The morning already knows what today should be.
Paceo reads your HRV, resting heart rate, sleep and training form overnight, turns them into one line, and adjusts the day in front of you before you are awake to argue with it.
A score is not a plan.
Most recovery apps stop at the number. You wake up, read that you are at 62, and are left to work out for yourself what a 62 is supposed to do to your Tuesday intervals.
That is the wrong division of labour. The number is the easy part. The hard part is knowing what to do with it, which requires knowing what this week was for, where you are in the block, whether the session is the one that matters, and what moving it costs.
Paceo has all of that already, because it wrote the plan. So the readiness read is not a dashboard, it is an input. It changes the day, and then it gets out of the way.
Four signals, weighted on purpose.
Each input is scored against your own history rather than a population number, then combined. The weights are not even, because the signals are not equally informative.
HRV, weighted heaviest
Compared against your own 30 day baseline rather than a population number, on a log scale, because HRV is log-normal and a raw average flatters the bad days. It carries the largest share of the score.
Resting heart rate
Read as a departure from your own recent average. Elevated resting heart rate reads as fatigue, and roughly six beats above your normal is the full swing of that input.
Sleep
Scored against an eight hour night. Not a moral judgement, just the input that most reliably explains why a session that worked last week feels impossible today.
Training form
Your training stress balance, from buried to fresh. This is the one input that comes from your training rather than your body, which is why it is only a share of the score and never the whole of it.
One number, three verdicts
The components combine into a score out of 100, which resolves to Good to go, Steady, or Take it easy. That label is what the plan acts on.
No data, no score
If there is no health data for the day, Paceo shows no readiness at all rather than scoring you from training history alone. A number invented out of nothing is worse than an honest blank.
Four numbers, one instruction.
This is what the read looks like on a morning it has something to say. The numbers are read before you wake; the line under them is the only part you ever have to see.
From a wrist to a session.
- 01Connect Apple HealthWhatever already writes to it will do: Apple Watch, Oura, Whoop, Garmin. Paceo reads HRV, resting heart rate and sleep duration, and never writes anything back.
- 02Give it about five daysA baseline needs history. Below five days of HRV readings the signal is deliberately down-weighted rather than trusted, because a baseline built from two nights is noise wearing a number's clothes.
- 03Read one line each morningGood to go, Steady, or Take it easy, with the HRV change against your baseline underneath it. The plan for the day is already adjusted by the time you look.
- 04Train the session you were givenThe point of the number is that you stop deciding. On a Take it easy morning the intervals move and something easier takes their place; you do not have to be the one to negotiate it.
It will not diagnose you.
HRV is a training signal, not a medical one.
Paceo uses your numbers to decide whether today is a good day to run intervals. It does not screen for illness, it is not a medical device, and a low reading means your training should ease off, not that something is wrong with you. If you are worried about your health, that is a conversation for a doctor and not an app.
It also will not pretend to certainty it does not have. Below about five days of history the HRV signal is down-weighted, and on a day with no health data at all you get no score rather than a confident-looking guess.
Common questions.
- What is HRV based training?
- Training where the session you do today is chosen partly by how recovered you are this morning, rather than only by what a plan written weeks ago says. Heart rate variability is the most useful single signal for that, because it moves before you consciously feel run down.
- What HRV baseline does Paceo use?
- Your own, over roughly the last 30 days, on a log scale. Your HRV is compared against your recent normal and expressed as a percentage change from it, so the number means something for you specifically rather than against a population average.
- How long before it is useful?
- Around five days of readings. Below that the HRV input is deliberately given less weight, because a baseline needs enough history to know what your normal looks like. You still get a plan from day one; the daily adjustment sharpens as the history fills in.
- Is HRV the only thing it looks at?
- No, and that matters. HRV carries the most weight, but resting heart rate, sleep duration and your training form all contribute. One bad HRV reading on a night you slept well and feel fine does not wreck your week.
- Do I need a chest strap?
- No. Paceo reads whatever is already in Apple Health, so a watch or ring that records overnight HRV is enough. A chest strap will give you cleaner numbers, but it is not the price of entry.
- What happens on a bad morning?
- The hard session moves rather than vanishing. Intervals get pushed and something aerobic takes the slot, so the week keeps its shape and you do not end up paying for one rough night with a lost block.
- Does it work if I do not wear anything to bed?
- You still get a periodized plan, structured sessions and nutrition targets. What you lose is the morning adjustment, because there is nothing to read. Paceo will show no readiness score rather than guess at one.
The readiness read sits on top of a plan. Read how the adaptive plan is built, or see it applied to a marathon block.
Stop guessing how you feel.
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