How to Create Garmin Workouts from Plain Text (.FIT export)

Building a structured workout on a watch or phone is slow and painful. With PaceLab you type the session as plain text and export a Garmin .FIT file in seconds — then import it into Garmin Connect and send it to your watch.

The basic idea

Each line is one step. Repeats use N x .... For example:

warmup 10:00 @ 6:00
4 x 1000 @ 4:15 r 90s
cooldown 1km

That's a 10‑minute warm‑up at 6:00/km, four 1000 m reps at 4:15/km with 90 seconds recovery, and a 1 km cool‑down. Paste it into the workout builder, pick Run, and hit Download .FIT.

Durations vs distances

The parser tells them apart by format:

Time — has a colon or a unit: 4:15, 90s, 5min.
Distance — a bare number (meters) or a unit: 1000, 400m, 5km, 1mi.

So 400m is 400 meters; for four minutes write 4:00 or 4min.

Targets

Add a target after @:

Pace — @ 4:15 (per km for run/bike, per 100 m for swim)
Power — @ 250w or a range @ 240-260w
Heart rate — @ 150bpm

No target? Just leave it off, or label it: 200 jog.

Repeats and recovery

Two ways to add recovery inside a repeat:

3 x 800m @ 3:30 r 90s
10 x (400 @ 3:00 / 200 jog)

The first adds a 90 s recovery after each rep. The second pairs an explicit work and recovery step.

Cycling and swimming

The same syntax works across sports:

5 x 5:00 @ 250w r 2:00   # bike power intervals
8 x 100 @ 1:45           # swim, pace per 100 m

Importing into Garmin Connect

Open Garmin Connect (web or app) → Training → Workouts → Import.
Select the .FIT file you downloaded.
Send the workout to your device.

That's it. Plan on a keyboard, train on your watch. Try it on the workout builder, or check the pace calculator to dial in your target paces.