The three screens
Onboarding is a single-page wizard that runs inside the Pheidi app. After you sign in for the first time, you'll be taken straight into it. There's no separate sign-up form. You move forward with Next, back with Back, and the indicator at the top shows where you are. Each time you move forward, your answers so far are saved, so leaving partway through and coming back picks up where you left off. The plan itself isn't built until you generate it on the last screen. (If you already have a plan and are building a new one, nothing is written until you generate, so an abandoned rebuild can't change the settings behind the plan you're still training on.)
Setup used to have six steps. Three of them (coaching style and volume, pace, and the rest of the schedule settings) had defaults almost everyone kept, so they now come with your plan and you change them afterwards. See What setup picks for you.
| # | Screen | What you set |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Race Goal | Distance (5K, 10K, Half, Full, or a custom length), miles or kilometers (your plan's native unit), and target race date. |
| 2 | Experience | Skill level (Beginner / Intermediate / Advanced), optional age and max heart rate, and for beginners an optional base building phase. |
| 3 | Generate | Check the summary, change your training days if you want to, name the plan, and create it. |
Step 1, Race Goal and units
Pick the distance you're training for and the date you want to race. The race date defaults to four months out. You can pick any future date. If it falls below the distance-specific minimum (longer for marathon, shorter for 5K), the form shows a warning but still lets you continue.
Because a plan is built backwards from race day, the race date also decides where the plan starts. A 16-week marathon plan for a race 10 weeks out has to begin five weeks ago. Pheidi will still build it, and everything before today is marked as skipped so it can't drag on your streak or progress bar, but the step now says so up front: it shows the date the plan would open, how many weeks are already behind you, which week you'd be joining at, and the earliest race date that would let you start from day one. When the plan lands entirely in the future, the step shows how many weeks you are from race day and leaves the start date to the last screen. Plan length and start depend on the experience level you pick next (a beginner plan can gain transition weeks), so for a future plan they aren't stated until the summary.
This step is also where you pick miles or kilometers. This is the unit your plan is generated and stored in, every distance and pace in the rest of the wizard and the plan itself is native to it (a metric marathon plan peaks at a round 32 km long run, not a converted 32.2). It also selects °F or °C for weather guidance. An existing plan keeps its unit for life, see How Plan Units Work for switching an active plan to the other unit by regenerating it.
If you followed a deep link from the marketing site (for example, a "Marathon" call to action), the corresponding distance is pre-selected for you when the wizard opens after sign-in. You can still change it.
Step 2, Experience and age
Choose Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced. Your level controls a lot downstream, including the maximum number of run days per week, whether run-walk intervals are applied by default, and how quickly the plan introduces intervals.
For beginners, the step also offers an optional 4-week base building phase: easy runs before the main plan, starting at one mile and adding half a mile per week (metric plans start at 2 km and add 1 km per week). It's aimed at runners who aren't running at the moment, so the box starts unticked. See Plan Generation for what base building changes.
The ramp sits entirely before week 1, so ticking the box moves the plan's first day four weeks earlier. If that would push the start into the past, the step says so before you tick it. You get the new first day and how far back it is, rather than discovering it after the fact.
Age is optional. If you enter it, Pheidi picks an age bracket that nudges recovery windows and warm-up durations. It doesn't change the workout intent.
Step 3, Generate
The summary table lists your race, plan length, and the date the plan actually starts, with the same past-start warning repeated if it applies. This is the last screen before the plan exists, so it's the last chance to go back and move the race date.
Your training days show as one line, for example "4 days: Tue, Thu, Sat (long run), Sun". If you haven't picked days before, Pheidi starts you on a week sized from your level and the coaching style's volume: four days for most new runners, never fewer than three. Tap Change to open the day picker in place:
- Available days: at least three. Pheidi only schedules running on the days you pick.
- Long-run day: must be one of your available days. Most plans land the long run on Saturday or Sunday.
Generate stays disabled with fewer than three days, or with a long-run day that isn't one of them, and the picker opens by itself so you can see why. This screen also detects your time zone from your browser (IANA, for example America/New_York), which the reminder email needs.
Tap Generate. Pheidi saves your profile and runs the plan generation engine to produce the saved plan. If you opted in to base building, four weeks of easy running come before week 1. If you already had an active plan, you choose whether it's paused (switch back any time) or archived.
When generation finishes you see a short celebration screen with total distance, peak week, and longest run (in your chosen unit), and a teaser of your first scheduled workout. From there it's straight into your plan.
What setup picks for you
The celebration screen lists the settings setup chose without asking, each with a link to the place in Settings where you change it:
- Plan style: Classic, the gentlest of the four coaching styles, which also sets the volume mode. Coming back to build a second plan keeps whatever style you're on.
- Pace guidance: effort-based, described by feel. Switch to pace-based for specific pace ranges. See Pacing Guidance.
- Workout reminders: an email on run days at 8:00 AM your time. Change the hour (5:00 AM to 11:00 AM) or turn it off. See Workout Reminder Emails.
- Transition time: none. Pick a preset for the shower or commute buffer around each workout. Feeds into calendar exports.
Pace guidance and reminders take effect as soon as you save. Plan style and transition time are built into the workouts, so after you change either one, Settings offers to rebuild your plan. If your browser doesn't share a time zone, the reminder line says so: emails start once you set one in Settings.
If something fails
Generation is a synchronous call. If it errors out you'll see a banner asking you to retry. Your inputs are preserved, so retrying doesn't mean redoing the wizard.
Onboarding lives inside the Pheidi app, sign in to build your plan.
See also
- How Plan Generation Works Periodization, phase splits, base building, taper math.
- How Pacing Guidance Works VDOT zones and RPE descriptions, what your pace mode choice controls.
- How Run-Walk Intervals Work When run-walk applies, and how it scales as your plan progresses.