How the Readiness Check-In Works

A 1–5 check-in before today's workout. Runner's feel beats numbers.


What it is

The readiness check-in is a one-tap rating you give yourself before today's workout. It's a fast subjective gauge of how you're feeling — sleep, soreness, stress, the weather — rolled into a single number from 1 to 5.

The 1–5 scale

ScoreLabelWhat it means
1ExhaustedCooked. Bad sleep, deep soreness, illness coming on.
2TiredBelow baseline — legs heavy, motivation low.
3NormalAn average day. Nothing notable either way.
4GoodFeeling sharp. Rested, energetic.
5FreshBest you've felt in a while. Tank is full.

When it appears

The check-in is shown in the day view for today's workout, but only when:

It doesn't appear on past or future workouts — only on the workout you're about to do. One rating per workout.

What happens when you score low

If you log a 1 or 2, Pheidi shows a gentle nudge:

Consider an easy run today instead. Listen to your body.

That's the entire response. Pheidi does not auto-downgrade your workout, skip it, or change pace targets. The decision stays with you — the nudge is just a reminder that a hard day on a depleted body costs more than it gives.

Why subjective, not a wearable score

Pheidi keeps readiness subjective for two reasons. First, HRV and recovery scores from wearables need 1–2 weeks of baseline data before they're useful, and many runners don't wear one. Second — when objective and subjective disagree, runners are usually right. If your watch says you're recovered but your legs say otherwise, trust the legs.

Wearable-based composite readiness (HRV, resting HR, sleep) is on the roadmap as an optional input — not a replacement.

What gets stored

Your score sticks to that specific workout — it persists alongside completion data once you log the workout. There's no streak, no average, no ranking. It's a private signal that helps you build a sense of how readiness moves with training load.


The readiness check-in lives inside the Pheidi app — sign in to use it.


See also