The Spotify Running Feature: It Does Work
As of last week — march 2018— this feature is no longer available. Please raise your voice to let Spotify know that we miss Beat Running
If you have been running with a good plan, it will happen that the training ritual will eventually get boring: either because the distances, or the place, are always the same, or you have repeated the same training schedule many times. You can go the zombie way, or you can try the new Spotify Running music service.
The training feature in Spotify is part of the main app, as one of the free options in the browse menu.
Spotify Running is best used with your main training app — in my case the coach feature in Nike + Running — since it does not have scheduling or training programs: it is a one-run app, the purpose is to keep you on beat while running with the music that you like.
Upon opening the system, within the Spotify app, you will get to choose what kind of music you want to listen to. There’s a selection of two rows at the top, titled Featured and Running Originals. The first one displays new playlists, the second one includes only instrumental music, generated to match any beat. Each piece has a number of episodes that repeat after an hour or so.
The grid of choices on the lower part of the screen, titled Running Playlists, gives you categories of music adapted to the beats per minute (BPM) of the pace set upon tapping on each square.
Setting it up is quick and fairly exact, giving you either the pre-generated pieces at the top list, set to your tempo, or the first song chosen randomly from the category that you select.
The music options
I have run with both the generated music and the playlists, and depending on the kind of run each has their pros and cons.
The playlist selection has grown over time, allowing for a great variety of styles and rhythms to run with.
The music selection in each playlist is good, although I find that the more energetic and constant the rhythm, the better: In this regard the best for me are Electronic moves and Rock to the Beat.
Using Spotify Running
Upon choosing the playlist you may begin to run and wait for the program to pick up your current BPM, or you can hit the Skip button and set it manually. In the end I always tend to run at the same rhythm so this is my preferred method.
After choosing the playlist and speed, switch to Nike Running and choose the training session for the day from the Nike Coach option and begin the workout.
The music will match your BPM in a much better way than any playlist that you may come up with. Should the need to vary the speed or rhythm arise, you can switch to Spotify and lower or raise the BPM.
Setting up a complex training run
When the training calls for series or more complex sequences, I set up Runkeeper with the fartlek or interval run, and turn that on upon finishing the warm-up. This combination gives me the Training Coach in Nike, the stamina from Spotify Running —free for randomly played playlists on streaming— and the free audio cues from Runkeeper: it is the most affordable combination. You can buy training schedules in Runtastic, but at 20$ a pop, it doesn’t come cheap and there’s no way to try them out first.
Do let me know what kind of system you use to run!
