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Open the Plan tab and tap Begin → on the "Start your Fueling Profile" card. It asks one question per screen and takes about 4 minutes: your race, the course, your goal time, your weight, a recent race result, your sweat rate, race-day conditions, how much your gut handles, and the products you plan to carry.

At the end you land on a preview with your numbers already worked out. From there you can open the full plan, or tap Not now, save my numbers to keep the preview on the device without creating an account.

The Carbs card is your carbohydrate target in grams per hour. It comes from how long you will be running and how much your gut can absorb, and it is what the timeline spends across the race.

The Fluid figure is how much to drink per hour, built from your sweat rate and race-day conditions. Drink to thirst around that figure. Sodium is the concentration in your drink, which is there to keep you drinking rather than to prevent cramp.

The timeline turns those rates into instructions: at this time, on this mile, take this much of this product. If your target is held below what your race duration alone would ask for, the Carbs card is tagged capped and says it is holding at your gut limit. Tap Why this number on any card to see what produced it.

On the Plan dashboard, open Edit my answers. Every question you answered is listed with what you told CarbRate, grouped under YOUR RACE, YOU and FUEL.

Goal time, conditions, gut limit and body weight open a stepper right there with a live preview of what moves. Everything else reopens that one question on its own, with the button relabelled Save & recalculate.

Either way you land on a "Here's what moves" review showing exactly which numbers changed, and you choose Save new plan or Discard. Saving writes a new version rather than overwriting the old one.

Building a plan is free, and the free plan shows the first hour of your race in full. Rows after that stay in place with their time and mile marker visible, but the instruction is blocked out until you open the full plan.

Pro opens the rest of the timeline, weather re-planning, course-aware timing against real elevation and aid stations, live race-day guidance, the full fueling course, and the carb-load planner. The exported cheat sheet follows the same line: free exports the first hour.

Search the catalog by name or brand on the products question, or open Your products from the Plan dashboard. If what you carry is not listed, tap Add a product and paste a link to the manufacturer's page. CarbRate reads the nutrition panel from that page and keeps the source on file.

If the link cannot be read, you can enter the name, serving size, carbs, sodium and caffeine yourself. Products entered that way are marked unverified, because the numbers are yours rather than ours.

Whichever product you pick becomes the real serving size in your plan, so the timeline names it instead of saying "take a gel". Pick nothing and the plan assumes a standard 25 g gel.

For the races in the course library, yes. Type your race name on the race question and CarbRate checks it against the library. A match is confirmed on screen before it changes anything, and when it matches you are not asked about hills, because the real elevation is already there.

A matched race places your fuel against the actual climbs and the actual aid stations, and accounts for anything the race hands out on course. A race you describe yourself (flat, rolling, not sure) is placed on elevation alone. With no course information the plan is timed to your pace.

Once a course is attached, the dashboard shows a course card and a station-by-station guide.

Type the race name anyway and answer the course-shape question. Your plan builds on distance and course shape today.

Then send us the course from the same screen in the app (tap Send us the course and we'll map it → under the course question), or on the web. We'll map the real hills and aid stations, usually within a few days, and email you when it's live. A GPX file from the race website is best; a link to the race's course map works too.

Yes. The race name is optional and only the distance is required. Answer "I'm not sure yet" on the course question and the plan is built on distance, with the fuel timed to your pace rather than to specific hills or water stops.

Nothing is lost by starting early. Add the race and the course later from Edit my answers and every cue recalculates onto it.

It did not change on its own. Inside 10 days of your race, a RACE-DAY WEATHER card appears on the Plan dashboard with the real forecast for your race location.

The card only asks you to act when the difference is big enough to matter: about 5°F (3°C) of temperature, or 15 points of humidity, against what your plan assumed. Below those, it tells you conditions are in line with your plan. Tapping Update my plan → is what saves the new conditions as a new version.

Because sweat rate varies between runners far more than a single estimate can honestly express. Until you measure yours, CarbRate shows the range your answers put you in rather than picking a number and pretending it is yours.

Logging one sweat test typically narrows that range by about a third, and your plan then shows the rate as measured rather than estimated, which is set out under how to log one.

Tap ⬇ Export cheat sheet (PDF) on the Plan dashboard. It builds a one-page, dark-text-on-white version of the timeline and opens the share sheet so you can print it, save it, or send it to someone.

On a free plan the sheet prints the first hour in full and blocks the rest, the same as the timeline in the app.

Tap the race title on the dashboard to edit the name or date. Neither changes any fuel maths, so no new version is created. The countdown, your practice weeks and the race-week reminders all read from that date.

Distance is different, because it is an input. Changing it clears the long-run distances you had entered, since the 16-week schedule was built around the old one. The app warns you before you change it.

It is a 16-week block that teaches your gut to absorb what your plan asks for, counted backward from your race date. Week 16 is race week, so your current week moves forward on its own as race day approaches without a start date to set.

It runs in 3 phases: weeks 1 to 7 train your body to burn fat, weeks 8 to 13 practise your exact race strategy, and weeks 14 to 16 taper with nothing new. Three of those weeks are full rehearsals at 85%, 95% and then 100% of your race rate.

Start with fewer than 9 weeks to go and the block compresses the early phase, but it never cuts the three rehearsal weeks. If your race is more than 16 weeks out, Practice shows a maintenance week instead.

CarbRate does not read an outside training plan, and it does not try to replace one. It needs two things from your training: which day you run long, and how far each long run is.

You can give it both by hand, or import GPX files exported from your watch and let it read your long-run day, your pace and your recent distances, set out under how to import.

Where it has no distance for a week, it says so rather than guessing. Practice sits on top of whatever training you are already doing.

Tap the distance chip under your next key session on Practice, or open See all 16 weeks → and tap any week's chip. Pick one of the preset distances or tap OTHER… to type your own.

CarbRate converts the distance to a run length using your long-run pace, and you can override that time if you run the distance quicker or slower than that. Distance changes how many gels you carry and when they land. It never changes your grams or your litres.

Each week shows where its distance came from: a pencil means you set it, a tick means it was read from your own GPX file, and a dashed mark means it was projected from your trend and is worth confirming.

Tap Import GPX files from your watch on Practice, then pick one or more .gpx files exported from Garmin Connect, Strava or COROS. CarbRate reads your long-run day, your long-run pace and how far you have been running.

Only runs of an hour or more count as long runs, and files that look like a ride or a walk are filtered out by their average speed. Weeks that already happened are filled in from the file; weeks still ahead are projected from your own trend and marked as estimates.

Nothing saves until you tap Fill my weeks → on the review screen, and a week you set by hand is never overwritten by an import.

Tap Log a sweat test on Practice. Weigh yourself right before and right after a run of at least 45 minutes, then enter how far you went, the temperature and humidity, and how much you drank during the run.

Logging what you drank is what makes the test count in full. Skip it and CarbRate treats the reading as rougher and weights it down accordingly.

If you already have a plan, saving the test recalculates it straight away and shows you your drinking range before and after. With no plan yet, the test is saved and applied to the first one you build.

Two things: which day you run long, and how far this week's long run is. The first time you open Practice with a plan built, it asks for both on one screen.

You can answer them, import GPX files instead, or tap Skip for now — show my practice plan and fill them in later. The setup screen stops appearing as soon as any week has a distance.

Tap the pencil next to NEXT KEY SESSION on Practice and pick a day. The default is Sunday.

Changing it moves this week's session, the reminder the night before, and the mini fueling schedule. It changes nothing about your fueling maths and creates no new plan version.

Weeks 1 to 7, plus weeks 8, 10 and 12, are unfuelled on purpose: no breakfast and no calories during the run, water and electrolytes only. Running without easy fuel available trains your body to burn fat, which is what carries you when your stomach can no longer keep up.

The rule on every one of those runs is the same. Put a gel in your pocket. If you bonk, eat it and jog home. No run here is meant to be finished on willpower.

Tap The why on any week for how the three run types differ.

Most weeks carry two fueling jobs: the long run on your chosen day, and a workout on another day. Weeks 1, 4, 6, 15 and 16 have no workout job.

Workouts alternate between running hard on empty and taking your race fuel during the hard part. When a workout is fuelled, it is practised at your full gut-cap rate rather than a fraction of it, which is why a week can pair a fuelled long run with a depleted workout.

It is week 13's long run, and it is race day a month early. You eat your plan's Friday dinner, get up at race-morning hours for your race-morning breakfast, carry your gels in the pockets you will race in, and run it guided with the alerts on, at your full race rate.

After that run, nothing new. No new gel, no new breakfast, no new shorts.

Tap Log [day]'s run on Practice. It takes about 30 seconds: pick whether you felt strong, bonked, had stomach trouble, or could not drink on the move.

CarbRate gives you exactly one change for next time, never a list. Tap Add the details for the full session log, where you can add notes and, after a guided run, see what you planned against what you took. A suggested change is only applied when you choose to apply it.

The fueling course: 9 modules and 48 lessons covering hydration and electrolytes, fueling the half and the marathon, fueling an ultra, how much your gut can absorb and which carbohydrates work best, how to practise the plan, the taper and carb-loading, supplements, and a 6-week strength block for late-race cramp.

Lessons are short and read in order, and each one marks itself complete when you finish it. A few point you to the calculator in the app that does the maths for what they just explained.

Module 1 is free for everyone. The other 8 modules are part of Pro.

Locked lessons still show their titles, so you can see what the course covers before deciding. Tapping a locked lesson opens the paywall rather than hiding it from the list.

It sizes your carb load for race week. Open it from the Carb-load planner card on the Plan dashboard.

It reads your saved plan for your weight and your heat-adjusted projected finish time, so it needs a fueling profile first. Without one it will tell you to build a plan rather than guess at your numbers.

The planner checks that before it shows you a dose, and it goes on your projected finish time rather than the distance on the bib.

Under about 90 minutes, it tells you not to bother: your normal stores cover it, so eat normally, keep carbohydrate adequate the day before, and get race morning right. Around 2 hours it calls the case borderline and suggests a light 24-hour bump. Well past 2 hours it recommends a full load.

That is what the planner recommends from your finish time. It is not medical advice, and it does not know about any condition that changes how you eat.

The planner offers 3 protocols: a classic 3-day load at 8 to 12 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight, a gentler 6-day build, and a rapid 24-hour load at 10 to 12 g per kg on a rest day with no depletion run.

Whichever you pick, it shows a daily target in grams sized to your weight, rather than as a share of your calories, because grams are what you can count.

The planner works out a race-morning top-off separately from the load: 1 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight for every hour before the start.

You can set how many hours before the gun you plan to eat, anywhere from 2 to 5, and the target and the race-week checklist both update.

It is expected. A load usually puts 2 to 4 lb on the scale, and that is stored water bound to the carbohydrate you loaded. It is a sign the load worked.

It comes off again in the first miles of the race.

Some. The cramp-prevention module is the one built around video, because it teaches a strength routine you need to see. The rest of the course is written.

Where a clip is not hosted yet you will see a note saying so, with the written steps below it, so you can still do the session today.

Not yet. Completed lessons are saved on the device you read them on, under your account.

Reinstalling the app, or opening CarbRate on a second device, will not bring your ticks with you. Your plans, races and sweat tests do carry across, because those are saved to your account.

Open the Run tab and tap Start the guided run →. The setup screen shows how many cues you will get, your target in grams per hour, when the first cue is due, what to carry, and the full schedule. Tap the same button again to begin.

You need a saved plan first. Without one the Run tab has nothing to load, and it points you at the Plan tab.

Yes. Every cue arrives two ways at once: a lock-screen notification with ✓ Done and Skip buttons, and a line spoken on the device. Cues fire 45 seconds before the time on your plan, so a gel can be out of your pocket before it is due.

CarbRate keeps a silent audio session running so iOS does not put the timer to sleep while the screen is off. If you are listening to music it mixes with it, and only ducks the volume for the moment a cue speaks.

Tap the speaker icon on the run screen to mute the voice. The lock-screen notifications keep coming.

Tap ■ End run at the bottom of the run screen. It is there the whole time, not just once you have finished, and it asks you to confirm before stopping. Ending a run cancels every alert still queued and stops the spoken cues.

A run can also end by itself. Once every cue has been actioned, or 10 minutes after the last cue has passed with no response, CarbRate closes the run down and cancels the rest, so alerts never follow you home from a race you finished hours ago.

Start it from the Practice tab, not the Run tab. Open the week's session and tap Run it guided →.

Started that way, the run is scoped to that session: this week's practised rate over this week's distance. Starting from the Run tab arms the full race schedule instead, which is a lot of cues for a 16-miler.

Empty-tank weeks have no guided button, because there is nothing to cue.

The Run tab becomes the start screen. It shows your race name, your rate, how many cues are loaded, and one button: START RACE MODE →.

In the 7 days before that, the tab carries a countdown, a reminder that the taper means easy running, and a shakeout run. If race day turns out to be a practice day after all, there is a link out to Practice.

No. The Run tab has a Quick guided run for an off-plan run on any day, and it times your fuel to that run.

You do still need a saved plan, because the guided run reads its target and your product choices from it.

3 numbers at the top: how many fuel cues are coming, your target in grams per hour, and the time of the first one.

Below that, WHAT TO CARRY tells you how many units of your gel to bring and what they add up to in carbohydrate, plus roughly how much fluid to plan for. Then the full schedule, cue by cue, with the time, the product and the grams.

Nobody memorises that list. Reading it is how you check the plan looks right before you start, and the cues handle the rest.

Nothing stalls. The clock keeps running and the cue stays on screen with its Done and Skip buttons after its time has passed.

If you never action it, it stands down when the next cue comes due, so the guidance follows the race rather than pinning itself to a gel you took twenty minutes ago.

Tap ⚠︎ Something's wrong on the run screen. Plan B covers nausea, gut cramp or needing a bathroom, muscle cramp, dropping a bottle or losing your fuel, going out too fast, overheating, and something feeling seriously wrong.

Each one gives you numbered steps and, for most, a short list of what not to do. The advice on every branch starts the same way: ease your pace first.

From there you can go back to the run, or end it.

A 20-second check-in after you finish. You confirm how many fuel stops you hit and rate your gut, and it works out what share of the plan you held and what that came to in grams per hour.

You can build a shareable card from it. The card carries your race, your finish time, your adherence and your gut rating, and a link back to the free plan builder. Your reports are also kept in the app so you can look back at them.

No. There is no GPS tracking in a guided run and no watch, Strava or Apple Health connection. The run clock is elapsed time from the moment you start.

The mile markers beside each cue come from your plan's own course and pace model, which is why the plan should be built on your realistic goal time. Keep using your watch for pace.

Where you cancel depends on where you bought, because CarbRate never handles the payment itself.

Bought inside the iPhone app? Cancel in Settings → your name → Subscriptions on your iPhone. A carbrate.com subscription is managed from your account, where the billing portal signs you in with the email you paid with.

Cancelling stops the next renewal and you keep Pro until the period you have paid for runs out. The Race Pass is not a subscription and expires on its own, so there is nothing to cancel.

Pro is attached to your CarbRate account, not to the phone, and the account is found by email. Almost every time, the app is signed in with a different email from the one on the purchase.

Sign in with the email you paid with, then close the app fully and reopen it. The entitlement is rechecked on launch.

Buying through the App Store never asks you to type an email, which is why the app prompts for one right after a purchase. If you skipped that prompt, or it still has not arrived after a couple of minutes, email us from the address you paid with and we will connect it.

Three ways to buy the same Pro. On carbrate.com: $9.95 a month, $89.95 a year, or a one-off $49.95 Race Pass. In the iPhone app, through the App Store: $9.99 a month, $89.99 a year, or a $49.99 Race Pass.

Monthly and annual renew until you cancel. The Race Pass is a single payment covering an 18-week build through race day and the week after, then it expires by itself.

All 3 open the same Pro features: the full timeline instead of the first hour, course-aware timing, live guidance on race day, the full course, and the carb-load planner. See the plans.

Open the You tab and tap Delete account near the bottom. You will see exactly what goes: your fueling profile, every race, plan and sweat test, your saved products, your course progress and your sign-in details. You then type DELETE to confirm. It cannot be undone.

Read the warning about your subscription before you confirm. A carbrate.com subscription is cancelled immediately when you delete, and the rest of the paid period is not refunded. An App Store subscription is not cancelled by deleting, and Apple will keep billing you until you cancel in Settings → your name → Subscriptions.

If you no longer have the app installed, email us from your account address and we will do it for you.

On the You tab, tap Already paid? Restore purchases. It checks the App Store for a subscription on your Apple Account and puts it back on the device. The button only appears while the app has you on the free tier.

A Race Pass and a carbrate.com purchase cannot come back this way. Apple only restores an active subscription, and a web purchase never went through Apple at all. For those, sign in to the app with the email you paid with and Pro follows the account.

Email [email protected]. A person answers, usually within one working day. If your race is this week, say so in the subject line and we will jump it.

For anything broken in the app, use Report a problem on the You tab instead. It attaches your device, iOS version, app build and the screen you were on, so nobody has to ask which iPhone you have. You can ask for a reply, and it says on screen exactly what is attached.

No, and we say so before you buy rather than after. There is no trial to forget to cancel and no refund process to chase. Cancel whenever you like and you keep Pro to the end of the period you paid for.

If you bought through the App Store, refunds are Apple's to give, not ours. You can ask at reportaproblem.apple.com.

If CarbRate is not doing what you expected, email us before you write it off. Most of what people take for a billing problem turns out to be the wrong email on the account.

No. Tap Try the app on the welcome screen and you can build a full plan without an email or a password.

A guest session saves your plan and your tests, it just has no email attached, so it cannot follow you to another phone. Tap Create an account on the You tab whenever you want to fix that. It upgrades the session you already have, so nothing you built is lost.

From the welcome screen, Log in if you have an account and Create an account if you do not. Both open the same screen, with an email and password field and Sign in with Apple where your device offers it. A new account gets a verification link by email: click it, then come back and sign in.

Already in the app as a guest? Use Create an account on the You tab to keep what you have built. Already have an account? Sign in ends the guest session instead, so upgrade first if there is anything in it you want.

Type your email into the email field on the sign-in screen first, then tap Forgot password?, and the reset link goes to that address.

Tapping it with the field empty just asks you to fill the field in, which is easy to miss on a phone.

Check spam first, then resend. After signing up, the sign-in screen shows Resend verification once it sees your email needs confirming.

If you are changing the email on an account you already have, the You tab shows the address it is waiting on and a button to resend that confirmation. The new link is good for 24 hours, and until you click it the old address is still the one that signs you in.

Yes. CarbRate runs in the browser at app.carbrate.com on Android phones, Windows and Mac. Sign in with the same account, and every plan, practice week, sweat test and lesson is there. On Android, Chrome offers Add to Home screen, and the icon opens CarbRate full screen like an app.

The one thing that stays on the iPhone is live race-day guidance: the spoken cues and the running timer need the phone to keep the app awake in your pocket, which a browser cannot promise. Everything up to the start line, including your printable cheat sheet, works on the web.

Pro is the same Pro. Buy on carbrate.com and it unlocks on the web and in the iPhone app within a few seconds.

Yes. Pro belongs to the account, not the platform. Buy on carbrate.com, sign in to the app with the same email, and Pro appears within a few seconds. Your plans, races and sweat tests are on the account too, so they are there either way.

The one thing that stays tied to where you bought is billing. Cancelling happens where the payment lives.

Your fueling profile, which is your body weight, sweat rate and gut tolerance; the races, plans and sweat tests you have saved; the products you have saved; and your course progress. Deleting your account removes all of it.

A Report a problem also sends your device model, iOS version, app build and the screens you were on. The app lists that on the screen before you send it, and it sends nothing else. Full detail is in the privacy policy.