Does anyone use the runna app

My wife used it and found it pushed her really hard and took the joy out of running. And I see a lot of comments on Strava from people saying they either missed or didn’t hit their Runna workouts. In summary, I don’t doubt some people like it but I don’t know too many who do. 

Depending on what you’re trying to do, you can just use ChatGPT to do you a custom plan. You can then feed back to it after each run and it’ll make changes and tweaks as it goes. I’ve had some success with this, albeit I’m a pretty experienced runner so know vaguely what I’m doing. 

Makes sense 

What sort of feedback are you giving, data? 

The more you give it, the better it reacts. 

I’ll feedback to it the pace I actually ran, the elevation and HR. I’ll also tell it how it felt to run. You can do a lot of this by giving it screenshots from Strava or similar. 

The more info you give it the better it adapts. 

I'll give that a go for a block and see how I get on cheers 

I think the difference with the chatgpt plan is it leaves you on your own during the run*. I am fairly sure runna johs you along in the moment. My other uses it and seems to find it quite helpful.

*Either hoping you get it right or lots of watch gazing to try and maintain pace etc. i am fairly decent maintaining a pace once set and am stubborn enough to run at mild discomfort but if you don't have that ability yet or you tend to roll off if things are a bit uncomfortable then something in your ear can help.

I have been using Runna since the start of the year, as i have Southampton Marathon in May, and have used it to train for that. It has transformed my running. I am ready to attack my marathon with confidence, rather than fear.

The app allows you to tailor your plan to suit. deciding how many times a week you run, which days and how hard. It constantly shifts and adapts to your improvements (or failings), so if you dont/cant hit its targets it will adjust to suit. If you are on holiday you can put it in and it will rearrange workouts and change them to suit. If you are ill, it will do the same.

In addition to this, i use it for a couple of strength workouts a week, which keep the rest of my body active. You can also do yoga and a few other bits through it.

Each run has a warm up and warm down stretch session too, which helps if you are like me and dont do it properly.

And assuming you are using a Garmin watch or similar, it transfers your run info to that, so you know what pace to do and when etc.

So yeah, i am a big fan. And although £100 for the year isnt a small amount, for what it gives you, i think its a bargain and will continue to use it once my marathon is done.

Have you tried the Garmin coaching plans? You can give it a period of time, a distance you want to be running at the end, and a time goal. It'll plot it for you as the time frame unfolds, responding to how you get on with each run to develop the plan, sending sections to the watch for each run. Mix of easy runs, speed intervals etc. I'm trying it for a half marathon, and very happy so far.

I think you'd need to add your own strength stuff but that's probably pretty straightforward to do separately in the background. 

I started using Runna at the back end of last year in an attempt to get through the mental (and physical 😆) barrier of getting under an hour for a 10k. Now I know that's not fast compared to some folks, but I'm not a natural runner, and I can't say that I 100% enjoy running - I do, however, enjoy the sense of achievment afterwards.

I found the Garmin plans weren't realistic to the sort of pace I could actually manage, though that might have been me and the way I set the plans up, but following a free trial I decided to keep at it with Runna. It's working well for me so far - I've got my sub-hour 10k twice now. What I've found most beneficial, is that it has created plans that are manageable in the first place and also plans that have helped me get back to it after being unwell. Overall, I've found it really useful.

A colleague who was new to running has been using Runna and has now done several half marathons and been happy with the training and the results achieved. Worth a go IMO

For my Ultra last year I used Runna and my friend used Garmin, and about halfway through switched to Runna as the Garmin plan was pretty bonkers in what it was asking for sometimes and a bit too reactive to what other things he did and the watch noticed.

For example we were both out for a long run, same mileage but the Garmin decided he needed to run the last 5k of a 30k long run at what at the time was faster than his actual 5k PB pace?! Also sometimes he'd have a whole week planned out, with a long run on the weekend and based on a half hour dog walk that his watch logged it changed his long run for a speed session instead? Bearing in mind this was training for an off-road hilly Ultra with the aim of finishing, not racing it like a road marathon.

Runna seems a bit more in tune with what you're actually trying to achieve (and can be tweaked further to suit).

I think I can share a discount code for two weeks free if you wanted? If not anyone with a subscription can 'gift' the same with a referral code from the App.