Set up intervals.icu

Go to intervals.icu and sign up. It is free. Already have an account? Go to the next step.

intervals.icu is a separate service from PaceGuide. It collects your activities from your watch, works out your training load, and sends planned workouts back to your watch. PaceGuide reads your training from it and writes your plan to its calendar. It is also how you sign in to PaceGuide, so we never need a password or your email.

In intervals.icu, open Settings and find Connections. Choose the service your watch syncs to (for example Garmin Connect) and allow intervals.icu access when you are asked.

For Garmin, turn on all three options: download activities, download wellness data, and upload planned workouts. The exact labels can change, but you want everything that comes in and the workouts that go out.

What each brand supports is decided by intervals.icu and the brand, and can change. Check the connection options in intervals.icu if yours looks different.

After you connect, intervals.icu fetches your past activities. This can take a few minutes, or longer if you have years of them. Open the intervals.icu calendar and check that your recent runs, rides and gym sessions are there.

PaceGuide reads up to the last 12 months of activities when you first sign in. The more it can see, the better it judges your current fitness. No history is fine too: PaceGuide starts from your answers in the plan builder.

In intervals.icu, open Settings, then the Run sport settings. PaceGuide reads these values every time it syncs:

• Threshold pace: the pace you could hold for about an hour. It sets your training paces.
• Threshold heart rate (LTHR) and maximum heart rate: used for heart-rate targets and effort.

Your resting heart rate, weight and time zone come from your intervals.icu athlete settings. Set your time zone there so your days line up.

Don't know your threshold? Leave it blank. PaceGuide offers a short threshold test or a 5K time trial early in your plan. After the test, it can update these values in intervals.icu for you, but only when you ask. Values you set in PaceGuide itself are kept, even if intervals.icu holds something different.

With wellness data, PaceGuide can spot when you are run down and ease off. It uses heart-rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate and sleep. Garmin sends these when download wellness data is on. Some other trackers can connect to intervals.icu for this too. You can also type them into intervals.icu by hand.

PaceGuide works without them, using your training alone.

On the front page, choose Sign in with intervals.icu.

• If you are sent to intervals.icu, check the access PaceGuide asks for and allow it. It can read your activities, wellness and settings, and write to your calendar. It changes your settings only when you ask it to update your thresholds.
• If you are asked for an API key instead, open Settings in intervals.icu, then Developer Settings, and copy your API Key. Paste it into PaceGuide. We encrypt it and use it only to read your training and manage the workouts PaceGuide creates.

Next you are asked to agree to how PaceGuide uses your training and health data. Nothing is read from intervals.icu until you agree. The privacy policy has the detail.

Build your plan in PaceGuide and save it. PaceGuide puts the next two weeks on your intervals.icu calendar as structured workouts, with paces and heart rates for every step, and adds later weeks as they come up.

intervals.icu then sends upcoming workouts on to your watch's service. For Garmin, open the Garmin Connect app and sync your watch: the workout appears in your Garmin calendar and on the watch. This can take a little while after you save.

PaceGuide only ever changes or removes workouts it created. Your own workouts, notes, races and activities in intervals.icu are left alone.