Documentation

Garmin Export (Workout + Course)

RaceCraft can export a finished race plan as Garmin .FIT files, so the plan you built on screen follows you onto your wrist. Garmin keeps pacing and navigation in two separate file types, so RaceCraft offers both.

The two files also reach your watch by two different routes, which catches most people out the first time. Garmin Connect can import a course but has no way to import a workout. That is a Garmin limitation, not a RaceCraft one, and the import guide below covers both paths.

What you get

Structured workout - every race section becomes a stage with its own distance and target pace. The watch advances automatically as you pass each checkpoint distance and shows the pace target for the section ahead.

  • Step name: the checkpoint pair, e.g. CP2 to CP3
  • Step duration: that section's distance
  • Step target: the planned pace, as a speed range with ±10 s/km of slack so the watch is not alarming on every technical descent
  • Step notes: distance, pace, and climb in your chosen units

Course - the route with elevation, plus a course point at every checkpoint, so the watch can navigate and warn you before each one. Record timestamps follow the plan's schedule, so the course also carries your planned splits. This export needs a route; manually entered plans with no route can only export a workout.

Exporting from RaceCraft

  1. Calculate your plan.
  2. Open the overflow menu and choose Export, then Garmin Watch (.FIT).
  3. Download the workout, the course, or both.

The course button is disabled, with an explanation underneath, when the plan has no route to draw on.

Getting the files onto your watch

Course - through Garmin Connect

The course imports normally, on either the website or the phone app.

  1. In Garmin Connect, go to Training & Planning › Courses.
  2. Choose Import and pick the downloaded .FIT file.
  3. Open the imported course and Send to Device.
  4. Sync your watch (automatically over Bluetooth, or through Garmin Express).

The course then appears on the watch under navigation - typically Navigate › Courses, though the exact menu varies by model.

Workout - by USB, from a computer

Garmin Connect cannot import workout files. The website and the app both offer only a workout builder, with no upload option anywhere. This is a long-standing and frequently requested gap in Garmin Connect, not something hidden in a menu, and it applies to every workout .FIT file regardless of which tool produced it.

The reliable route is to copy the file straight onto the watch:

  1. Plug the watch into a computer with its USB cable or charging cradle.
  2. Open the watch's storage and find the GARMIN/NewFiles folder.
  3. Copy the workout .FIT file into NewFiles.
  4. Eject the watch and unplug it.
  5. Wait a moment while the watch processes the file. It moves the file out of NewFiles by itself and the workout appears under Training › Workouts.

If it does not show up, restart the watch. If it still does not, the most likely cause is a full workout library rather than anything wrong with the file - see the watch says it exceeded the maximum number of workouts below. Some older models will also only take one new workout file at a time.

On Windows

Plug the watch in and it appears in File Explorer as a device, the same way a phone or a camera does. Open it, go to Internal Storage › GARMIN › NewFiles, and drag the .FIT file in. Eject the watch from the notification area when you are done. Nothing extra to install.

On a Mac

macOS is the awkward one. Watches that support music (fenix 6 and newer, epix, Forerunner 2xx/9xx Music, Venu, and similar) present themselves as MTP devices rather than plain USB drives, and macOS has never been able to read MTP on its own. Finder will not show the watch at all - there is no setting that changes this, and nothing is wrong with your cable or your watch.

Older watches without music storage are unaffected: they mount as ordinary USB drives and appear in Finder, so you can skip straight to dragging the file in.

For everything else you need an MTP client. OpenMTP is free, open source, and native on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

Install it either from openmtp.ganeshrvel.com, or with Homebrew:

brew install --cask openmtp

Then:

  1. Quit Garmin Express first. It claims the device as soon as you plug in and blocks other clients, so OpenMTP will show nothing while it is running. In Garmin Express, turn off the option to launch automatically when a device connects, or you will be doing this every time.
  2. Plug the watch in and make sure it is awake.
  3. Open OpenMTP. It shows two panes: your Mac on the left, the watch on the right. If the right pane is empty, click Refresh; if it still is, check that Garmin Express is really closed and that the cable carries data rather than only charge.
  4. On the watch side, open GARMIN, then NewFiles.
  5. Drag the .FIT file from the left pane into NewFiles.
  6. Eject the watch in OpenMTP, then unplug it.

The watch takes the file from there: it moves it out of NewFiles on its own, and the workout turns up under Training › Workouts.

Why the difference

Courses and workouts use different Garmin subsystems. Courses have always been importable because people share routes; workouts are treated as something you build inside Garmin's own tools, or push in through a partner integration using Garmin's Training API. Services such as TrainingPeaks and Intervals.icu use that API to place workouts on your Garmin Connect calendar - but they build the workout in their own editor and will not ingest a .FIT file, so they are not a route for the file RaceCraft produces.

Starting them on the watch

Neither file starts from the watch face. Both are chosen inside an activity, after you have picked Run but before you start the timer. Pressing MENU on the watch face opens the watch's settings instead - Activities & Apps, Notifications and Alerts, and so on - which is a dead end for this.

Button names and menu wording vary by model. The steps below are for the fenix 7; other recent watches follow the same shape.

The course:

  1. From the watch face, press START.
  2. Select your activity, for example Run.
  3. Select Navigate › Courses, and pick the course.
  4. Select Do Course.

The workout, in the same activity:

  1. Hold MENU, and select Training.
  2. Select Workout Library. Anything copied in over USB lands here, not in Quick Workout or Training Calendar.
  3. Pick the workout - it carries your plan's name.
  4. Select Do Workout if the watch asks.

Then press START to begin the activity timer.

From there the two run together: the course draws the map, gives turn prompts, and warns you before each checkpoint, while the workout advances stage by stage and holds you to the planned pace for the section you are on.

Units

Distances, paces, and elevations in step names and notes follow your metric / imperial preference in the planner. The underlying FIT values are always stored in metric, which is what the format requires; Garmin Connect and the watch then display them in whatever units your Garmin account is set to.

Limits

  • A workout exports at most 50 steps (the planner already caps checkpoints at 30).
  • Courses are thinned to at most 2,500 trackpoints so older watches can load them.
  • Sections without a calculated pace still export, just with an open target rather than a pace alert.

Troubleshooting

"Oops! File is not a course type." - you are importing the workout file into the Courses section of Garmin Connect. Only the course file can be imported there; the workout has to go on by USB, as above. Check the filename: RaceCraft names the two ..._course_....fit and ..._workout_....fit.

Garmin Connect rejects the file as unsupported or corrupt - files exported before v2.6.1 were written with an invalid checksum and Garmin refuses them. Re-export the plan on the current version and the new file will import.

The course button is greyed out - the plan has no route. Upload a GPX, or load a saved plan that carries one.

A saved plan will not export a course - fixed in v2.6.1. Plans exported to JSON reference a GPX upload that the server clears out after a while; the export now falls back to the route stored inside the plan itself. Re-export on the current version.

The watch does not appear in Finder on a Mac - expected, if it is a music-capable model. Those are MTP devices, and macOS cannot mount them. Use OpenMTP as described above, and quit Garmin Express first. On Windows the watch appears in File Explorer with nothing extra installed.

The workout is on the watch but has no pace alerts - sections with no calculated pace export with an open target. Run a full simulation before exporting so every section has a pace.

The workout is on the watch but you cannot find it - it is under Workout Library, inside an activity, not on the watch face's MENU. See Starting them on the watch.

"Exceeded maximum number of workouts. Some workouts deleted" - the watch is full. Garmin caps how many workouts a watch will hold, across all activities, and the cap is low: commonly around 25. Past it the watch prunes on startup, so a workout copied into NewFiles can be imported and then thrown away before you ever see it, which looks exactly like the file never arrived.

Free some slots and copy the file again:

  • In Garmin Connect, delete workouts you no longer need, then sync. A scheduled training plan counts towards the cap too, so removing an old one clears a lot at once.
  • Or on the watch, open the workout list and delete from there.
  • Or with the watch plugged in, delete files from GARMIN/Workouts - not NewFiles, which is only the inbox.

"Content expired, please update your downloads" - unrelated to this. It refers to downloaded offline content such as music, and it appearing at the same time is a coincidence.

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