APPS MEET MANY OF THE TRAINING NEEDS OF FEMALE RUNNERS

A Look at 7 Apps That Can Make Training Safer, More Rewarding, More Charitable and Easier to Track

Published in

Lifestyle + Living

6 min readNov 3, 2015

Female runners are hitting the street, track and trail in record numbers. According to Running USA’s State of the Sport report, women represented 57 percent of the finishers in 2014 race events in the United States, with a whopping 10.7 million toeing the start line of a 5K, 10K, half-marathon or marathon last year.

When the mileage hits double digits, it’s perfectly fine to brag.

Chasing those finish-line dreams takes time, commitment and some pretty serious planning. Making sure the training journey is a momentum-building adventure rather than a tiresome trudge is the key to staying the course as the mileage ramps up and race day nears.

Thank goodness for apps. Here are a few you might want to look into.

Goodbye, Comfy Couch

Say you’re the proverbial couch potato just starting out. You’re probably more than a little unsure of yourself, and in your heart of hearts you’re convinced that running 3.1 miles is the equivalent of hoofing it to the next county. The C25K app is just the ticket for easing into the sport. This app sets up a three-day-a-week schedule that gradually increases your mileage over a span of eight weeks using a combination of walking and running. An audio coach prompts you when to run and when to walk, and with music-app compatibility, you’re free to listen to all your motivational tunes as you transform into a runner.

If weight loss is also one of your goals as you leave the couch behind, you’ll be happy to hear that this app partners with MyFitnessPal to track all the calories you’ll be burning.

It’s a (Run)keeper

Thanks to its versatility and user-friendly design, multifunctional Runkeeper is the preferred app of many women runners. With Runkeeper it’s easy to set up a training program or fitness regimen personalized to your needs, or you can opt to train with a plan designed by coaches like Jeff Galloway. You can also customize a schedule with rest days that you can spend with your feet up, binge-watching Game of Thrones. Run when it works for you — and with the remote safely out of sight.

With a community of 45 million runners, Runkeeper is clearly doing more than a few things right. Runners like the ability to track their progress and work toward “rewards” such as free gear from Saucony and New Balance; receive audio cues keyed to their pace, distance and time; and save their favorite routes and discover new ones. Runkeeper users also have the option to share their successes or bemoan the occasional lousy run via social media outlets. Misery loves company, right?

Stay the Course, but First, Map It

Tired of the same neighborhood loop you’ve run dozens of times?MapMyRun gets high marks from users for its route-mapping tool. This easy-to-use feature lets you choose new routes based on location, elevation and nearby amenities, among other variables. For example, with MapMyRun you could create a route in a well-lit area of town, with minimal traffic that circles back to your car at the midway point. Or you could find an off-road site that might be perfect for logging some trail miles with your BRFs (best running friends).

Mapping out a long run? With MapMyRun you can locate routes that include drinking fountains and that all-important restroom. Win-win. Or select a route that other MapMyRun users have charted in your area. Maybe one that finishes near your favorite watering hole. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

MapMyRun also lets users share their training triumphs via email, Facebook and Twitter. When the mileage hits double digits, it’s perfectly fine to brag.

Just Unleash It

The Nike+Running app claims it will help you “unleash your run.” Leashed or unleashed, this is a popular choice for beginners as well as their speedier front-of-the-pack sisters. Nike+Coach customizes a workout program based on the distance you’re training for, from a 5K to a marathon. Stick to the daily workouts, and success should be yours. With Nike+Running you can take your tunes along for the ride, er, the run, by streaming a Spotify playlist or playing those up-tempo tunes that always put a spring in your step. Let’s face it — what 15-mile run isn’t sweeter when we join the Boss in a little “Baby, we were born to run”?

A dash of color doesn’t hurt, either, when you’ll be looking at your phone screen umpteen times during the course of your training. The Nike+Running app lets you customize your stats screen with a jolt of Volt or a blast of blue, among others. Color run, anyone?

Stick to the daily workouts, and success should be yours.

For added motivation, you can post the start of your run on Facebook or Path and be greeted by a real-time cheer for each “like,” smile or comment. And with its Retire a Shoe feature, the Nike+Running app can alert you when your kicks have maxed their mileage and some shoe shopping is in order. With Nike+Running, unleash your wallet and your run!

Make Your Miles Count

Charity Miles won’t make you run faster, but it could make your training pay off in a different way. The idea is simple: Once you download the app, you turn it on before your run, select one of dozens of charities and earn 25 cents a mile for the organization of your choice. The charity partners run the gamut, from the Alzheimer’s Association to the Wounded Warrior Project, with donations underwritten by corporate sponsors.

Stick to the daily workouts, and success should be yours.

At the end of a run, simply stop the app, select “Accept and Share,” and your Facebook friends and Twitter followers learn how you made your miles matter. Walkers and cyclists also can “donate” miles through Charity Miles. It’s a pretty painless way to support a cause near and dear to your (rapidly beating) heart.

The Hansel and Gretel Approach

With a focus on safety and security, the Road ID app builds on the success of the company’s physical ID products, like wristbands, shoe tabs and dog tags that runners customize with medical information and contact numbers that could be crucial in an emergency. Using what it calls “eCrumbs,” the app sends emails or text messages to selected family members and friends when you take off on a run, walk or bike ride. The “electronic breadcrumbs” let your contacts track your whereabouts in real time. Hansel and Gretel should have been so lucky.

Another notable feature of the Road ID app is the ability to load contact names and numbers on your phone’s lock screen. In an emergency, first responders can access key contact information, even if your phone is locked.

While this app won’t track data like pace, distance or mile splits, it can provide peace of mind to those close to you who tend to worry when you head out on solo runs or who know your tendency to trip over cracks in the sidewalk.

Beware the Zombies

With the memory of Halloween still with us, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Zombies, Run! Operating on the premise that running while pursued by zombies just might make you speedier (or at the very least, a bit more focused), this app lets you choose from 200 missions or create your own, perhaps with some intervals tossed in. As a reviewer in Glamour magazine put it, “Forget what you’ve seen on The Walking Dead — if we saw Zombies coming at us, we would high-tail it out of there.” Tracking your missions and competing with other apocalypse survivors gives this app of bit of gaming flair, which might be fun to toss into the training mix occasionally.

Happy running! I’ll see you at the finish line — if you outrun the zombies.