Comparing Power vs Pace Programs with Garmin and Zwift

Greetings,

So in a couple of weeks I’m probably going to start the Half-Marathon Program and I’ve been considering using Power (I have a Stryd) vs Pace. I’m trying to compare my options between the two. I have a Garmin Forerunner 245 and Zwift. I know Zwift needs the Pace option as it doesn’t do running power. I’ve picked up the “maintaining” power plan in training peaks as a test and I started using that today. The Garmin doesn’t seem to announce what power level I should be running in as the workout commences. I’m guessing I’d need the Stryd Workout’s app to get that level of support? My concern is that Stryd is going to starting charging for that at some point. The Forerunner 245 doesn’t support power meters so I can’t use the 80/20 ConnectIQ App.

I’m wondering if perhaps I’m making this harder than it needs to be and am considering switching to a Pace based plan. Pace would let me use Zwift as a “hud” and I’d probably still use the Garmin for recording to training peaks (as it saves more data metrics). In a workout, the Garmin will pop up and say “Run 5 minutes at X:XX/km right?”.

It seems my options are to stay with power and consider the Stryd Workout app (and potentially paying for it), or switch to pace and get pace alerts on Garmin and the ability to use Zwift. However when I start to run outside, the hills will impact the pace plan far more than the power based plan. Right now, I think my desire to have the Zwift “HUD” as I’m running along on the treadmill is winning over the power advantage on the hills but some of that depends on if the Garmin Workouts will announce the pace zones as I run the plan on my watch. With the present power configuration, I had to memorize my power zones for my workout today.