How Watch Export Works <span style="font-size: 0.55em; font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.05em; color: var(--pheidi-accent, #E37332); background: rgba(227, 115, 50, 0.1); padding: 0.15rem 0.5rem; border-radius: 50px; margin-left: 0.5rem; vertical-align: middle;">Beta</span>

Send structured workouts to your GPS watch with pace targets and interval cues.


How Watch Export Works Beta

Send structured workouts to your GPS watch with pace targets and interval cues.


What Gets Exported

Pheidi converts your training plan workouts into .fit files — the native workout format used by Garmin watches. When loaded onto your watch, each workout guides you through warmup, intervals, and cooldown with pace alerts, haptic cues, and automatic lap transitions.

Supported Workout Types
Workout Watch Structure Pace Targets
Easy / Recovery / Long Run / MLR Warmup → Steady run → Cooldown Easy zone
Tempo Warmup → Tempo block → Cooldown Tempo zone
Intervals Warmup → Repeat (hard + recovery) → Cooldown Interval zone
Hill Repeats Warmup → Repeat (200m up + 200m down) → Cooldown Interval zone
Fartlek Warmup → Repeat (2min surge + 2min easy) → Cooldown Tempo zone
Race Pace Warmup → Race pace block → Cooldown Marathon zone
Rest / Cross Training / Strength Not exported (no run workout)

How Intervals Are Derived

Your training plan stores workouts as a distance and pace zone. Pheidi derives the interval structure at export time based on the total distance available after warmup and cooldown:

Available Distance Interval Length
< 4,800m (~3 miles)400m
4,800–7,999m (~3–5 miles)800m
8,000–11,999m (~5–7.5 miles)1000m
≥ 12,000m (~7.5+ miles)1200m

Recovery jog duration is 60% of the estimated interval time, clamped between 60 and 180 seconds. Repeat count is 3–12 depending on available distance.

Pace Targets

If you have a VDOT value set in your profile, your workouts include speed targets derived from Daniels' Running Formula pace tables. Your watch will alert you if you're running too fast or too slow.

If you use RPE-only mode (no VDOT), workouts are exported with open targets — your watch will still guide you through each step and distance, but without pace constraints.

How to Import

You have two options to get .fit files onto your Garmin watch:

  1. Garmin Connect (recommended) — Upload the .fit file at connect.garmin.com via Training → Workouts → Import. The workout syncs to your watch automatically via Bluetooth.
  2. USB transfer — Connect your watch via USB and copy the .fit file to the NewFiles folder. The watch will import it on next startup.

Roadmap

Watch export is currently in beta. Here's what's planned:

Phase Feature Status
Phase 1 Garmin .fit file download (single workout + bulk ZIP) Available
Phase 2 Garmin Connect API integration (auto-sync, no manual import) Planned
Phase 3 Apple Watch support via iOS companion app Planned
Phase 4 Completed workout sync back to Pheidi (auto-log) Planned

Technical Details

Workouts use the Garmin FIT Protocol (Flexible and Interoperable Data Transfer). Each .fit file contains a workout header with sport type (Running) and a sequence of workout steps. Interval workouts use FIT's repeat-step mechanism where a repeat step references a contiguous range of child steps by index. Speed targets are encoded in meters per second. The file is generated server-side using the official Garmin.FIT.Sdk NuGet package.


Back to your plan


Research & evidence

Science behind this feature from pheidi.training.


See also