Workouts
Workouts
Creating workouts in Runtool — quick text planning, structure, sport types, categories, and workout properties.
A workout is the unit of training in Runtool: the plan for a day's work, and — once done — the record of what happened. One object carries both, so planned and executed never drift apart.
Create workouts
Click a day on the Calendar and type the workout as you'd say it out loud:
10km easy8x1km / 200m3x(800m+400m) @ 5k pace45min easy + 6x20s strides1h cycling
Runtool parses the text into a structured workout: reps, recoveries, target paces from the athlete's zones, and a planned training load. The full syntax is documented on the Workout notation page.
A workout is a list of segments. Typing on the empty row at the bottom adds one: the segment appears in the list as you type, faded until you commit it with Enter, and what is wrong with a line is only said once you stop. A line you leave in the row is kept — clicking away or creating the workout commits it, and only Escape throws it away. Paste a whole workout across several lines and each line becomes its own segment. Segments drag to reorder, and clicking the space to the right of a segment opens it back up as text to rewrite.
You don't have to know the notation to start. Leave the empty row focused for a moment and a list opens underneath: what this athlete could do on the day, then easy, quality and long workouts to start from, each shown beside the notation that writes it. Pick a workout and it becomes the workout — it replaces what you had, with the warmup and cooldown its shape implies. Pick a piece from Segments and it joins what you are writing. Start typing and the list gets out of the way.
The title is another way to say the same thing: write 20x400m there and the structure becomes that workout, warmup and cooldown included.
Once there is a segment in the list, pressing Backspace on the empty row puts it away. Click the space it leaves and it comes back.
Open a repetition with the arrow beside it and its efforts become rows of their own, with the same empty row at the end. A repetition holds work and rest, so that row takes 400m @ Z5 or 90s jog — a repetition inside a repetition is a segment of its own.
Nothing forces you to type. Every value in a segment — reps, distance, target, recovery — is a control you can click instead, showing your zones in real paces. Typing and picking are the same surface, not two modes.
Runtool names the segments for you: easy running before the work is a warmup, easy running after it a cooldown. An easy day stays a plain run, because there's nothing to warm up for.
The first thing you write into an empty workout brings those ends with it when it is a quality session — reps, or an effort at Z3 or harder. Everything after that is exactly what you wrote, so a warmup you delete stays deleted. The lengths are yours to set under Settings → Workout categories.
Your own workouts
The workouts you write in your Templates are offered back to you here, above the framework ones, grouped under the template each came from. They're yours, not an athlete's, so the same list appears whoever you're planning for.
Only the workouts worth reaching for are offered: quality workouts, long runs, and easy runs that carry shape like 8km easy + 6x20s strides. A plain continuous easy run and a race are left out.
To keep a workout you've written on a calendar, copy it (⌘C) and paste it onto a day of a template.
Structure
A workout's structure is a sequence of steps — warmup, main set, cooldown — where each step carries a distance or duration and an intensity target (a zone like Z4, a pace, or an effort word like easy or threshold). Repeats nest: 3x(800m+400m) is three rounds of a compound rep.
Workout titles follow the structure: 8x1km / 200m, 10km easy + 6x20s strides, 45min strength. Titles are generated but editable.
Sport types
Every workout has a type:
- Running — the core. Full structure, pace zones, and load analysis.
- Strength — strength sessions, tracked with duration and load.
- Cross-training — pick the sport: cycling, swimming, rowing, hiking, and more. Cycling and other speed sports display speed instead of pace.
- Other — anything else, free-form.
Running is what Runtool is built around; everything else is tracked so your load stays honest.
Categories
Running workouts carry a category — the axis the Analyse view filters on:
- Quality — intervals, threshold work, tempo: the hard sessions.
- Long — the long run.
- Easy — easy running, recovery runs.
- Race — see Races.
- Other — everything that doesn't fit.
The category derives from the workout's structure automatically; set it explicitly when you want to override.
Workout properties
Open a workout and every property is a pill you can inspect or edit: date, sport, category, planned distance, duration, target paces, and projected load. After completion the same view carries executed values — actual distance, duration, average pace, heart rate, session load — plus your subjective report: perceived effort, mood, and notes.
Planned versus executed sits side by side, rep by rep. That comparison is the point: it's what the analysis reads and what a coach reviews.
Completions
When an activity syncs in, Runtool matches it to the planned workout and generates the completion automatically — see Import.
Log a workout
Open a past workout and set its status to Completed, or use a row in the Needs input view on the Overview. The dialog opens on a dropzone: drop a FIT, TCX or GPX file and it is matched to the workout on its date, the same way a synced activity is. See Import.
No file? Enter it by hand switches to the workout written out as its spans — the warmup, each rep at its planned time and pace, the recoveries between them, the cooldown. Everything is already filled in from the plan, so logging a workout you ran as written is one click on Log workout.
To correct a span, click its time or its distance. Both open together, because pace is the number between them and is never typed. The distance, time and pace above the list are the totals of the spans and update as you edit. A workout with no structure is one span — the run, stated as its distance and its time.
Then rate the effort (1–10), say how it felt, and add a note. All three are optional.
The workout's Journal is a shorter way in: on any past workout, writing a note or tapping an effort rating logs it against the plan's own numbers.
A logged workout is not second-class data. It gets a training load like any other, so it counts toward your weekly volume, your ACWR, and everything the Runtool Agent reads. How the load is worked out depends on what you entered — see Training load.
You do not need a planned workout to log one. Add a workout for today or any past day and turn on Log as completed: Runtool creates the workout and records it as done in a single step.
Needs input
Past workouts with nothing recorded, and completed workouts with no effort rating, are collected in the Needs input view on the Overview, beside today and tomorrow. Each row is one click to the thing that's missing, and a row disappears as soon as you fill it in. Mark as skipped on a row says that workout didn't happen, which is also how you stop it asking.
A workout already marked skipped never appears here — that question has an answer.
A past workout you haven't logged carries a dot wherever you meet it: on the tag over the Overview's list, on its card in the Calendar, and beside Status when you open it. It is the same mark each time, and logging the workout or marking it skipped clears it everywhere at once.
Two preferences control it, under Settings → Logging:
- Mark unlogged workouts as skipped — how long a past workout waits before it counts as skipped.
- Ask how it felt — which workout categories ask for an effort rating.
Both start on Follow my setup, which reads your connected devices. With a device syncing, a missing activity means the workout didn't happen, so it's marked skipped the same day, and only quality, long, and race workouts ask for an effort rating — heart rate already prices an easy run. With nothing syncing, a past workout waits a week for you to log it, and every category asks.
Past workouts that were never logged count as skipped. That is a statement about the workout, not about you — logging one later replaces it.