XC Workout Companion

XC Workout Companion gives running teams quick access to a coach-published training plan on compatible Garmin watches. Open the app to sync the current schedule, then browse seven prior days and twenty-one future days. Each day opens on where and how the session starts, then gives the workout a screen of its own, then the strides, supplemental work, weights, and double run when those are published. Weekly training-group mileage goals have their own screen behind the menu. A separate checklist library provides full exercise instructions without crowding the daily workout screens. Downloaded schedule information and the checklist instructions remain cached on the watch, so both can be read without a phone connection. On compatible watches, add XC Workout Companion to Glances for a compact cached view and direct access to the full app. Its on-watch setting can keep the Glance focused on today or show the next posted day when today has no entry. The Glance uses information already downloaded to the watch; open the full app to sync schedule changes. Hold Up/Menu while the app is open for Checklists, Weekly Miles, Refresh, on-watch Settings, and Help & Status. Settings keeps four optional display choices together: mileage group, Standard or Large text, whether the workout page shrinks to fit the whole session, and Glance fallback. Manual refresh reports how many plan entries changed, and stale or missing plans are labeled clearly. Help & Status shows the app version, last download time, cached date range, and current live/demo/offline state. Getting started: install the app and open it once to see the built-in demo. Athletes: in the Garmin Connect IQ phone app, open this app's Settings and enter the team code your coach shared privately, then sync — the team plan replaces the demo. Coaches: create a team, link your training spreadsheet, choose your mileage group names, and receive a private team code in about two minutes at xcworkoutcompanion.com/coach. Without a team code, the app provides a generic demo schedule and sample checklist. Enter a team code supplied privately by a coach or team administrator to see the team's live plan. Every athlete using that code sees the same published workout text. The app does not collect athlete responses, pain reports, check-offs, GPS tracks, health data, or activity history. It is a workout reference app: it does not start, record, or control a Garmin activity and does not automatically place workouts on a calendar. Use Garmin's normal Run activity separately.

The Glance names the day again, the same fix the main screen got: it used to be replaced by UPD whenever your coach had edited that day, so after a big change to the schedule the watch face stopped telling you which day it was showing. The workout screen uses the space it has. The app had gone on reserving a line for the Hold Up: Menu hint long after the hint stopped appearing, which left a dead strip above the status line and squeezed the session into a small block in the middle of an empty screen. The session now spreads into the room it has and is easier to read at a glance. The day header names the day again. It used to be replaced by UPD whenever a coach had edited that day, which meant that after a big change to the schedule every screen said UPD and none of them said which day you were looking at. The workout gets a screen to itself. It is centred, uses the full width of a round screen instead of a narrow column, and shrinks to hold the whole session rather than running onto a second page. If you prefer the old paging, Settings has a Workout Page choice. Each day now opens on the location and warm-up, so the end of the warm-up and the start of the workout are never split across a page break. Weekly Miles moved to the menu instead of being the last page of every day. Up and Down still move between days. The Hold Up: Menu hint now appears for your first few opens and then gets out of the way.