Running

Switching to running mode

Tap the runner side of the two-way button at the right of the Home header, and the whole app switches to running mode. You can also switch from the Training mode row in Menu.

1. In the dumbbell and runner button at the right of the Home header, tap Running.
2. To go back, tap Strength on the same button.

• Home: today's run card, the Courses row under it, this week's distance with bars for the last 8 weeks, shortcuts to My courses, Pace zones, and Weekly plan, and recent runs.
• Record: opens on Runs only, and you can switch to All workouts.
• Stats: only the running sections are shown. Strength stats are in strength mode, through the Strength stats are in strength mode · switch to strength row at the bottom.
• Coach: the whole tab becomes the running coach.
• Menu: rows for My courses, Pace zones, and Run settings appear.

The mode only changes the screens. Your log, prescriptions, and health app data stay in one place with your strength training. On days with strength scheduled, Home shows Today is a strength day · Switch to strength. If a workout is in progress, you'll see You have a workout in progress. Switch after you finish. and the mode won't change. The mode you pick stays after you reopen the app.

Starting a run

In running mode, tap Start run on today's run card on Home, then pick the kind of run and the device that measures it.

1. On Home, tap Start run on today's run card.
2. The card at the top is today's prescription (or a suggestion if there isn't one). Tap Start run on it, or pick a kind below such as Free run, Time trial, Course run, Track, or Treadmill.
3. Under Measure with, pick Phone or Watch.
4. The first time you measure outdoors with your phone, it asks for location. Allow location while using the app.

Phone measures with your phone's satellite location and keeps going with the screen off until that run ends. Treadmill estimates distance from your steps without location. Time trial is a hard effort that sets your pace zones. Structured workout (step-by-step threshold, interval, and hill sessions) and Race (goal pace and finish prediction) are PRO. To measure with a watch, see Running with a watch.

The running screen and voice guidance

While you run, distance and current pace are shown large, with tiles below for grade-adjusted pace, heart rate, cadence, lap, ascent, and average pace.

• The top shows what's measuring (such as Measuring on phone) and location status (such as Finding GPS).
• In steps with a target, the Target bar shows In range, Too fast, or Too slow.
• Tap Lap to split a lap yourself, and use Pause, Resume, and Finish. In structured workouts, Next step moves to the next step.
• On a course, you see the distance left and whether you're ahead of or behind your past self, and Off course if you leave it.

Voice guidance announces laps, steps, leaving your range, and going off course through your earphones. It plays from your phone when the phone measures; when a watch measures, the watch vibrates instead. Change Voice guidance, Auto pause, Auto lap, and Current pace window in Menu → Run settings. With Auto pause on, time spent standing still, like at a traffic light, isn't counted.

Results and the evidence behind each metric

When you finish, you see a map of your route, distance, time, average pace, ascent, Splits, and Analysis. Tap a metric to see its formula, evidence, and limits.

• Splits: pace, heart rate, and grade for each split. Grade-adjusted values per split are PRO.
• Analysis PRO: Grade-adjusted pace, Heart-rate drift, Heart-rate load, Session load, cadence, and terrain.
• How hard was it?: pick 1 to 10, and it goes into session load and fitness and fatigue.
• Save as course in the card under the map saves this route as a course, and Send to a friend in the same card sends it right away. On a course you know, you see how you did against your best. Export file sends a GPX file to another app.

Grade-adjusted pace estimates what your pace would have been on flat ground, and it tends to overstate the benefit of downhills. Heart-rate drift compares efficiency between the first and second halves, and is only calculated for steady runs longer than 20 minutes. If this run makes a good reference result, a Use as reference button appears. Open past runs again from Record.

Tap Decorate & share right under the summary to make or decorate a route, splits, photo, or sticker card and post it straight to your Instagram story. See Choosing a share card.

Importing runs from other apps

Pick a GPX or TCX activity file exported from another app or watch under Import a run from another app at the bottom of Home in running mode, and it becomes a run in your log.

1. Export the run as a GPX or TCX file from the other app or your watch app, and keep it on your phone.
2. Tap Import a run from another app at the bottom of Home in running mode and pick the file.
3. When the result screen opens, share and customize it with Decorate & share just like a run you tracked in the app.

Only activity files with timestamps come in as runs, and heart rate and cadence are read too when the file has them. If you pick a course file without timestamps, you'll see Only run files with timestamps can be imported. Import course files from Courses. Open course files in Making and importing courses. If you import a run that started at the same time again, no new one is made and the existing run opens. Runs that other apps wrote to your health app come in without a file; see Runs from your health app.

Reference result and pace zones

Enter one recent result as your reference, and your Easy, Marathon, Threshold, and Interval paces and predicted times are set.

1. Open Menu → Pace zones. You can also use the Pace zones shortcut on the running-mode Home.
2. Tap Add result, pick 3 km, 5 km, 10 km, Half marathon, or Marathon, and enter Time (min:sec).
3. Check Predicted times and Heart-rate zone basis (Max heart rate or Threshold heart rate).

Paces come from the Daniels and Gilbert oxygen cost formula (VDOT), and How these paces are calculated shows the formula and sources. Without a result, run a Time trial or tap Use as reference on a run result. After 8 weeks, the app suggests measuring again.

Running coach

In running mode, the whole Coach tab becomes a running coach. The top card shows what to run today and why, and you can tap Start run right there.

1. Open Coach in running mode. Below the header you'll see Running coach · paired with lifting.
2. In the top card, check Today (that day's prescription from your hybrid plan) or Suggested (the run we suggest when there's no plan).
3. Read the reasons on the card and tap Start run.

• Reasons: a line is added when the run was eased for leg recovery, kept within 110% of your longest run in the last 30 days, turned into a time trial because there's no reference result, or trimmed to match your recent runs.
• Leg recovery: without lower-body strength records, recovery isn't taken into account. If lower-body recovery is below 70% or you trained legs hard yesterday, it tells you to swap a quality run for an easy run.
• Pace zones and Single-run limit: your pace zones, plus this week's distance and the single-run limit.
• Running alongside lifting: when you have both strength training in the last 30 days and runs in the last 7 days, it shows your running days and time in the last 7 days. See Prescriptions that know your strength training.
• This week's running plan PRO+: on the free plan it shows as a locked row. With PRO+ you also see the readiness check and nutrition cards.

Strength coaching such as block plans and volume isn't on the Coach tab in running mode. Tap the Strength coaching is in strength mode · switch to strength row at the bottom to switch to strength mode. The first time you open the running coach, an intro tip shows once, even if you've turned tips off. On an iPad held sideways, the recovery item in the left menu becomes leg recovery and the coach item becomes Today's run · weekly plan.

Prescriptions that know your strength training

A single run is kept within 110% of your longest run in the last 30 days. With the weekly running plan, a quality run the day after a leg workout becomes an easy run.

• Kept within 110% of your longest run in 30 days: in an observational study of 5,200 runners over 18 months, runs that went past this line had a higher injury risk. If you lengthen a run yourself, the app only tells you and doesn't stop you. Your current limit is under Single-run limit in Stats.
• Made easier after yesterday's leg workout PRO+: this follows a randomized trial in which 30-minute run times were about 4% slower two days after muscle damage. A one-line reason appears on today's card only on days it changes.
• No recent reference result, so a time trial is suggested: without a reference result, or with an old one, the plan's first quality day becomes a time trial.
• The Your legs haven't recovered yet window: on a day your leg recovery is below 70% or you trained legs hard yesterday, picking a quality run (threshold, interval, or hills; structured sessions are PRO) without a plan shows this before you start. Choose Switch to an easy run, Keep it, 4% slower pace (laps and repeats stay the same), or Run as planned. This follows a randomized study in which 30-minute times were about 4% slower 48 hours after muscle damage (Marcora 2007).
• Running after lifting: open the run start screen within 6 hours of finishing a strength workout, and a spacing note appears at the top. Cardio right after lifting gave the smallest strength gains, and the researchers advised avoiding gaps under 6 hours (Robineau 2016).
• Legs after running: open strength Home within 8 hours of a run with lower body in today's routine, and today's card gets a line saying lower-body reps may drop, so keep the weight. Weight and sets don't change. This follows a study in which leg press reps fell 4 and 8 hours after cardio, with no difference after 24 hours and no effect on the upper body (Sporer and Wenger 2003).
• Running alongside lifting: when you have both strength training in the last 30 days and runs in the last 7 days, this row appears in the running coach and the strength coach. It shows your running days and time in the last 7 days, along with a meta-analysis in which strength and muscle gains shrank as endurance frequency and duration rose (Wilson 2012). There's no set threshold.

Make the weekly running plan from Plan a running-focused week under This week's running plan in the running coach (PRO+). It spreads easy and quality runs so they don't clash with strength days, and moves only the runs, leaving your strength prescriptions as they are.

Making and importing courses

Your courses sit in the Courses row on the running Home, nearest to where you last ran first. Save one in a tap from a run result, or make one from a past run, by drawing on the map, or from a file.

1. On the result screen after a run, tap Save as course under the map and it becomes a course right away. It takes the run's name, which you can change on the course screen.
2. Otherwise, use the card at the end of the Courses row or Create course in Menu → My courses, then pick Past run, Draw on map, or File.
3. Tap Run this course at the top of the course screen to open Course run. Choose Phone or Watch under Measure with and run.

Running the same route twice also makes a course on its own. In My courses, filter with All, Received, Loop, and distance chips. Nearest-first uses where your latest run started, without asking for location permission. The Times to beat card on the course screen lists My best, Received time, and Latest times fastest first, and running the course races you against them. With a watch, the course line shows on the watch and it vibrates when you go off course. Draw on map joins the points you tap on the map with straight lines. In builds where maps aren't available, this option is hidden. Files can be GPX or TCX. To bring in a whole run you recorded in another app, use Importing runs from other apps. Marking part of a course as My segments to see records for just that stretch is PRO.

Sending and receiving courses

Tap Send to a friend at the top of the course screen to open Send course. You see the shape that will be sent first, then send it with Send link, QR code, or GPX file. Nothing goes through a server.

1. Open the course and tap Send to a friend. A course you just saved on a run result can be sent right there with Send to a friend.
2. Check the faded start and finish in the preview, turn on Include my record if you want, and pick how to send it.
3. The other person taps the link, or scans the QR code with Scan QR code in Receive a course from the Courses row or My courses, then saves it in the You received a course window.

Receive a course also has Open copied link and Import from file. The camera turns on only when you tap Scan QR code. Opened in a phone browser, the link shows the course drawing and distance with a button to open it in the app. Courses made from a route you ran have the start and finish areas hidden at random and your privacy zones removed, whether you send a link, QR code, or file. To hide more places such as home, use Choose places to hide in the window. Courses you drew go as drawn. Times and heart rate aren't included. An included record carries only the time for each stretch, with no date or clock time, counted again from the start of the trimmed line. For long courses you'll see This course is too long for a link. Send it as a file., so send a file.

Hiding your location

When you send a course made from a route you ran, or export a run as a file, a random length is cut from around the start and finish. Set areas around home or work as Privacy zones.

1. Open Menu → Run settings.
2. Under Hide start and finish when sharing, pick a distance to hide (200 m by default). A random 0–200 m is added to it before cutting.
3. Under Privacy zones, tap Hide around a recent start to hide the area around where your most recent run started.

The center of each hidden circle is moved a little from the real spot and fixed once, so averaging many shared runs doesn't reveal the place. Courses you drew aren't where you actually ran, so they're sent as drawn. Result maps and records on your own device aren't hidden and stay as they are.

Running with a watch

You can measure with Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch, or a Garmin watch. Pick Watch on the start screen, then start on the watch.

1. Connect your watch first.
2. On the start screen, under Measure with, pick Watch and tap Start run.
3. When your phone shows Start on your watch, start in FitBoost on the watch.

The watch shows pace ranges, steps, and the course line, and vibrates when you leave the range. Apple Watch also vibrates 5 seconds before the next step. When you finish, the run comes to your phone. Choose satellite settings for Garmin watches in Menu → Run settings → Satellites (Garmin); Max accuracy uses more battery. Watches have no separate mode and show the run you picked on your phone.

Free and paid in running

Measuring is all free. PRO adds analysis that interprets your runs and structured workouts, and PRO+ adds a weekly running plan that works around strength recovery.

• Free: measuring with your phone or three kinds of watch, live pace and heart rate, auto laps and splits, reference result, pace zones, and predicted times, my courses (same-route detection, drawing, files, receiving), sending by link, QR code, or file, GPX export, importing GPX or TCX runs from other apps, privacy zones, writing to health apps, the single-run limit, metric evidence, and the running coach (today's prescription and reasons, leg recovery, pace zones, this week's distance).
• PRO: grade-adjusted pace, heart-rate drift, heart-rate load, session load, critical speed, fitness and fatigue combined with strength, structured workouts (step-by-step threshold, interval, and hill sessions), race-day mode (goal pacer and finish prediction), and my segment records on courses.
• PRO+: a running-focused weekly plan that works around strength recovery (including easing off the day after a leg workout), and the readiness check and nutrition cards in the running coach.

Locked tiles show a lock, and tapping one opens the FitBoost PRO screen. If your subscription ends, analysis values for runs you've already recorded aren't deleted, only hidden. There are no ads on the running screen.