The first step of the planner. You confirm the course you’re racing, set a goal finish time, and tune how your effort is distributed across the course. Everything that comes after — checkpoints, gear, fuel, drop bags, tasks — is computed against the route and pace you set here.
Pick your route
Three ways to start:
- Pick a race preset — UTMB 2025, TransGranCanaria 2026, Berlin Marathon 2025, Spartathlon 2025, or Custom Route. Presets come with the route line, elevation profile, and (when available) checkpoints already populated.
- Load a saved route — anything you’ve already added to your Routes library.
- Upload a fresh GPX file — for a course not yet in your library. The file is parsed inline; you don’t have to save it as a Route first.
The route you pick here determines distance, elevation, and the starting set of checkpoints carried into the next step.
Route type and laps
Tell the planner the course shape:
- Loop — start and finish at the same point.
- Point-to-point — different start and finish.
- Out & back — out, turn around, back along the same line.
For Loop and Out & back routes, a Number of laps field appears. The total distance and elevation are multiplied accordingly.
Plan name, race date, start time
Three optional fields that earn their keep later in the wizard:
- Plan name — shows up in your Plans library. Something like “Race name — A goal” helps you tell sibling plans apart (an A-goal and B-goal pace for the same race).
- Race date — required if you want weather-aware fueling in step 4 (the planner fetches forecast data for that date).
- Start time — the wall-clock time you cross the start line. Combined with the goal finish time, it populates time-of-day estimates at each checkpoint (useful for crew handovers and cutoffs).
Distance and elevation
If you loaded a route from a preset, saved route, or GPX, these fields are autofilled and locked — they reflect what’s actually in the route data.
If you started with a custom route (or no route at all), the fields are editable. Useful when you want to draft pacing for a race you haven’t routed yet.
Goal finish time
The most important number you set in this step. Three inputs describe the same thing and stay synced:
- Goal finish time — total elapsed time, e.g.
12:00:00.
- Average pace — per-kilometre or per-mile pace.
- Average GAP — Grade-Adjusted Pace. The pace you’d hold on flat ground given the effort you’re spending on hills.
Changing any one updates the other two. Pick whichever your brain works in — most ultra runners think in finish time and average pace; trained mountain runners think in GAP.
Why GAP matters. On a mountain course, you can’t run “8:00/km” the whole way — climbs slow you down at the same effort. GAP describes effort, not realised pace. If your GAP is 6:30/km on a hilly 50k, you’re holding road-marathon effort across the day. Useful sanity check on whether your goal is honest.
Pacing strategy
A single slider that controls how your effort is distributed across the race:
- Positive split (slider left) — faster early, slower late. Common when you’re racing for a cutoff or want a buffer.
- Even (slider centre) — same effort throughout.
- Negative split (slider right) — slower early, faster late. The textbook ultra strategy when you have it in you.
The slider is continuous, not three discrete settings — set it wherever you actually plan to race. The projected splits in the right pane update as you slide.
Effort dials
Three sliders that fine-tune how hard you push on different terrain:
- Flat effort — easier ↔ harder
- Uphill effort — easier ↔ harder
- Downhill effort — easier ↔ harder
All three default to centre (neutral). Slide right to push harder; left to ease off. Useful when your strengths aren’t symmetric — “I run downhill aggressively (slide right) but power-hike most climbs (slide left)” produces realistic splits without setting per-segment pace by hand.
The effort dials work with the pacing strategy. The strategy sets the overall arc; the effort dials shape how that arc is realised across terrain.
Reading the right pane
As you fill in the left, the right pane shows what the planner has computed. Three things to know how to read.
The map view
The full route line with checkpoint markers and segment boundaries overlaid. Hovering a marker on the map highlights the matching row in the splits table; clicking it scrolls and selects.
Marker style varies by checkpoint type — aid stations look different from segment boundaries, big aid stations from regular ones. You control the styling in the Routes editor or in step 2 (Checkpoints & Segments).
The elevation profile
Altitude vs. distance, with vertical lines marking each checkpoint. The vertical scale auto-fits the route — flat road races compress, mountain ultras expand.
Quick reading: any vertical jump bigger than the previous segments shows where the climbs are. Cross-reference with the splits table to see projected times at the bottom and top of each climb.
Projected splits
The most-read table on this step. Each row is a slice of the course; columns are distance, elevation, projected segment time, cumulative time, and pace.
The split interval selector at the top of the table controls the row size:
- Every 1 km — fine-grained. Use this when tuning effort dials on a specific section.
- Every 5 km — middle ground. Default for most ultra distances.
- Every 10 km — high level. Useful for long road races.
Hover a row to highlight the matching position on the map and elevation profile.
The total time at the bottom of the table is your projected finish — should match the goal finish time you set. If it doesn’t, your strategy and effort dials don’t add up to the goal you typed in.
Tuning loop
This step rewards iteration. The right pane updates live, so the workflow is:
- Set the goal finish, strategy, and effort dials based on what you want.
- Read the projected splits.
- Adjust effort dials when a segment’s projected pace looks wrong.
- Re-read.
Two specific cases worth knowing.
A segment’s projected pace looks too fast or too slow
The effort dials are the right tool. If the projection says you’ll run a particular climb at a pace you know you can’t hold, drop the uphill effort dial a notch. If the projection has absurdly slow descents because the default is conservative, push downhill effort right.
You don’t need to land on the exact number — move the slider until the projected pace matches what you’d actually run.
The total projected time doesn’t match the goal you set
Means your goal finish, strategy, and effort dials are inconsistent. Three ways to resolve:
- Reset the effort dials to centre if you’ve been over-tuning. Lock in a reasonable goal first, then tune from neutral.
- Adjust the goal finish time down if your dials are realistic and the projection comes in faster than you typed.
- Set a more aggressive goal finish time if the projection comes in slower and you’re willing to push harder than your dials suggest.
The goal finish time field overrides everything else — set it as your race anchor, then describe the racing with the dials.
Next
When the projected splits look honest, move to Checkpoints & Segments to tune the route’s checkpoints and divide the course into segments for fueling and gear planning. 
