Self coached: you plan, the coach reviews

Self coached is now in Coach Fartlek. It is a mode where you plan your training weeks yourself and the coach becomes an adviser instead of a planner. The mode is part of the 2.6 update, out on the App Store and Google Play now. It requires Elite and is entirely optional: leave the setting alone and everything continues as before.

We built it for runners who already know how they want to train. If you follow Bakken or Pfitzinger, or a setup you have refined over the years, the app has honestly been the wrong tool so far: the coach wrote the plan, and your model had to be squeezed in through the chat. This turns it around. You write your training philosophy in your own words, for instance that the long run always goes on Sunday and volume should sit around 80 km, and the coach reads it before saying anything about your week.

You build the weeks in the calendar. It shows 20 weeks at a time with the blocks from your plan, so a whole build-up can be laid out in one go. Tap a day to set the workout type and distance, or take a ready-made classic like 5×1000 m. Intervals you build step by step in the workout builder, and sessions worth repeating you save as your own templates. A week that worked, you copy forward.

Your workouts reach the watch the same way the coach's do: structured via Intervals.icu, with segments, distances, and zones. The session you build tonight beeps on your wrist tomorrow.

The coach does not stop coaching. Before every new week it goes through what you have planned and sends a week review as a card in chat, where you approve or decline each suggestion on its own. Nothing enters the calendar without your yes. That also holds when you dictate: write "add 2×4 km threshold tomorrow" and the coach replies with a card you approve with one tap. Workout analysis, training zones, recovery advice, and the block structure toward your A race all stay as usual. The week review is included and costs no energy; asking for extra input in between costs energy, like anything else you ask the coach.

Honestly, this is a mode for a minority. If you want to open the app and find the week ready, the regular mode is the right one, and it is how most people run. Not sure? Start there. If you turn self coached on and change your mind, the coach takes over the planning again when you turn it off, and the workouts you added stay in the calendar.

If you already have the app, updating is all it takes; the mode then sits in your profile. More about how it works is on the self coached page.