r/running

I’m planning to start running home from work in NYC (~11 miles) and need a better setup for carrying a 15” laptop plus a change of clothes.

My current backpack causes terrible neck/strap chafing and bounces a ton. Curious whether this is just unavoidable when running with a laptop, or if people have found packs that actually work well for longer commutes.

Would especially love recommendations from anyone doing similar city commuting runs.

How’s your week of running going? Got any Complaints? Anything to add as a Confession? How about any Uncomplaints?

With over 4,200,000 subscribers, there are a lot of posts that come in everyday that are often repeats of questions previously asked or covered in the FAQ.

With that in mind, this post can be a place for any questions (especially those that may not deserve their own thread). Hopefully this is successful and helps to lower clutter and repeating posts here.

If you are new to the sub or to running, this Intro post is a good resource.

##As always don't forget to check the FAQ.

####And please take advantage of the search bar or Google's subreddit limited search.

Hey runners, it's another day and it is time to post your accomplishments you'd like to share - big or small.

Note: No need to preface YOUR accomplishments with something like, "this may not be an accomplishment to most of you...". Be proud of your achievement.

Hi. I’ve been doing a lot of running on treadmill lately, including running intervals, and have been struggling with how those activities are being recorded on my Garmin (Epix 2). I’m looking for a foot pod that is accurate on a treadmill and works well with Garmin watches.

As I’m more of a stride-length runner (as I increase pace, I increase stride length as opposed to increasing cadence), my paces recorded are all over the place. I can run intervals at 7min/mi and my watch records it as anywhere from 8:00 to 13:00mi/min, likely dependent on how smooth my gait is at the time. My cadence though is roughly the same whether I’m warming up or running 5K pace, so my watch gets confused.

Anyone with this same problem find a reliable and accurate pod that you’d recommend?

With over 4,200,000 subscribers, there are a lot of posts that come in everyday that are often repeats of questions previously asked or covered in the FAQ.

With that in mind, this post can be a place for any questions (especially those that may not deserve their own thread). Hopefully this is successful and helps to lower clutter and repeating posts here.

If you are new to the sub or to running, this Intro post is a good resource.

##As always don't forget to check the FAQ.

####And please take advantage of the search bar or Google's subreddit limited search.

Hey runners, it's another day and it is time to post your accomplishments you'd like to share - big or small.

Note: No need to preface YOUR accomplishments with something like, "this may not be an accomplishment to most of you...". Be proud of your achievement.

As the seasonal change really heats up, it's time to have our megathread on summer running. Follow this link to the weather section of the wiki to view past Summer posts.

[NOTE: If you happen to be in the Southern Hemisphere and entering the season of the cold, snow, and/or ice, the Weather section of the wiki also has links to past Winter posts.

It's a good time to get reacquainted with heat training, tips, tricks and adjustments you use to get through next couple months of misery, whether it's just for the next 2 months or 5 months. However, the most important think is to recognize the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke and not to try to be tough. If you're running alone and you push into heat exhaustion, you have to stop immediately before you hit heat stroke.

Signs of heat exhaustion:

• Confusion
• Dizziness (good indictor no matter what, but more so when it's summer)
• Fatigue (more so than usual)
• Headache
• Muscle/abdominal cramps
• Nausea/vomiting
• Pale skin
• Profuse sweating
• Rapid heartbeat

Heat stroke is what heat exhaustion will turn into if you don't recognize it and stop immediately. Signs of heat stroke are fairly similar but one notable difference is that you have stopped sweating. Heat stroke is a serious medical condition and requires emergency treatment. Call 911!

Symptoms of heat stroke include:

• Confusion, altered mental status, slurred speech
• Loss of consciousness (coma)
• Hot, dry skin or profuse sweating
• Seizures
• Very high body temperature
• Fatal if treatment delayed

Remember that SLOW DOWN is never the wrong answer in the heat. You're going to go slower - it's just a fact. Embrace it and the fitness will still be there when the weather cools off.

Some quick high level tips:

• Run slower (duh)
• Don't run during the heat of the day
• Run in shaded areas. Running in direct sunlight in the summer can add 20+ degrees to your skin temp, and that's what counts, not the air temp.
• Avoid highly urbanized areas if at all possible during hot days. The concrete jungle retains and radiates heat back at you, it is almost essentially an oven effect.
• Focus on humidity as much as the temperature. Understand how the mechanism of sweat works. If the humidity is extremely high, sweat will just drip off you and not evaporate. Evaporation of sweat is the mechanism of how the body cools itself - the phase change from liquid to vapor extracts heat from your skin.

Another good tip from a helpful Runnitor:

>Dew point is actually a better measure of humidity than humidity percentage points are. That's because air at 100% humidity and 50F holds less water than air at 50% humidity and 90F.

> You can use a dew point calculator to figure out the dew point. Over 65F dew point is sticky, but over 70F is very humid. Make sure to hydrate often and to pay attention to your body to see if it's overheating.

> Here's a good dew point calculator:

> http://dpcalc.org/

Finally, one good table for pace adjustment is here

As a way to keep things a bit more organized and easier to find info later, I'm going to make several top level comments. Please respond to those instead of the main post. I'll include a stickied comment with direct links to each of the topic headings.

Back once again for everything you wanted to know about running but were afraid to ask.

Rules of the Road:

This is inspired by eric_twinge's fine work in r/fitness .

Upvote either good or stupid questions. Sort questions by new so that they get some love.

To the more experienced runnitors, if something is a good question or answer, add it to the FAQ.

Post your question - stupid or otherwise - here to get an answer - stupid or otherwise. Anyone can post a question and the community as a whole is invited and encouraged to provide an answer. Many questions get submitted late each week that don't get a lot of action, so if your question didn't get answered, feel free to post it again.

As always, be sure to read the FAQ first. Also, there's a handy-dandy search bar to your right, and if you didn't know, you can also use Google to search runnit by using the limiter "site:reddit.com r/running ".

Be sure to check back often as questions get posted throughout the day. Sort comments by "new" to be sure the newer questions get some love as well.

[Posting on behalf of u/Percinho who is currently busy complaining about the weather to anyone who will listen]

With over 4,200,000 subscribers, there are a lot of posts that come in everyday that are often repeats of questions previously asked or covered in the FAQ.

With that in mind, this post can be a place for any questions (especially those that may not deserve their own thread). Hopefully this is successful and helps to lower clutter and repeating posts here.

If you are new to the sub or to running, this Intro post is a good resource.

##As always don't forget to check the FAQ.

####And please take advantage of the search bar or Google's subreddit limited search.

Yep, I know, it’s a sensitive TMI kind of subject, but I know I’m not the only one suffering.

I’m a causal runner, but over the years I’ve run a bunch of 5ks, 10ks, 3 half marathons, and one full marathon. I like running. I’m not fast or trying to win anything. Just do it for fun.

A little over a year ago, I birthed a giant baby, and he (wonderful child that I love dearly) destroyed my pelvic floor. I ended up with tears, a prolapse, and significant stress urinary incontinence. Now every time I run, I leak a little.

I’ve talked to my ob about this. I have a seen a urogynecologist. I have a pelvic floor physical therapist that I’ve seen weekly for the last year. I’m doing all the exercises. I have a pessary I wear.

Even with all that, I still leak a little. Just enough to be annoying and require a panty liner or pad. The problem is that menstrual pads aren’t the right shape (go too far back, not far enough forward), and cause me to chafe. The period underpants I’ve tried are the same: the catch guard/gusset is too far back, and everything still ends up damp anyway.

Does anyone have a product they use for running that’s more comfortable? Open to any kind of product: liners, underpants, specific clothing. I’m hoping it’s just a temporary things while I continue to heal. My PFPT and I still think I might be able to make some improvements, but I also may just need surgery to fix things when I’m done having children. For now, I’m just tired of being damp and chafing. Thanks!

Happy Monday!!!

How was the weekend? What’s good this week? Who is acutely aware of their lack of heat adaptation all the sudden (looking at you, East coast)? Let’s chat!

Hey runners, it's another day and it is time to post your accomplishments you'd like to share - big or small.

Note: No need to preface YOUR accomplishments with something like, "this may not be an accomplishment to most of you...". Be proud of your achievement.

With over 4,200,000 subscribers, there are a lot of posts that come in everyday that are often repeats of questions previously asked or covered in the FAQ.

With that in mind, this post can be a place for any questions (especially those that may not deserve their own thread). Hopefully this is successful and helps to lower clutter and repeating posts here.

If you are new to the sub or to running, this Intro post is a good resource.

##As always don't forget to check the FAQ.

####And please take advantage of the search bar or Google's subreddit limited search.

Summary

I was thinking about writing up a race report for the RBC Brooklyn Half, but I realized that while I didn't have much new to say about the course, which has been beautifully broken down before, I did have something to say about using Runna's training program/app. I haven't seen a lot of in-depth discussion about what Runna actually does, and I feel like everything I've seen about it is either full hype or total derision. My own experience with it felt pretty middle-of-the-road, though I think the marketing hypes it up as a lot more than what it is. It has its strong points and I can see why some people love it, but I feel like it benefits a narrower set of runners than the marketing would have you believe.

For those looking for a bottom line up front, I'm not personally planning on renewing Runna, partially because I think it's too expensive for what it is and partially because I want to take a lot more active control over my training and Runna is quite limited in terms of customization. For anyone who is considering Runna, I want to stress that it's essentially a training plan app with some nice features, and not a coach. I would also say the training plan is most likely to benefit someone who is already used to running and wants to try out mixing in workouts that involve different paces and efforts, but isn't looking for too much control over the plan.

The Plan

I used Runna for two training periods, one targeted on a 10K race last August and one targeted on a half marathon (the aforementioned Brooklyn Half) that just happened this weekend (May 16). I'm a 33 year old male now and was 32 when I started the first training plan. For the first training period, I was returning to running from an extended absence, able to run a 5K in just over 30 minutes, and not able to run further distances without stopping. For the second period I'd been consistently running for most of the year, had a 54 minute 10K time at the start of the training period, and had been regularly running 7+ mile long runs. Both plans lasted a little over 12 weeks.

Despite having different distances, different athletic ability, and a different baseline of load, Runna gave me nearly identical plan structures for these races. The primary differences were the distances and pace targets inside of quality sessions. I went online looking for other people's plans, and have found that across the board basically everyone gets these same plans.

I want to stress that I think Runna's plan is the key thing that makes it work. Ultimately there is a lot to like about the structure, and I suspect that many runners will enjoy it. This is really the thing the app is giving you. But it's a single structure, and Runna's marketing heavily emphasizing "every runner is different" really seems suspect when the plans look so identical. I don't personally see substantial differentiation in how Runna works from grabbing any number of other plans off the internet.

The Runna plan involves three weeks of buildup, followed by a deload week. You tell Runna how many days a week you want to run (in my case 4) and what days you can run on (in my case I selected them all), and Runna will assign three shorter workouts and a long run to each week. The shorter workouts typically are 1 to 2 quality workouts and 1 to 2 easy runs, and the long runs occasionally include tempo work inside them, though this is something you actually can customize (with the default settings, it's more quality workouts and long runs with tempo work). There's a rule in the system to not put quality workouts one day apart, but otherwise the scheduling seems pretty random and sporadic when you give it free reign of the week as I did.

Quality workouts seem to be selected somewhat arbitrarily from a grab bag, and I actually had one week where I had the exact same workout twice in a row. That grab bag consists of a handful of types of sessions, each with very similar structure:

• Fartlek tempo sessions, which they often call "Rolling 800s" (or whatever distance, though they seem to like .5mi/800m). The app will set paces for both the fast and slow legs of the Fartlek. The fast legs here were typically between 5K and 10K pace.
• Progression tempo sessions, typically speeding up to 10K pace by the end. These were particularly common as part of the long run, but could show up in the short sessions as well. Runna seems to like ending them with a cool-down, which is fine but for long runs I personally prefer a fast-finish run in progression work.
• Straight tempo sessions. These were typically at a pace faster than HM pace but slower than 10K pace.
• Hotspot long runs, with race-pace (HM pace in my case) miles in the middle. I only ever saw this on long runs, probably because on short runs it'd be the same as a normal tempo session.
• A variety of interval sessions, including various distance repeats and a lot of drop set type structures (e.g. 800m, then 4x400m, then 4x200m). All of these get grouped under "Interval" and there doesn't seem to be clear reason why any given one is chosen, other than I suspect to provide variety.
• Hill intervals, which Runna treats as different than other intervals. These are always just time at "hard effort uphill", which does set them apart from the other quality workouts, which all have pace targets.

Quality workouts always begin with a warm-up and end with a cool-down at conversational pace. These get arbitrary distances between 0.5 and 1 mi assigned to them, but you can set the warm-up actually sent to your watch to be an open warmup instead that only ends when you hit the lap key. Nothing in the app acknowledges you've done this, but I really appreciated it as I live ~.75 miles from Prospect Park and preferred to do any work where speed/effort mattered inside the park where I wasn't gonna hit a red light.

That's basically all there is to the plan. Mileage buildup can be aggressive, but Runna plans also seem to be noticeably light on mpw, preferring short sessions outside of the LR (even when I was hitting 12 mile LRs my midweek runs were typically all under 5mi). I had to push the mileage manually on my HM plan in order to get anything over 20mpw (once I did that, I had some 5mi runs in there and some 25mi weeks, but it was still sporadic, deloading from 22mi back down to 14mi for instance).

Honestly I think this is a pretty solid plan for a lot of people, and likely was built to connect with a target audience of working professionals who started running recreationally, have found a comfortable and enjoyable rhythm, but have yet to explore what's possible with more extensive training. The high intensity but lower volume fits well into the life of someone who isn't going to spend more than 3 to 4 days a week running. The overall variety of quality workouts makes them feel a bit like a game, and breaks up the monotony of doing identical strides or drop set workouts every week.

It makes sense to me that a lot of people, self included, get PRs on this plan! If you're coming from a baseline of "just running", or even having tried some intervals or Fartlek workouts but not really knowing how to structure them, what Runna provides is likely to pull your fitness along to levels you didn't know were possible. I suspect a lot of the "magic" for people is in revealing that possibility. Runna does seem to consistently predict improvements, and I do wonder how it works for athletes that are actually at or near peak condition already, though I suspect that all their ambassadors aren't really using the plan.

Pacing

A notable thing to me is that every single non-easy leg of a workout comes with a target pace; there's no workouts targeting effort+time or anything like that. The only exception here was the hill intervals, which Runna didn't use for updating pacing. This means that Runna only knows that you're faster than it thinks you are if you intentionally outpace the training segments it assigned, or update it with a new faster race result.

In other words, Runna is just reporting the results of the sessions (and often the AI summaries are slightly critical of going faster than the assigned pace, even while the "AI" pacing analysis tells you you can speed up the plan). This seems like an area where beginner runners would struggle a lot. In order to use Runna effectively, you need to already know that your pace can be picked up more than Runna suggests.

This may be why Runna has pace improvement predictions that a lot of people consider unrealistically aggressive. If the plan keeps pushing a runner faster, then it's much easier to see when they're no longer able to keep up with it and adjust accordingly. That said, given that failing to meet a workout's target is very much framed as being slower than expected, I also think that's not ideal for beginners.

People have mixed experiences with Runna's race predictions. I've seen some say that they found their plan too aggressive, pushing them towards a pace they are uncomfortable with at distance. Meanwhile my half-marathon plan never got faster than 2 hours, but I finished the Brooklyn Half in 1:53:09 and was well aware that I was likely to exceed Runna's prediction (which was ultimately based on a 25 minute 5K time) before crossing the starting line.

Runna's predicted pace improvements each week are essential to how every plan is structured. If you tell Runna you're running a HM in 12 weeks, and give it a current 5K pace of, say, 27 minutes, it will put together a plan and from that tell you a target HM pace. This seems to come from generally predicting that it will increase your 5K pace by a specific amount every week. It's unconcerned with your current endurance (5K paces often say little about someone's HM pace), doesn't offer a "I'm a first time HM runner and just want to finish" type option, and doesn't let you set a goal and then structure the plan from there, instead forcing those speedups to come from running faster workouts or faster 5Ks during training.

I suspect a lot of people will come into training with a specific time goal or no time goal at all; the crowd of people who want to be told what their time goal should be exists, but it certainly does not cover every runner.

Customization

Runna is taking the Apple design approach to its app: the experience is flashy and tailored for you and why would you ever want to customize it? Possibly the most damning example of this is that when I started using the app, there was no way to tell it you needed to lighten load for illness or injury, one of the most basic and common changes one might make to their training plan. They've since added this, though they stress that they can't provide medical advice and don't actually really help you unless you already know how much to reduce load by and how long for.

One thing they do allow is moving workouts around, which I used extensively to reschedule my load and in one case nearly fully swap two training weeks so my deload week lined up with a wedding I was attending. This leads to funny results (the AI advice was convinced the 12mi run was now a "deload" since I'd pushed it into the week it thought was deload, even though it was the single longest run in my plan and contained tempo work in it), but it is appreciated that it works at all.

Beyond that though, the lack of customization can be frustrating. Don't want to do an identical tempo workout twice in a row in the same week? Too bad! You can schedule any of its workouts as "instant workouts" but the plan doesn't adjust around them and the rest of the app seems to sorta deride you for doing this (there's a gamified "points" thing where these workouts get 10 points instead of the 100 points from the one the app originally scheduled you, for instance).

To make my half marathon plan work, I made heavy alterations and I think pushed the limits of what the app wants a user to customize. I used the aches and pains feature twice, both times to forcibly reduce load when I felt early indicators of potential injury, and I suspect without this I would have actually gotten injured. I intentionally "failed" workouts when I visited New Orleans in the beginning of March because it was obvious that my New York winter adjusted body was not going to pull off the same speeds in 78ºF temps with 90% humidity; it seemed aware my location had changed but this just resulted in "be careful of the heat" notifications, not any actual changes in the pace target bands. I overran every single 9.5mi long run it gave me (who runs 9.5 miles?! the last .5mi is right there!).

This is the main reason I'm done with Runna now. I actually kind of like the plan, but the difficulty of tailoring it even slightly is aggravating. For something that stresses individualization so much, they're ultimately pushing a very one-size-fits-all approach.

Beyond Running

Runna offers some supplemental workout plans: one for strength training, and three different types of mobility workouts (Yoga, Pilates, and one called "Stretch and Stability"). The strength plans are OK but too varied for my taste; I'd prefer to just learn a few useful workouts and focus on their form instead of having to click in and find out what weird thing I've never seen before it has me doing this time. The Yoga and "Stretch and Stability" are basically just videos going through a pretty normal yoga class or stretch routine. I did not try Pilates, but I suspect it's more of the same. None of these send a workout program to watches at the moment.

These are a nice addition to have in the app, and I suspect some people will find them useful, especially the strength exercises. It's somewhat clear they're not Runna's primary focus though.

AI Slop and "Coaching"

Runna marketing leans pretty heavily into their usage of AI. In my experience, this is LLM-generated summaries of workouts after you do them that say nothing insightful beyond the obvious details of the workout and frequently fail to provide good coaching advice. In particular, Runna loved to tell me that I'd "impressively gone beyond the prescribed distance" and that I should take the next run "truly easy" any time I ran like, 3.02 miles in a 3 mile session. "Truly easy" is maybe the Runna AI's single favorite phrase, actually, despite it providing no usable advice to the person looking for it.

Beyond that there's some short videos from a couple Runna employed coaches giving generic advice, pretty similar to what some other running plan apps such as the coaching plans provided by Garmin do. Generic advice isn't necessarily bad, but it's not a coach; it's the kind of stuff you can find on Reddit or YouTube without issue today. Personally I didn't find any of this content worth paying for.

If you have an actual question for a coach: you know, things like "can I run this 5K close to my half marathon without risk, and how should I adjust my training that week if so" or "if I feel hotspots forming on this particular part of my foot, is that an issue with the sizing of my shoes, how they're tied, or maybe something to do with my form" or what not, you'll need to go to the internet (or better, get an actual coach).

Like almost everything that claims to use AI heavily, Runna's generic chatbot sentences, statistical models of pacing, and human-crafted plan structures just don't seem dramatically different from anything that existed five years ago.

The Knowledge Base

Runna has a bunch of knowledge base articles that cover all of the common training topics: injury, nutrition, training itself, and of course the all important Runner's World style advertisement-article hybrids like "Runna's Top 5 Daily Running Shoes" and "Why Every Runner Needs Mobility Training". To be clear, I don't know if money changed hands for this sort of thing, but I wouldn't put much faith in those sorts of articles. The content here is sometimes decent but not particularly novel, and has a tendency to present an absolute view when some stuff is pretty debated here. I could see a lot of it being helpful to people as a jumping off point, but I've seen enough low-quality stuff that feels LLM-assisted to really trust it as a resource on its own.

And this is all the sort of stuff you can find for free, including on sites like Runna itself. This content isn't paywalled, maybe because their app is buggy and sometimes doesn't load it right (see below).

Though it's not a factor in why you'd subscribe, Runna does use push notifications to send some of these out as tips for the day. I suspect they're also updating publish times on a lot of them; an article pushed to me today claims to be a week old but references the marathon world record as being held by Eliud Kipchoge (outdated since October 2023, and quite notably was just broken again in London by Sebastian Sawe; could also be an outdated LLM writing these articles though).

The Community

Oh, Runna has some Facebook/Instagram-like community feature where you can see posts from other users. Does anyone use this? I guess some people do, there's content on there, but it all seems extremely generic. You're already on Reddit, just use Reddit. Local city subreddits and running clubs will go way further. It's certainly not got the kind of "social media app" traction that Strava has.

They also put you in a group for the event you're running. This group was essentially dead for the Brooklyn Half Marathon, an event with over 30K runners. I can't imagine any of them are lively.

Bugs and Support

As a minor point, I had a significant issue on Android where video content did not load correctly inside Knowledge Base articles and resulted in the entire article failing to render. I reported this to their team and sent along some pretty detailed debugging dumps from my phone. I suspect the issue is caused by the app treating any failed load as a reason to error on the entire page, when I'd just expect the video content not to load. Their support team was very responsive and I was able to chat with a real person, which was appreciated, but this bug was also never fixed, which was less nice. I suspect it's not a universal Android problem and something unique to my setup is causing the video content not to load, but the structural issue with making the entire app error if a single thing fails to load in a webview is bad engineering and really should be fixed.

The Price

I picked up Runna through a partner discount that still left it quite expensive; the standalone price is typically $120/year, though since being acquired by Strava there's now a joint Strava Premium and Runna membership costing $150/year. Strava Premium is already annoyingly expensive, so that might come out to a decent deal for some people who truly want both, though I have noticed that it's hard to switch over to the combined plan if you started with them independent (if getting people to pay full price for both isn't by design, I suspect it's not a priority to fix).

Runna wants its cost to be compared to a personal coach but, as I've already covered, that's patently ridiculous. Runna is a very expensive training plan and not a very cheap coach. That said, $120 is expensive but maybe not out of the realm of the costs of other premium training app subscriptions; things like Strava, Runalyze, and Training Peaks all play in that ballpark, for instance, though all with different target audiences and feature sets. Runna lacks any free version, not counting their trial, which makes some sense given that the plan is the main thing they're selling here.

I'm not particularly price-sensitive, but Runna's strict adherence to a single plan makes it far less useful to me now. A lot of the smaller apps like Runalyze also can be justified in price by having a near feature-complete free version and the premium subscription funding small teams. Runna was clearly a VC-backed tech company even before the Strava acquisition, and only larger now. That makes me a lot less inclined to shell out money for it.

Results

I touched on this above, but it's worth noting again that my overall results with Runna were positive. I set a lifetime PR in the half marathon and a season PR in the August 10K plan I did first. I did not use Runna in the fall or winter of 2025, but also honestly I didn't run much at all (maybe ~10mpw, very inconsistently) in this time, so Runna deserves some credit for 5K and 4-mile times I set during the training periods as well. In the end those PRs are a 24:14 5K time, a 33:49 4-mile time, a 54:30 10K time, and a 1:53:09 half marathon time. I feel on track to approach my 10K PR the next time I race that distance in late June. I'm 33 and the PR I'm chasing (48:47) was set when I was 26; I haven't been close to that shape since 2019.

Overall that is a success story, and I do think Runna's plan deserves credit for this, though I think I would be injured right now instead of coming off the best half marathon result of my entire life if I had followed it uncritically.

Conclusion: Who is Runna For?

Runna claims to be a broad app targeted at getting everyone to be a better runner, but I actually think it's a narrower app targeted at runners who have familiarity with consistency and distance but not speed work and other more intense workout structures. I suspect a lot of the popularity comes from the fact that's actually a really large group of runners; it's easy to start running without much information, and plenty never move beyond just running and logging it to Strava.

I would highly advise against using Runna as a first-time runner. The default workout structure assumes a baseline cardio health where you have differing intensity zones, but for people coming from low cardio fitness frequently any workout will spike heart rate and end up being similarly intense. Beginning runners need to take some time to grow to the point that they have separate paces for different distances. Runna does offer a C25K type program, but it looks pretty standard and I can't see why one would use it over far cheaper (free) options. In addition, Runna just really doesn't provide enough guidance on essentials outside of the training plan, like injury prevention and treatment, to be useful to beginners.

Similarly I can't recommend it to anyone who is already familiar with structuring their own workout plans. The lack of customization alone is enough to make it almost unusable unless you're willing to follow the plans it provides pretty steadfastly.

That said, for the sweet spot of people who are interested in doing more intense workouts but don't know where to start, I think Runna isn't a bad choice, even though it's a pricy one. The variety in quality workouts and automatic syncing with your running watch makes it pretty easy to use, and you may discover workout structures you really enjoy. I got enough use out of it the last year that I can't exactly say I dislike it, but also feel like I progressed enough as a runner over the last year that I no longer have a use for it. Maybe Runna is doomed to be a program that most people grow out of, one way or another, but I can't entirely fault it when I personally found the plan it provides to work quite well for me while I was still in that sweet spot.

Rules of the Road

1. Anyone is welcome to participate and share your ideas, plans, diet, and nutrition plans.

2. Promote good discussion. Simply downvoting because you disagree with someone's ideas is BAD. Instead, let them know why you disagree with them.

3. Provide sources if possible. However, anecdotes and "broscience" can lead to good discussion, and are welcome here as long as they are labeled as such.

4. Feel free to talk about anything diet or nutrition related.

Shoes are a big topic in this sub, so in an effort to condense and collect some of these posts, we're introducing Shoesday Tuesday! Similar to Wednesday's gear thread, but focusing on shoes.

What’ve you been wearing on your feet? Anything fun added to the rotation? Got a review of a new release? Questions about a pair that’s caught your eye? Here's the place to discuss.

NOTE: For you Runnitors looking to sell/trade any running gear (as well as bib transfers), head over to /r/therunningrack.

Hey runners, it's another day and it is time to post your accomplishments you'd like to share - big or small.

Note: No need to preface YOUR accomplishments with something like, "this may not be an accomplishment to most of you...". Be proud of your achievement.

Race information

• Name: Great Wall Marathon 2026
• Date: May 16, 2026
• Distance: 42.2KM
• Location: Tianjin, Huangyaguan, China
• Time: 5:03
• Race organizer: Albatros Adventure Marathons (as i know there's different great wall marathons)

Goals:

Goal	Description	Completed
A	Sub 4:20	No
B	Sub 4:30	No
C	Have fun	Yes

Training

Last year end of November i ran my first marathon in 3:29 at Shanghai marathon. After the marathon i took some time to rest and recover, as i also felt an injury was looming. January i did 100k, February i was traveling and busy and only managed 50k. So most of my training was March (208km) and April (229km). My peak weak was 75k with a 30km long run. I would have loved to do more weekly volume and peak higher, and also just do more long runs. But i simply didnt have time. At one point i also had to take a week off because i felt my legs weren't great, and i skipped my last long run during tapering as i was sightseeing and walking too much.

As i knew the great wall section consists of 5000 steps and 1200 elevation gain, i tried to train for it. I live in a city with 0 hills... So my training consisted of running up and down my apartment staircases. I peaked at 50~ minutes. First couple sessions i ran for about 20 before realizing this is unnecessary and not what I'll do on race day. So the later sessions were 50min walking. I'd say training went okay, but i wish i had more volume, also only had 2 speed sessions, again because i just didnt feel comfortable increasing volume, doing stairs, and also juggling speed all at the same time.

Pre race

I got to Beijing the day before the race, traveling from South China, which was nice because i went from warm to cooler (still warm) weather. Arrived at hotel at 5pm, ate a ton of fried rice, and went to bed.

Got up at 5:30am the next day. I had booked my own hotel near the race, for the International runners on a tour package, they stay in Beijing and depart Beijing at 3:30am (sounds brutal). I got to the race at 6:00 and went to the bathroom, talked to some runners, and waited impatiently for the race to start.

The race

My racing plan was to run 5:20km pace on the flats, walk the hills, and then hopefully average out to about 6:20 pace. I started out in the first wave, at the very front. Immediately got carried away by the excitement and atmosphere and ran a 5:00. After this km 2-5 was all up hill. I had not trained any hills, as i dont have them where i live. This was brutal. My HR hit 180, at 6:00 pace (although im sure some was nerves/excitement). It was brutal. 6-8km are the main ones on the great wall. And these were brutal. It was amazing and pretty. But the steps are not made for running. On the downhills i would do 2-3 steps at a time and hope not to fall. The up hill i would walk slowly. The pace was 13:20,11:20, 7:37.

Atmosphere was high though and everyone was happy. After this we got off the wall and ran through a bunch of flat areas and towns/villages. Lots of school kids and locals out to support, lots of highfives. Was a nice atmosphere. Around 26-27km it again was more like trail running, hills again and dirt paths. I and other people i was around walked up the hills. (7:00 and 9:03 pace).

The weather was quite hot at about 20c and it was sunny for a lot of the race (realized i got quite sunburnt after). Every aid station i would drink electrolyte drink if available, and grab a bottle of water, dunking half of it on my head/back. This also meant i basically ran with wet shoes/socks for 5 hours... Not the most fun.

Around 30k we crossed onto the same path as people doing the half, which was nice as you had more people, and could overtake some people. A lot of the race i had primarily been running behind 2-5 people.

35-37km we had to go up the great wall section in the opposite direction of before. This was so incredibly difficult on my tired legs. The steps felt awful and i was in so much pain. The time was 18:44, 16:50. So in the future i would have preserved more energy for this part i guess. Took a lot out of me. I still got to enjoy the views and was greatful to be running there though.

38-42km was basically all downhill/flat. I went down the massive hill that i went up at the beginning of the course. Much nicer. I wanted to push the pace but my legs had given up, so i could not push past 6~min pace.

Post race: The atmosphere was great, winded down, talked to different runners, had lunch.

In hindsight i wish i had gone out slower, maybe ran more of the hills in the middle of the race. But mostly preserved energy for the second time on the wall i think i could have cut a lot of time, and on the final downhill i also should/could've run faster. But with my training i think everything went okay. I feel i pushed myself, and did my best. So I'm proud. I also came 35th overall (466 runners) so not bad at all.

If anyone had questions about the race im happy to answer.

Hey runners, it's another day and it is time to post your accomplishments you'd like to share - big or small.

Note: No need to preface YOUR accomplishments with something like, "this may not be an accomplishment to most of you...". Be proud of your achievement.