Your alarm goes off at 7am. Race day. You set it last night, then lay awake doing the maths on your start time anyway.
You reach for your phone before your feet hit the floor. Overnight, your numbers synced — HRV, resting heart rate, last night's sleep. The taper has done its job: you're as fresh as you've been in weeks. Three hours to the gun.
You open the event on your calendar, and the plan is already there — generated two days ago, saved to the page, no signal needed in the car park. Goal power for the nervous opening. The number to settle into through the long middle. What the finish is supposed to feel like, and the moment it'll try to talk you out of it. You've read it three times this week. You know the race before you've ridden it.
That's a Race Pace Plan. The weeks of training get all the attention — taper curves, peak fitness, fresh legs on the line — but the result is decided between the gun and the finish, and "I'll go hard but not too hard" is not a plan. This one is specific, built from your data, and it's part of Pro. Here's what's in it and how to use it.
What you get
For an A or B race on your calendar, a Race Pace Plan gives you:
- A form check. An honest read on where your fitness and freshness actually sit going into the race — whether the taper has landed and you're arriving sharp, or whether to temper expectations.
- Pacing targets, by phase. Not one flat number for the whole thing. Target power and heart-rate ranges for cyclists, target pace and heart rate for runners — broken down across the start, the middle, and the finish.
- A warm-up protocol. Duration, structure, and intensity for the event. A 40K time-trial warm-up looks nothing like a marathon warm-up.
- How the race will unfold. A read on how the day is likely to play out and where the decisive moments are — so the plan is in your head before the gun, not improvised at the midpoint.
How the pace is calculated
This isn't "generate a pacing chart from a language model." The targets are built from your actual data:
- Your current eFTP (or critical speed, for running) sets the ceiling.
- The event distance and your recent efforts set the sustainable intensity. A flat 40K TT sits at a much higher intensity than a mountainous 160K.
- The course profile from the event file (distance, elevation, climbs) shapes how the effort is distributed.
- Your own training history biases the targets toward what your data actually supports.
The AI explains all of this in plain language. The numbers under the summary are derived from your data, not invented.
Fit it into your race week
Race week is where the whole build either lands or leaks away, and IntervalCoach already runs the training side for you. In the final stretch your daily sessions flip into a taper automatically — a full seven-day taper for an A race (last key session, then endurance, easy recovery, rest days, openers, race day) and a compressed four-day mini-taper for a B race. You don't have to guess how much to back off.
The pace plan is the other half — the racing side — and it slots into the same week:
- Early in race week (~7 days out): generate a first version, so you start internalizing the targets while the taper settles your legs.
- Two to three days out: refresh it. By now your CTL and TSB reflect race-day fitness, not where you were a month ago — so this is the version you race.
- Night before: re-read it. Don't regenerate.
Generate it three months out and the pace reflects your fitness three months out, not race day — so it's worth waiting for the taper. You can refresh as many times as you want; each pull uses your current fitness.
The race, before you ride it
The part most pacing advice skips is what the race actually feels like. So the plan includes a scenario: a narrative read on how the day is likely to unfold, written so you can picture it before you're in it.
It reads like race day. The nervous-energy opening where everyone goes out too hard and the number on your screen is the only thing keeping you honest. The long, quiet middle where the plan does its real work and discipline is the whole game. The closing stretch where the morning's restraint either pays off or doesn't. It's built from your fitness, the course, and the distance — so it's your race, not a generic one.
By the time you're on the start line, you've already rehearsed it once. When the moment comes to hold the number instead of chasing the rider in front, you've seen it coming.
Pace plans for C events too
C events — group rides, training races, fun rides — don't get the full treatment, but they're not ignored either. You get a lighter version: a target intensity range, a tactical note on how to approach it, and recovery guidance for afterwards. Less production, same idea — walk in with a plan, not a hope.
What this isn't
It's not a ChatGPT pep talk. It won't tell you to "trust the process" and "leave it all out there." It's a document you can read five minutes before the start that reminds you of the specific numbers and the shape of the day — the things that make or break the result when your heart rate is already up and clear thinking is hard.
If you've got a race coming up, open the event on your calendar and tap "Generate Pace Plan." The plan is saved, so you can pull it up on your phone at the race venue without needing to reconnect to anything.