Can A Running Club App Make Me A Better Running Coach?

Go ahead and groan, the pandemic is going to be a major point in answering this question. Believe me, I am every bit as sick of talking about this pandemic as you are of hearing about it, but it continues to be a problem, and as such, continues to be a contributing factor to questions like this.

So, let’s get that part out of the way now. Yes, as long as this pandemic is a thing, it will not be safe for everyone to meet up four runs and training, and gyms are utterly useless. What few of them are open all require you, understandably, to wear a mask while exercising. If it’s not obvious, this is one of the situations where a mask is actually extremely destructive to the thing you are trying to do. You cannot breathe as well through these things, and you need lots of oxygen, especially for aerobic exercise.

At the same time, given how stressed out we all are from the challenge the status quo, among many other problems brought on by this pandemic, our physical health and continued pursuit of our passions has never been more important.

All right, now that the pandemic issue is out of the way, let me state that being a running coach was a challenge before this. The old-fashioned mentality of people living on regimented, parallel schedules has been kind of a pointless struggle for a long time. Everyone lives busy lives, and none of us can really bend our lives to live on the same schedule as anyone else. I would be willing to bet that within the next 50 years, schedules are going to become increasingly less of a part of daily life, at least when it comes to sharing a schedule as a society.

So, pandemic aside, yes, a running club app will make your life easier as a running coach. Let’s talk a little bit about how they work, and let me give you a tiny bit of advice on choosing the right one.

How this works…

Basically, everyone has a smart phone, one of those simple, affordable smart watches it reads biometric data, and then they run one of these apps. They can go for the prescribed runs and other exercise routine while wearing a watch, it will record their information, and it will share it over a central social point on the app. This app will also allow for things like virtual races, social interaction and it makes the data much more digestible to you as a coach, because that biometric data can be complicated and frustrating otherwise.

As for choosing a good running club app, the biggest focus aside from compatibility with Bluetooth for that biometric data, is to make sure that the app runs identically across both major mobile phone platforms. If it also has compatibility with PCs for a few things, that is also a bonus. But, don’t even give a second thought to try to convince everybody to use the same mobile platform, as iOS users will not switch to Android, and Android users will not switch to iOS.

Make sure that it has that social aspect as well, and the virtual race feature is a definite must, especially during the pandemic when you don’t have a choice!