How do I plan a session in Base?

Endurance tab, then the plus action beside Today. Pick a discipline and a session type, review the preview, and add it to today. The preview shows the target band, the structure, the duration, the heart-rate band and what it was built from.

What session types are there?

Easy, Long, Tempo, Threshold and Intervals. Each has a defined relationship to your threshold, so picking one determines the band, the structure and a sensible duration without you specifying any of them.

Does Base run the session on my watch?

No. Apple Watch and Garmin already handle live pacing, zone alerts and structured intervals well, and Base does not try to replace them. It decides what the session should be, shows you the target, and grades it afterwards from what your watch recorded.

What if I train without planning first?

The session still counts toward your week and your ramp rate. It just cannot be graded, because grading is a comparison against a target and there was no target. The Endurance tab says exactly that rather than showing an ungraded session as a failure.

Why is the easy pace so slow?

Because easy is meant to be easy, and it is the most commonly ignored prescription in endurance training. Easy sessions build aerobic base at a fraction of the recovery cost of hard ones. Running them too fast produces a session that is too hard to be easy and too easy to be a workout, which is the classic middle-ground error.

Plan an Endurance Session in Base

Two decisions, not twelve

The planner asks for a discipline and a session type. That is the whole form.

This is only possible because the threshold exists. Every band is a percentage of it, so once that number is known there is nothing left for a person to specify. A planner asking for target pace, interval length, rep count and recovery is asking you to do arithmetic the app already has the inputs for.

The session planner. Two choices and a preview — the band, structure, duration and heart-rate range are all derived from your threshold, so there is nothing else to decide.

The session types

Type	Roughly	Purpose
Easy	Well below threshold	Aerobic base at low recovery cost
Long	Easy, extended	Duration adaptation
Tempo	Just under threshold	Sustained sub-threshold work
Threshold	At threshold	Raising the ceiling itself
Intervals	Above threshold, in reps	Top-end work with recovery between

The preview shows the derived band in the sport's own unit, the structure where there is one, the duration, the heart-rate band, and — stated explicitly — the threshold it was built from.

That last line matters. It is what lets you notice that today's prescription is built from a threshold set four months ago.

Base does not run the session

It prescribes and it grades. It does not do live pacing, zone alerts or structured interval execution.

That is a deliberate scope decision rather than a missing feature. Apple Watch and Garmin already do live guidance well, and they own the wrist during the session. Duplicating it badly on a phone in your pocket helps nobody.

So the loop is: Base decides what the session should be, your watch runs it, Base grades what came back. The preview includes the numbers you need to set the watch up.

Training without a plan

A session logged with no plan still counts. It contributes to your week and to your ramp rate.

What it cannot do is be graded, because a grade is a comparison against a target and there was no target. The tab states that plainly — "A session logged without a plan still counts toward the week — it just cannot be graded against anything" — rather than showing an ungraded session as a failure.

Planning is worth the fifteen seconds mostly for the easy sessions, and for a specific reason.

Why the easy pace looks too slow

It is the most commonly ignored prescription in endurance training, and the error is well understood.

Easy sessions exist to build aerobic base at a low recovery cost. Run them harder and you get a session too hard to be easy and too easy to be a workout — the middle ground that accumulates fatigue without the adaptation that would justify it. For a hybrid athlete this compounds, because that fatigue is drawn from the same budget the lifting needs.

The prescribed band will feel slower than you want. That is the prescription working.

Where planned sessions appear

Once added, a session shows up in three places: the Today section of the Endurance tab, the dashboard's Today block beside your lift, and the week list.

The dashboard showing both the lift and the cardio session as separate cards is the whole premise of the app made concrete — two demands on one recovery budget, never blended into a single number.

Common mistakes

Planning only the hard sessions. Easy sessions are the ones that benefit most from having a band, because they are the ones people get wrong.

Adding a session and then doing a different one. The grade compares what happened against the target; a mismatch reads as a failed session rather than a swapped one.

Prescribing from a stale threshold. The preview names the threshold it used. Read it.

Expecting the watch to be configured automatically. Base gives you the numbers; setting the workout up is manual.

Stacking a threshold session next to a heavy lower-body day. Both draw on one recovery budget, and the Endurance tab's ramp rate is where the accumulation shows.

Ignoring the duration. It is derived to make the session's dose sensible for its type. A forty-minute easy run and a two-hour one are different sessions.

What to do next

Plan tomorrow's session tonight, even if you already know what you are doing. Then compare the prescribed easy band against the pace you would have chosen — the gap is usually larger than expected, and it is the single most useful thing this screen tells you.