Calendar

Content

Introduction

The calendar is the heart of Slek for planning and tracking your training.
It's also from this page that you can access:

Season Timeline

The season timeline is the bar chart that displays at the very top of the calendar page.
For each week, a bar represents:
You also have:
If they are defined, below the timeline, you can see the periods (macro-cycles) of the season, which group several weeks.
You can choose what is displayed (volume or load) in the timeline in season settings.

Weekly View

The calendar offers a weekly view that displays, day by day:
It comes in 4 display modes that you select from the buttons at the top right of the week (on desktop only):
Multi-week views (2 and 3 weeks) only show past weeks, never upcoming ones: this avoids cluttering the screen with an empty week and keeps focus on the recent picture.

Color Code

Weekly menu

The button at the top of the week opens a menu that groups actions acting on the whole week:

Availability

Planned sessions

Some options are hidden depending on the active view: availability actions and the full copy/paste of planned sessions are only available in 1-week or hourly views — multi-week views don't let you act on a single week. Selective actions (copy/delete with selection) are not available in the hourly view.

Expected / Perceived Effort

On each session, you have information visible directly (depending on your screen size).
On all screen sizes, you can see expected effort and perceived effort which are displayed as horizontal bars on the top of the session (expected effort is on top, perceived effort is under the title): the longer the bar and the redder the color, the more important the effort (expected or perceived).

Time Navigation

Calendar Tabs

On the right (on a computer, below on mobile) of the weekly view, you have the following tabs:

Keyboard shortcuts

Add a note

To leave a note on a day (a reminder, a free comment, something to share with your coach or athlete):
  1. Click on the label of the day in the calendar
  2. Select Note
  3. Type your message and save

Add a goal (a planned race)

The goals of your season — whether a competition or an important test — are added directly from the calendar:
  1. Click on the label of the day of the goal
  2. Select Race to enter your goal
  3. Fill in the name, the priority (main goal, secondary, preparatory) and optionally the sport
  4. Save
Goals then appear as green vertical lines in the season timeline, in the season plan and in the weekly summary, so you keep the direction of your season in mind week after week.

Report discomfort or pain

If you feel discomfort or pain during your training, you can log it quickly:
  1. Click on the label of the day concerned
  2. Select Discomfort/Pain
  3. Briefly describe where and how you feel it
Because your health data is particularly sensitive, Slek avoids collecting it and only allows a basic description of the pain or discomfort you feel: just what is useful from a sports perspective. The rest is only between you and your doctor.

FIT File Import

You can import a .fit or .fit.gz file directly into the calendar in two ways:
A loading indicator is displayed during the import. Once finished, a notification with a link to the imported activity appears.
If the file has already been imported, Slek automatically detects it and shows you the existing activity instead of creating a duplicate.

Adding Sessions

Both the coach and the athlete can plan a session by clicking on a time slot. They can add:

Recurring workouts and check-ins

A planned session or a check-in can be made recurring via a button in the form (repeat icon). When recurring, the same session or check-in is replicated on the following weeks.
When editing or deleting, Slek asks you to choose: this occurrence only or this occurrence and the following ones.

Planned Sessions

Premium feature
For each planned session (whether in the library or not), you can define the targets of your session (duration, distance, D+, HR zones or pace...)
If you use Foster load, it's wise to always include duration and expected effort in your targets because this allows Slek to calculate a planned Foster load and to be able to:
You also have a description field. While it may seem simplistic, it is nonetheless very powerful. See below.

Session Descriptions

Premium feature
The session description seems very simple, yet it allows:
Sometimes this intelligent description field can bother you if you're used to writing your repetitions with the * sign (which is understood as a bullet list). In these cases you can activate plain text mode using the button and all these features will be disabled.
You have a cheat sheet of the help below with the button above the description field.
You can use a syntax called Markdown to format your description:
The Markdown syntax is a standard format... you can ask your favorite AI to format a session in Markdown format: you'll be surprised by the result.

Guided Sessions

Premium feature
A guided session will be sent to the athlete’s watch to guide them through each effort (except on Polar).
This is what others call “structured sessions” (as if your other sessions weren’t).
Unfortunately, Polar does not yet support this type of session. Sorry, this is beyond our control.
There are two kinds of guide, both written between ((...)):
The line break tells them apart. In one session you can chain as many simple guides as you like, but an advanced guide must be on its own.

Simple guides

You have a cheat sheet of the help with the button above the description field.
Defined on a single line between ((...)), they describe sets of efforts and recoveries, with no targets.
Examples:
Rules:
A simple guide does not allow targets (speed, power, …). This is on purpose, to keep things simple and let the athlete rely on their feel: they will therefore have to remember the objectives of each effort. If you want targets, switch to the advanced guide.

Advanced guides

The advanced guide adds targets (pace, power, HR), a progressive warm-up, repeated blocks and distance steps.
The simplest is to use the graphical builder. As soon as you insert or edit an advanced guide in the description, an interface opens to drop in your blocks (warm-up, effort, recovery, repeat block, ramp, cool-down), set duration/distance and targets, and preview the session. Slek writes the guide for you — no need to know the syntax.
For the curious who would rather write it by hand, the full syntax is detailed in the next section.

Advanced guide syntax

Premium feature
This section details the text syntax of advanced guides, for those who would rather write it by hand than use the graphical builder (recommended). An advanced guide is written over several lines, between ((...)).
Example, running:
((
Warmup
- 2km 70-75% pace
- 2km 75-80% pace

Main set 2x
- 6km 90-92% pace
- 2km 75-80% pace

Cooldown
- 2km 72-76% pace
))

Structure

Step duration or distance

Every step must give a duration or a distance (this is required).

Step ending on LAP

For a step that ends when you press the LAP button, add the word lap to its name. A duration is still required, but it is only indicative: the step ends the moment you press LAP, whether you are below or above that value. On the rare watches that cannot end a step on LAP, the duration is used as a fallback.
- lap 20' 50% pace
The 20' is just a target shown on the watch, not a minimum nor a limit: pressing LAP at 18', 20' or 25' ends the step all the same. It is handy for a free warm-up: “warm up for about 20' and press LAP when you are ready to start”.

Targets

The target goes after the duration. Keywords are written in English (pace, HR, LTHR, ftp). A range is 95-105% or 50%-65%.
A single-value target (for example 90% HR or 250w) is sent to the watch as a small range around that value, to avoid a single-point target the device cannot hold: HR ±3 bpm, power ±2.5%, pace ±5 s/km, cadence ±3 rpm. A target already written as a range (or a zone) is left unchanged.