Customizable run workouts, please.

Brad_Mitchell · October 28, 2017, 4:07pm

Are there any plans to enable customizable run workouts, similar to the great cycling feature? The small selection of swift runs are great, but very short (the warm-ups are quite short, too) .

I’d like to create run tests and be able to create custom runs for myself and my athletes, as I do from Training Peaks with bike workouts. The zwift run workout mode is excellent, because there is no farting around with your watch for splits etc and you can clearly see where the next interval starts. The new pace and HR per mile graphic is very nice, too.

Cheers, and Run On!

Danny_Hakansson · November 8, 2017, 7:02pm

You can always edit a workout yourself. Below is a steady state run workout. If you add run instead of bike as sport type it will add to custom run workouts. FTP (powerlow,powerhigh) in this case means 80% of your best mile pace. All times are in seconds so 600 is 10 minutes.

You can always just create a bike workout in Zwift with running in mind and just exiting zwift and changing Sport type from bike to run will insert it into run.

<workout_file>
    <author>D.Hakansson</author>
    <name>New Workout</name>
    <description>Steady workout @80% FTP</description>
    <sportType>run</sportType>
    <tags/>
    <workout>
        <Warmup Duration=“600” PowerLow=“0.2545” PowerHigh=“0.75449997”/>
        <SteadyState Duration=“3000” Power=“0.80449992”/>
        <Cooldown Duration=“600” PowerLow=“0.75449997” PowerHigh=“0.2545”/>
    </workout>
</workout_file>

Brad_Mitchell · November 8, 2017, 11:53pm

Thanks for the suggestion, Danny. I’ll have a look at that.

Christian_Luce · December 28, 2017, 5:37pm

I also would like to see this feature. Yes it’s easier to use the GUI and drag and drop the parts to the graph and make your custom workout. Not sure how to apply the xml yet to the run. I’ll look into that until than. I’m assuming they want to make the run mode just as enhanced the biking. Any status on this timeline anyone?

Christian_Luce · December 28, 2017, 5:42pm

I would also need to know the attributes used for the xml file for run workouts. I don’t use power for run. Only candence, heart rate and speed. And how o export and import into zwift. If this is how it’s done when adding custome workouts

Danny_Hakansson · January 21, 2018, 5:58pm

I had abit of time to play with this now and here is my understanding of it. First here is a sample workout in .zwo format:

<workout_file>
    <author>D.Hakansson</author>
    <name>BikeToRun</name>
    <description></description>
    <sportType>run</sportType>
    <tags/>
    <workout>
        <Warmup Duration=“1600” PowerLow=“0.6” PowerHigh=“0.75” pace=“0”/>
       <SteadyState Duration=“5000” Power=“0.90” pace=“1”/>
        <Cooldown Duration=“1600” PowerLow=“0.7” PowerHigh=“0.25” pace=“0”/>
    </workout>
</workout_file>

The main parts here are the three lines inside the <workout>

I have metric choosen and the first part “Duration” is distance in meters. That means that in the choosen file I have 1600m(1mile) as Warmup, 5000m(3,1mi) as main set and another 1600m(1mile) as cooldown.

The next part is twofold the: "PowerLow=“0.6” PowerHigh=“0.75"” means that the workout goes from a 0.6 effort to a 0.75 effort of the choosen pace. Pace is selected lastly on those lines with a number from 0-4 (pace=“0”)

0=Mile pace, 1=5k Pace, 2=10k pace, 3=HM Pace, 4=M Pace

So my workout is simply a Warmup that builds from 60% to 75% of my mile pace during 1600m

After this is the main set a 5k at steady state at 90% of my 5k pace

Finally there´s a cooldown from 70% to 25% of my Mile pace

If I wanted this in a 2x2,5k format instead I would change the <SteadyState Duration> to 2500 and add another line exactly like that one directly below:

And if I wanted to increase my speed on tht second steady state to 95% of my 5k pace duration I would simply edit like this:

Hopefully this can help afew build run workouts. Remember though that Zwift needs to be restarted if you edit a workout or else it won´t read the edits you make.

Happy zwifting!