Cardio

Plans, intervals & voice coaching

Pick a template, tell the app how many days a week you can run and how fit you currently are, and it builds a week-by-week plan with pace targets for every step, then talks you through the session.

22 templatesVDOT paces3–5 sessions/weekAndroid voice

The template catalog

Plans start from a template rather than from a blank week. Each template declares a category, a level and a style, and every title exists in both English and Portuguese.

Category Templates
Getting started Return to running safely · Return after injury · Walk to jog
5K First 5K · Faster 5K · Advanced 5K
10K From 5K to 10K · Faster 10K · Advanced 10K
Half marathon From 10K to half · First half marathon · Half marathon PB
Marathon First marathon · Marathon PB
Conditioning Build aerobic base · Build the running habit · Trail introduction · Threshold block · Hill strength · Race sharpening · Maintain performance · Maintain fitness

Levels run beginner, intermediate and advanced; styles cover continuous running, performance work and run–walk progressions. Some templates (the maintenance blocks in particular) let you choose the length, for example 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 or 16 weeks.

The build wizard

The wizard is where the template becomes your plan. Every input changes the generated weeks.

Sessions per week
Three, four or five. You also pick which weekdays are available, and the number of days has to match the number of sessions.
Intent
Finish the distance, or chase a personal best. This shifts how much quality work the plan contains.
Intensity
Conservative, standard or aggressive, scaling volume by 0.85, 1.0 or 1.15 and adjusting the amount of quality work alongside the intent you chose.
Pace calibration
From a recent race result, or from a goal time. You can supply a separate fitness reference as well.
Race date
Optional. Anchors the plan so the peak lands in the right week.
Current weekly distance
Optional but worth filling in: week 1 is anchored to it, because a sudden jump in weekly workload is the strongest injury risk you can actually control.
Include hills
When off, the hill slot becomes a flat fartlek instead of disappearing.
Optimistic goals are handled, not rejected

If your goal time is roughly 8% or more faster than your current fitness predicts, the app flags it and then trains you at fitness paces while still showing goal race paces. You keep the ambitious target without training at a pace you cannot yet hold.

Where the paces come from

Training paces are derived from a VDOT model in the Daniels–Gilbert tradition: a race result is converted into a fitness value, and each training zone is expressed as a percentage of maximum oxygen uptake.

Zone Derived as Used for
Easy A band around 62–70% Recovery and most weekly volume
Marathon Predicted marathon race pace Long-run steady segments
Tempo / threshold About 88% Sustained hard-but-controlled work
Interval About 98% Aerobic power repetitions
Repetition Interval pace × 0.94 Short, fast, mechanical work

Race predictions are solved from the same model, which is why a 5 K time correctly produces different 10 K, half and marathon paces rather than a single scaled number. Every plan step carries a target pace band of roughly ±3%, so the cue tells you when you are outside the range rather than nagging at every second of variation.

Estimates for planning

These paces are planning estimates, not prescriptions. Terrain, heat, altitude and how you slept all move the real number. Use the band as a guide and your own effort as the arbiter.

What a generated plan contains

  • Weeks of workouts, each built from typed steps (warm-up, work, recovery, cool-down), with either a distance or a time target and a minimum and maximum pace.
  • Scheduled runs placed on your available weekdays, which the record screen can execute directly and link back to.
  • An editor for any workout, if you want to change a session without rebuilding the plan.

Quick intervals

For the times you just want repeats without a plan, the record screen has a standalone interval preset.

Work and rest
Each measured by distance or time, independently.
Defaults
400 m of work, 90 s of rest, 8 repeats.
Repeats
1 to 99.

Loading a plan session replaces the quick preset: the two never run at the same time, so you can never end up with two engines counting different repetitions at once.

Voice coaching

On Android the voice controller runs natively, so it keeps speaking and keeps measuring each step's result while the app's UI is closed. Reopening the app reattaches to that engine rather than resetting it.

How it decides what to say

At most one cue is spoken per tracking update, chosen by priority, with brief duplicate suppression so a noisy GPS fix cannot make it chatter:

  1. Transition: a step or interval just changed
  2. Safety: something you need to know now
  3. Achievement: a record or milestone
  4. Coaching: pace guidance
  5. Progress: routine distance and split callouts

Settings

Setting Options Default
Voice coachingOn / offOn
Language Follow the app, Portuguese, or English Follow the app
Headphones onlyOn / offOn
Mute during a callOn / offOn
Announce distance Every 1, 2 or 5 km Every 1 km
Announce splitsOn / offOn
Pace warning Off, or a target pace with a tolerance from 5% to 50% Off (10% tolerance)
Announce GPS statusOn / offOn
Announce intervalsOn / offOn
Intervals on by default On / off Off
Android specifics

Headset detection and call muting go through an Android audio gate. On other platforms the Dart speech engine is used as a fallback and step results are measured in the app instead of natively.

Plans and periodization together

A periodization phase can schedule a run plan into itself, so your strength block and your running block share one calendar and one weekly check-in.

Found something out of date or unclear? Open an issue