Rotating schedules break most generic training plans. A Tuesday tempo is useless if you're on a 12-hour night shift; a 20-km long run on the wrong Sunday is a non-starter. Shift scheduling lets you describe your real rota once (plus any individual dates that differ) and have the coach build around it. Long runs land on your days off, intervals avoid night-shift days, and rest falls where you actually need it.
The shift schedule editor lives under athlete preferences. Open Preferences > Shift schedule and you'll see two tabs: Pattern for your recurring rotation, and Overrides for individual dates that break that pattern.
Go to Preferences and click Shift schedule. The page opens on the Pattern tab.
Pick how many weeks your rotation covers (1–4), set the anchor Monday, and fill in each day's shift type. See Your Recurring Pattern below for detail.
Saving fills 16 weeks of upcoming dates from your rotation and turns shift-aware scheduling on. Your next generated plan (or your next plan adaptation) will respect it.
Switch to the Overrides tab for any date that differs from your usual rota: a swapped shift, annual leave, or a gym class. See Individual Date Overrides.
A pattern describes the shape of your rotation: the set of days that repeats on a fixed cadence. Most shift workers are on a 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-week cycle, so the editor supports rotations of that length.
How many weeks your cycle covers, from 1 to 4. Use Add week and Remove week to adjust.
The Monday that Week 1 of your rotation aligns to. Pick a Monday you know was a Week 1 in your rota; the editor rolls from there.
For each day in your rotation, pick off work, a day shift, a night shift, or a gym day.
On shift days, tell us whether you can run before work, after work, or both. This drives what session types land on that day.
Every date you set picks a shift type, which drives what the coach is allowed to schedule. On shift days, the training window narrows it further.
A full day free. The coach treats this as your best opportunity for long runs and key sessions.
A standard day shift. Training is possible before and/or after, controlled by the training window you pick.
An overnight shift. Training is still possible (many shift workers run before clocking on, or on a break), but the coach caps it at short, easy sessions. No intervals, threshold, tempo, or long runs on a night-shift day.
You have a scheduled strength or class session. The coach places your S&C workout on this date, overriding the usual weekly strength days for this day only.
On a work or night shift, the window tells the coach when your run has to fit. These labels are about your shift, not the clock. Before shift for a night worker might land at 4 pm, and that's fine.
Short and easy only. Nothing hard; you have a shift coming up.
Any session type on a day shift. On a night shift, still capped at short and easy, because you'll be tired.
No time restriction. Used for days off, gym days, or if you don't mind when you train.
Your rotation is the pattern. Real life is everything that breaks it: swapped shifts, a week of leave, a Saturday wedding, a Wednesday gym class. The Overrides tab lets you change any date in the next 16 weeks without touching your recurring pattern.
Each date in the 16-week calendar has a row of shift-type buttons: Off work, Work, Night, Gym. Tapping one saves immediately with sensible defaults (a night shift, for example, presumes you'll run before clocking on). That's enough for most overrides.
If you need exact shift times or a specific training window, click the date itself to open the detail editor. From there you can enter start/end times, pick before-only or after-only, and save. The override then takes precedence over your pattern for that one date.
Click Clear on any overridden date to remove the override. If your pattern covers that date, the pattern entry is automatically put back; otherwise the date returns to your usual weekly availability.
Not every shift worker is on a fixed rotation. If you write your own schedule week by week, or your rota changes constantly, you can skip the pattern and work entirely from the Overrides tab.
On the Pattern tab, leave every day as Off work and save. This turns on shift-aware scheduling without filling your calendar with fake rota days.
As each week's rota is confirmed, go to the Overrides tab and quick-tap the dates you're working. Dates you don't mark stay driven by your usual weekly available days.
After you've added the new week's shifts, click Reshape my plan to have the coach redraw the upcoming weeks around them. See Reshaping Your Plan.
Once shift scheduling is on, every plan the AI coach generates or adapts reads your exact shift for each date. The key rules, in priority order:
If a date is blocked, the plan shows rest. If that collides with your usual long run day, the long run is moved to your nearest day off in the same week.
If you've marked a date as a gym day, the coach places your strength session there, overriding your normal weekly strength days for that date only.
Even when you've said you can train around a night shift, sessions are capped at easy or recovery pace. No quality work on a day you'll be up all night.
On a day shift where you can only run beforehand, sessions are limited to easy or recovery. Intervals, tempo, threshold, and long runs move to a day where you've got more time.
Long runs and quality workouts land on days off wherever possible. If you have two consecutive days off, the long run will usually come after a rest or easy day.
When a session has to move, weekly volume and intensity distribution stay the same. Shifts change when you run, not how much.
Changing your pattern or adding a handful of overrides doesn't automatically redraw an active plan. When you've made changes that affect upcoming weeks, click Reshape my plan in the editor. The coach rewrites the remaining weeks of your current plan against your new schedule.
Weeks you've already completed stay untouched. The reshape starts from the week you're currently in.
The coach redistributes sessions across the new availability without increasing or dropping volume.
Clicking reshape queues the work. It usually completes within a couple of minutes; just refresh your plan page.
A few things that make shift-aware plans work better in practice.
It's tempting to say you can train around a night shift. If you rarely actually do, mark night days as unavailable. You'll get a plan you can actually follow, and the coach will protect your recovery.
Even on a messy rota, 70–80% of weeks look similar. Capture that as your pattern; use overrides for the 20% that don't. It's less maintenance than hand-entering every single shift.
If you're updating several overrides at once, finish them all and then reshape once. Each reshape queues AI work, so batching your changes keeps things efficient.
If your usual long run day is a work or night shift on a given week, the coach moves the long run to the nearest day off. That's the design, so don't try to force it by fiddling with windows.
If a colleague swaps shifts with you for a single day, don't rebuild the pattern; just override that one date. Overrides are designed for exactly this.
© 2026 GoAndRun. AI-powered running coach.
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