Runna: Running Training Plans 4+

Nine months ago I had a heart attack and ended up spending the better part of two weeks in the hospital. A couple of months after leaving the hospital, I walked 1/4 mile (400 meters) and was completely exhausted. I took a three-hour nap afterwards to recover. I jokingly referred to that as the start of my “ultramarathon career”.

I kept walking, then started running, and in order to better train downloaded the Runna app. It has been life-changing for me. The workouts are at the exact right level of challenging for me and have slowly gotten longer and more intense without overdoing it. I’ve been using it for the past 2.5 months and have increased my “long run” from 4km to 14km, which is more than I could have done BEFORE the heart attack! My muscles are tired but not in agony, my resting heart rate has gone down and my heart rate for similar runs has dropped from 140bpm to around 120bpm. But the best health benefit has been my improved mood and outlook on life. It has been truly transformational.

Lastly, I have to give a big shout out to the team at Runna. They are very professional and have been quick to respond to my questions and feedback. They seem like a really great group of people putting out a really great product.

I’m thrilled I bought it and have even given two gift subscriptions to my kids who saw my progress and wanted to try it for themselves.

Hands down the best app I’ve gotten for my iPhone.

I've tried several semi-tailored running plan apps and strategies. My favorite so far has been Runna, with Run with Hal as the runner up. I'm liking Runna better because I can actually use it in between races with its maintenance plans. I've never been able to justify a full-year subscription to RWH because there's not much to do with it between races, but with Runna it's useful every month of the year. Then the icing on the cake (and it's a LOT of icing) is that Runna auto-syncs my workouts to my Garmin. Then the Ice cream on the icing is the personal support from actual coaches. That alone makes the app worth it. Oh, almost forgot. The powdered sugar on the ice cream is that the plans get as ambitious as you want. I have a pipe dream of running a 100miler some day, and it's nice to know this app can take me there. I haven't used that feature yet, but I'm sure it'll be great to have some day. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to move a workout to a different day, but I figured it out. I do wish I could edit the workouts in Garmin, or at least make small tweaks in the Runna app. Finally, and this is not patently a pro or con, Runna has provided the most challenging training plans. Arguably not enough easy runs, but also arguably a great blend for people who are less injury prone.

First off, the idea behind the app is amazing. I would still suggest it to people to use. I love the personalization and the detailed metrics along with the syncing feature on my Apple Watch. What I find a great amount of issue is the bugs within the app itself. Primarily, the Watch app. You either have to chose your phone or your watch to record your run. You won’t get as good of metrics on your phone but it will sync to your headphones 100% of the time. I personally like the watch due to the interval training screen on my watch so I don’t have to pull out my phone constantly when running. HOWEVER! My big big big issue with the app, is that the app on my watch will pick and chose when it wants to connect the prompts on my headphones (AirPods). When I’m doing interval that gets super frustrating. I’d really like the regular prompts to notify me since they switch every .25 to .10 miles and I always have to check to see if I’m on pace or not. However I don’t want to sacrifice the details of my runs and it’s really frustrating. There is limited options in the settings on the watch to make this work and I have not seen anything to help the issue.

I generally think if I’m paying $20 a month for a service like this I shouldn’t have these many issues to be honest.