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Using the Runna App to run a marathon - 6 week check in

Some context

I've been a runner for over a decade. I'm a qualified running coach in the UK and have run two marathons - both quite porrly executed however. I've always been a fairly average runner, PBing at 18:51 over 5K and 40:00 for 10K.

I've never hired a proffesional coach for any of my training, using a strong mix of gut feeling, my own learnings and a ton of good luck to get me through.

For my upcoming third marathon however, I wanted to try something different in an attempt to set a PB, hopefully taking my marathon time from 4:13 to sub 3:30. I wanted to try an app I've seen everywhere on socials, Runna.

Runna is a run coaching app that is growing in popularity. It's main premise is that it provide fully personalised plans, works with the most popular fitness devices, and that it provides tons of support outside of just the training plan.

I wanted to give Runna a good try and see if it could help me get that big marathon PB.

My thoughts about Runna before trying it

I did have some thoughts about Runna before I ever downloaded it.

The overarching theme of those thoughts being "it's taking advantage of runners who won't know better by offering them slightly less cookie cutter shaped training plans".

In short, I felt incredibly skeptical about the whole thing.

I feel like 70% of coaching someone to run and reach goals isn't the plan you give them, it's about the emotional support, accountability and human to human guidance that helps someone navigate the challenges. These are things I don't think an app can give you.

A personalised plan is of course essential, but everyone has access to basic personalised plans but not everyone is successful in getting started to run or completing their first big running goal.

I'll detail if, how and why these feelings changed at the end. You can skip to that here.

Getting started, setting up the plan

The first step when setting up Runna is setting out the details of your plan. This includes stuff like:

  • The event you're training for

  • Your running ability - Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced or Elite

  • Estimated current race time (of any distance)

  • Elevation profile - how hilly your race and or training area is

  • The number of runs per week and which days you want to run on, including which day is best for your long run

  • Training volume - whether you prefer to reach higher mileage or not

  • Difficulty - a generic option with choices of Comfortable, Balanced or Challening - this can be further customised

  • Your currently weekly mileage and current longest run in the past 4 weeks

Once you've run through and selected these options, it goes away and has a big think about your training plan.

Thoughts on the plan it gave me

My overarching thoughts about the plan it gave me was that "it's fine". I've been following the plan it gave me religously for 6 weeks now. Before I get into more depth about how I feel about the plan and the app at this point, here's a summary.

What I think Runna does well with the plans

  • Basic run types covered consistently (intervals, thresholds, long runs, easy runs etc)
  • It builds in progression nicely, deload weeks etc
  • It lets you see the same sessions for treadmills which is a nice touch
  • Sessions are presented in an easy to understand way
  • The app in general is well designed
  • You can quite easily move runs about on any given week to fit a schedule
  • It knows to not put two hard sessions straight after each other

What I didn't like about the plan it gave me

  • You can't see session details further ahead than what you've paid for
  • The predicted paces I saw as unrealistic for me
  • The AI summaries are bland and useless
  • I don't think the taper it built in is enough

How do I feel about Runna and it's plans at the 6 week mark

My feelings are largely unchanged. I think the plans the app dishes out are on the better side, but they're still essentially cookie cutter plans.

I'm quite happy with how I'm personally progressing in the plan, I like the challenging variety of interval and tempo sessions it gives me. I still think the estimated marathon time of 3:09 is unrealistic for me but we shall see.

I think new runners should beware though.

The app does a decent job of explaining what the sessions are meant to do, but purely by the fact that it is just an app, there's a whole element of human understanding that it simply cannot do.

It allows you to rate workouts but only with a thumbs up or down. If you thumbs down the workout it does let you say why from a given list, but from what I can tell, it doesn't do too much with the info apart from change the AI summary of the run.

The app will try to adjust based on how you perform, so if you're always running faster than your target efforts, it'll increase the pace next time. This is a good idea of course but I feel like the app ramps up the pace too quickly. I think the workouts are hard and that's good, but my worry is that they will get too hard too quickly for new runners and cause and injury or just damage their confidence.

Who do I think Runna would be good for?

Based on my experience so far, I think Runna would be good for runners like me. Experienced runners who just want a plan to follow. The app does a nice job of keeping the plan engaging enough as you progress.

I think better runners than me would be better off with an experienced coach.

Who would Runna not be good for?

I think someone who's never run before should possibly try Runna but very cautiously. If you are new and want to try it, I have some tips:

  • Choose the balanced option when setting up your plan

  • For the first few weeks, decline the option to increase the pace