Versions 4.0, 4.0.5, and 4.2 of PC Coach added these new features:

Enhanced graphing of Downloaded HRM data

PC Coach 4.0 gives you the ability to easily choose which data items you wish to view: heart rate, speed, cadence, altitude and power (on S720i), and adjust graph parameters such as line color and Y-axis. PC Coach 4.0 also lets you select the color of each graph item, and whether you wish to apply data smoothing.

Improved Calendar Options
With PC Coach 4.0, you can choose to have your training week start on Sunday or Monday. You will also have the option to have your week view appear in two columns or one. Printing of training schedules has also been enhanced.

Fresh, New Look
PC Coach 4.0 has added new features, new icons, and makes heart rate training even easier!

Improved Help
We have greatly expanded the PC Coach user's guide. Find it under Help - PC Coach User's Guide. It can be printed out as well. (For best results, print in landscape mode.)

Support for The Polar Power Sensor
If you have a Polar S720i/S710 and a power sensor, now you can download your power data and view it along with your heart rate data - or analyze it separately. Power data helps cyclists analyze their rides in a whole new way... now you can track and download your power data along with your other data. Read more about the Polar Power Sensor here...

Support for The Timex Data Recorder
Timex has just released their new Data Recorder. This small data recording device can collect data from Timex Heart Rate monitors, and Speed and Distance Units. Now Timex users can download all this data into PC Coach, and take advantage of it's long-term analysis and training logic! Learn more about the Timex Data Recorder here.

Buy or Download Your Copy today!
If you already own PC Coach Elite 4.0 or later, visit this page to download your free patch. If you have PC Coach Elite 3.7 or one of the Training bundles, you can upgrade your system to PC Coach 4.0 for just $25! To order a CD version, or download your upgrade now, visit the PC Coach store . If you are not yet a PC Coach user, visit the PC Coach store and choose from PC Coach logbook software, and the training bundles Bundles include the PC Coach logbook plus a training plan for your sport - developed by expert coaches.

Features Added in 4.2

The ability to set up and download workouts to and from the Polar S625X and Polar S725 heart rate monitors.

Features Added in 4.0.5

1) A 'Summary' panel has been added to the Imported Data Graph View. It shows any of the following that are present in the data: monitor type, elapsed time, sample rate, calories, Avg/Max heart rate, time in each HR zone, time in/above/below the active training limits, recovery info. The 'Summary' panel can be open or closed by default. Click the "options" button on the Graph View toolbar to set this option.

2) Timex files can now be imported into PC Coach. PC Coach supports direct import from the Timex TDR, but if you have some data already recorded in the Timex Trainer software, or has trouble with the direct import, you can use this feature to bring data into PC Coach that was imported ( or downloaded ) into Timex Trainer. Read the details on how to accomplish this later in this document, in the section 'Importing Timex .CSV Files'.

3) If data is imported and linked to a workout, the time of day of the workout is now brought into the workout and displayed on the calendar if there is room ( typically only the week view shows this).

4) The Intervals view graph has been retired. Now the intervals information is integrated into the Imported Data Graph View. Click the "options" button on the Graph View toolbar to set options for intervals data. Intervals can be a small bar along the bottom ( green for warmup/cooldown, red for work interval, blue for recovery ) or they can also show as a larger rectangle whose top is the average heart rate for that segment.

5) New display option for the Imported Data Graph View: Printed copies of the graph can have the heart rate zones shown in color, or not, to save ink cartridges. Click the options button on the Graph View toolbar to access this option.

6) New display option for the Imported Data Graph View: The summary panel display of time below/in/above the monitor's limits settings has a new option, to display what is reported by the monitor, or to use our own method. In the case of the Polar S410/S510/S520, the information reported by the monitor is not very useful. See details about this at the bottom of this document. Click the options button on the Graph View toolbar to access this option.

7) For the Polar S710/S720, the Temperature graph now comes up by default not displayed ( unchecked ). To see that data, just check its box along the top. Remember that temperature is only stored at each lap marker, and is only stored if the altimeter is active.

10) A calories macro was added ( e.g. DFLT=HRM(Calories) ) to obtain calories info from Polar monitors. Any workout that has a field for calories that references that macro will now bring this data in.

11) If a workout has imported data attached to it, a second icon appears on the calendar, to the right of the workout type icon. This new icon shows the source ( Polar, Timex ).

12) The Quick Setup window for Polar S610, S710 and S720 has a different behavior with respect to the checkbox for deleting workouts from the monitor on successful download. Previously the box was always checked by default. Now, you indicate when you set up your monitor options whether you want to delete workouts by default or not.

Bugs that were Fixed in 4.0.5

If you are a PC Coach 4.0 user, you may want to read about these fixes that went into 4.0.5.

The 'Distance' macro ( e.g. DFLT=HRM(Distance) ) works now for data from the Timex TDR.Any workout that has a field for distance that references this macro will now bring data in from the appropriate monitor.

Printing of the Imported Data Graph View has been improved in a number of ways. Especially, landscape mode works now.

Quick Setup for the Polar S610/S710/S720: when uploading coming workouts to the monitor, if Monday start was selected for the calendar, the day of the week for that uploaded workout definition was off by one day.

Long term graph view: If Monday Start was selected, double clicking on a point on the graph would take you to the calendar but to the day before the day of the point you clicked.

Temperature was not being reported accurately.

Speed data from the Polar S520 was not being graphed properly. It was 2x the actual speed.

In some cases, especially for Polar S410 and S510, the laps were not drawn properly on the Imported Data Graph view.

In some cases, if you had not imported data from a monitor but instead added it by hand. Then if you opened the Workout View and clicked on the Details button and clicked Calculate, the data you added by hand was lost. This bug was introduced in version 4.0.0.

Also in the Details view under the Workout View, the logic of the 'Mark as Complete' checkbox could sometimes be the opposite of correct.

The detach feature (from the Workout View ) was not working properly for data from Polar S410 and S510.

Related to hrm files from Polar S610, S710, S720: In the past, if you deleted a workout that had imported data attached to it, you were asked if you wanted to also discard the attached data, or keep it on the calendar as unattached. If you indicated to discard the data, the hrm file was not actually deleted. This caused a problem if you then wanted to re-import that workout, because it was seen as already present by the software. Now, these hrm files are moved to a 'deleted' folder under the user's hrm_file folder. They are still available in case you change your mind, but they don't preclude re-importing that workout data if it is still in your monitor.

The imported data graph was being redrawn multiple times, which caused flashing when changing the window size.

In the Workout View, workouts with S410 or S510 data were not getting a 'Detach' button.

Previously Added to Version 4.0.4

The following bug fixes were added in 4.0.4, which was only sent to a few customers. These have all been included in the 4.0.5 patch.

If the main PC Coach window was small when the graph view window was opened, the graph view window was positioned such that its title bar was above the top of the main window, making it impossible to move or resize the graph view window.

The Quick Import button on the top toolbar was not working properly for customers who have the Polar Coach heart rate monitor.

Some debug code was added for customers whose workouts did not appear on the calendar after an import

Importing Timex .CSV Files

In the Timex Trainer software, select a workout. Now click the menu item File - Export. Follow the instructions there to create a .csv file containing the workout information.

The .csv files created are stored in the 'Data' subdirectory, under the main Timex Trainer directory.

In PC Coach, click on the 'Data Transfer Center' button on the top toolbar. Select 'Manage Data Sources'. Select 'Timex CSV File' from the list, and click 'Add to my List'.

Now you are at the 'Equipment Setup - Timex CSV File' screen. Click the 'Import' button.

PC Coach is setup to look in the default directory where Timex Trainer stores the .csv files. If this path is not correct for you, click 'Set or Change Path' to browse to the correct location.

If there are .csv files in the specified location that are not already imported into PC Coach, you can import them now by clicking on 'Ok'.

Note that if you want to do this on a regular basis, you can add a 'Quick Import From Timex .CSV Files' button to your top toolbar. At the 'Equipment Setup - Timex CSV File' screen, check the checkbox to 'Show a Quick Import button'.

Limits Reporting Options Explained

The 'Summary' panel in the Imported Data Graph View shows time spent below/in/above the limits settings that were programmed into the Polar monitors. The monitors report these values directly as a part of the downloaded data, but the information that is reported by the monitors is not very useful. They report, for example, time below/in/above limits 1 for the entire workout, including time that limits 1 was not active. And similarly for limits 2 and 3. This made it difficult to make sense out of that information because it showed time out of range for a limits range, during time that the range was not being used.

To refresh your memory on this feature, the Polar S series monitors have the capability of being programmed with three different high and low limits settings. These settings are what causes the monitor to beep at you if you are above or below them. And you can switch between these three settings during your workout. Most people don't use limits 2 and 3, except that if you use the interval training mode ( as many of our built-in workouts do ) the limits are automatically switched for you: limits 1 is active during warmup, then limits 2 becomes active during the interval session ( both work and rest ) and when you leave interval mode and go to cooldown, limits 3 becomes active. ( Or if limits 3 is not set, it reverts to limits 1 )

So to get a report from the monitor of the time you spent below your interval limits (limits 2) that includes your warmup and cooldown time makes it difficult to draw useful information from it. It always show a lot of time below the lower threshold.

Instead, you can select the PC Coach method. ( Click the options button on the Graph View toolbar to access this option.) Here's how it works:

If you used the interval training feature during the workout, we can tell when the interval mode started and stopped. We report time below/in/above limits 1 only during the warmup, time below/in/above limits 2 only while you were in interval mode, and time below/in/above limits 3 only during cooldown. ( If the monitor reverted to limits 1 here, because no limits 3 was setup, we still call it limits 3 on screen, to be consistent.)

The other difference in the PC Coach method relates to non-interval workouts. The monitors reported time spent in each of the three limits even if limits 2 and 3 were not used. We have found that almost nobody knows how to switch from limits 1 to 2, and from 2 to 3, during the workouts. And we learned that the time at which these switches occur is not downloaded with the workout data. So we cannot reconstruct the event and report based on only the time when a limit was active. Instead, we have chosen to report only limits 1, since (excluding workouts where interval mode was used ) this will be the most accurate and understandable for most users. If you are a person who switches between limits manually when not using the interval training feature, then you might want to elect to use Polar's method of reporting. You will still get a report that shows time spent below/in/above each of the limits even when those limits were not active, but it might be useful to you to see the limits 2 and limits 3 reports on screen, even with that reporting flaw.