is positioned as a place to relive your adventures, I’d argue that a more useful technique is to use it to look at your training from a distance and identify patterns for future training.