Weekly plans and daily workouts: how it fits together

IntervalCoach plans your training in three layers, combining strategy with day-to-day flexibility.

The three layers

1. Weekly structure — generated each Sunday: which days are hard, easy, or rest, plus TSS targets per session.

2. Rolling generation — workouts are written to your calendar about four weeks ahead and refreshed as the date approaches, so each one uses your most recent data.

3. Daily adaptation — on the day itself, a final layer checks your recovery, sleep, and fatigue and may adjust intensity or suggest rest.

How far ahead does my plan go?

Two different things run to two different horizons, and it helps to keep them apart.

The plan runs from today all the way to your goal event, however far away that is. There is no cap: a race six months out gives you a plan of roughly twenty-six weeks, with a phase and a TSS target for every one of them. You can see the whole thing on the Training Plan page.

The workouts are generated about four weeks ahead, on a rolling basis. So the far end of your plan exists as weekly structure and targets rather than as individual sessions on your calendar. That is deliberate: a session built today for a date five months out would be based on fitness you do not have yet, and it would be rewritten long before you did it.

If you want to plan a block beyond your current race, set the next event as your goal once the current one is done. The plan then spans the whole way to it, and the phases follow from the distance: base and maintenance at the far end, build and peak as the date comes closer.

When your weekly plan is generated

Early every Sunday morning (06:00 your local time) the plan is recalculated from your current fitness: it sets the load targets for the coming weeks and updates the upcoming sessions to match. Later that Sunday you get the weekly summary email with the week ahead. The time you pick in Settings (default 8pm local) is when that email arrives, not when the plan is made.

You can change upcoming sessions at any time: sport, duration, TSS target, intensity, move them, or remove them. Need a completely fresh plan (after changing your schedule or adding a race)? Go to the Training Plan page and hit Rebuild Plan.

Why did a new session appear on a weekday?

Because workouts are written about four weeks ahead on a rolling basis, each morning's daily check writes the session for the day that has just come into that window. A "Session planned" notification on a Thursday for a date four weeks out is that rolling step, not a change to your plan. Sessions are added on any day of the week, not only on Sundays.

To see what wrote a session and why, open Why this ran under the notification. Your plan as a whole (the phases toward your goal) only changes when you change your goal or schedule, or press Rebuild Plan.

Daily emails vs TrainNow

Daily email workouts are sent automatically based on your weekly plan and schedule. TrainNow is on-demand — generate a workout for your current readiness right now, for spontaneous sessions or when your schedule changes.

Missing or skipping a workout

No problem. The AI doesn't track "completed vs not" — it checks your current fitness state every day. Miss a workout and your body stays fresher (higher TSB), so the next recommendation naturally reflects that. You don't need to "make up" sessions. The missed workout stays on your Intervals.icu calendar. Consistency matters more than perfection.

How long until I see results

Your CTL (fitness) updates in real-time after every workout — you'll see it rise on the dashboard immediately. Physical adaptations typically take 4–6 weeks to feel; for event-specific peak fitness, plan at least 8–12 weeks of structured training.

Rebuilding your plan from Coach+: what to expect

When you ask Coach+ to rebuild or reshape your plan, the rebuild runs in the background and writes sessions to your calendar one at a time, roughly two minutes each. A few sessions land within minutes; filling a whole empty month can take around 40 minutes. The nearest days appear first.

Sessions already on your calendar for this week are kept or adapted in place, never removed. If a day was empty, the rebuild may fill it, even in a week you asked to keep as it is. Delete any session you do not want in Intervals.icu and IntervalCoach will leave that slot alone.

To check progress, ask Coach+ in the same chat: "how far along is the rebuild?". It reports how many sessions are written and how long is left. A brand-new chat does not know a rebuild is running, so wait a few minutes before concluding nothing happened. A calendar read straight after starting a rebuild can still show the old plan.

If Coach+ says the weekly plan is switched off, turn it on under Settings → Training first; a rebuild only works with the weekly plan enabled.