Willpower - There's an app for that?

Every now and then I start to strongly believe that I could be an athlete if I wanted to be.
Unfortunately, I don't want to be, or at least not enough, so over the last couple of years I've dabbled in a few different apps to motivate me on my runs - which, I'm not going to lie, are hardly ever over five kilometres and commonly involve a lot of walking.


The first one I used was MapMyRun.

I won't give images for this, because it was the least effective one I've used yet.  It's all okay up until you realise that once you've switched from imperial to metric, instead of it telling you when you've gone one kilometre... it tells you you've gone 1.6 miles.  What?!
One thing I will give it is that it's dead simple to use. And it interacts with MyFitnessPal. Okay, so it's pretty good really once you get over it shouting at you in the wrong unit.  Didn't love it... but didn't particularly hate it.  And it's free.  2.5/5






The next one I used was RunKeeper, another free one, and this was my favourite

whilst I was training for the Inter-Advertising 5k earlier this year. We won't talk about that.  What we will talk about is the fact that this one shouts at you every kilometre, and tracks your runs with great accuracy.  This one also uploads all your runs to Google Drive for you, so you don't lose your record if you lose your phone, which is a disturbingly common occurrence for me.  It also has quite a nice feature in that, if you take a photo out on your run, it'll pin it to where you are on the map so you can find it again.  I think MapMyRun did this too though, so I can't exactly love it more based on that, but the interface was all round more interesting and felt more professional.  And didn't update me very 1.6 miles... Look.  Even the logo is musclier.  Again, it works with MyFitnessPal too, which is a massive bonus for me, so I'm going to give this one a 4/5... It would've been a 5 if it weren't for the last two.


The one I've been using most recently and I think is the most

effective based on 'peer influence' (Or just friend pressure, fear of failure, whatever you want to call it) is Strava.  It's free, and tracks both cycling and running, on a really social, easy to track level.  It's beautifully designed and lays out everything you want to know about your run.  On one screen it shows you where you went, how long you took, your average pace, there's another screen that shows you the speed of each of your split kilometres or miles.  It's super detailed, whilst remaining incredibly simple to use.  It gives you rewards against your personal best as well as friends (as you can see I have only done one run on this and am yet to score any rewards.  Don't judge) which is great to set yourself a challenge with.  I also really like the fact that it weighed up your entire week, so if you have a bad run it doesn't feel so bad, as long as you can balance it out with a good run later in the week.  As you can see, really simple interface, and it's super-easy to find friends as you just use Facebook to sign up to it, I've only started using it this morning and found two friends using it already.  It is really annoying in other apps to have to go in and find your username and accept a link... with this, as you're already Facebook friends, I think it just assumes it's totally okay to share your running route with people... Okay.  So it's a bit creepy.  It also taunts you with all the cool features you could get if you paid £4 a month for it.  No thanks... (But progress goals would probably totally help...) 4.5/5

The next one, is my favourite running app of all time, because I

love zombies.  What does that have to do with anything?  It's Zombies Run 3, the immersive run tracking app that interacts with your music and lets you run through a different 25 minute story every time you run, along the way you collect resources to build up your base in the built in mini-game.  It is actually that brilliant.  Before each run you download a podcast, obviously you have to have your headphones for this one, and each podcast puts you in a different situation as 'runner 5'.  Throughout your journey you're told that you're being chased by zombies, to try new routes, to run faster, slow down, take a detour... you can get as involved in it as you like, and the app even pauses your music whilst it talks so you don't mis a moment of your most motivational running tracks.  I really loved this, as somebody that finds a standard run pretty boring, this app made it infinitely more exciting.  Oh yeah - it tracks your runs and tells you the speed of your latest kilometre every time it tells you your distance too, so you can tell if you're slowing down.  This is the only app I've used that tells me that, so that's a feature I massively like.  If this app had the same slick design and peer review and tracking system as Strava, this would be my perfect running app, and at just under £2.50, it's a valuable investment.  Massively recommend this one for the fun. 4.5/5

In conclusion:
For serious runners, the slick design and easy tracking of Strava is ideal, it's easy to use and every part of it is customisable to your preferences, whether you want metric or imperial, do you want it to shout progress at you or not... it's brilliant.
For those less in need of motivation, and just trying to get themselves into running, the zombie apps have great training apps as well as their running apps, and getting that damned base built in the side game is a good amount of motivation for anyone to get running.  I had lots of fun with this one.
And, for running music, I highly recommend Spotify's Air Punch playlist.  Running to 'Pour some sugar on me' is actually the best feeling in the world.