How Apps Are Bringing Runners Together

Apps have the power to bring together groups of people around the world with a common interest.

The internet has been a welcoming place for discussion and sharing with hundreds of hobbies keeping the world entertained.

We’ve looked specifically at the world of running and how a well-designed app can bring together an international community, no matter the skill level. This use case is an excellent example of how to develop an app with the end user in mind.

Sharing Progress and Training Plans

Runners worldwide can engage with each other and share their training stats. This engagement was previously achieved through groups on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, running apps when logged in to have the functionality to share your training runs and progress.

Some of the features of these apps can help runners assess how well their bodies respond to training. Integrations with health watches like Apple Watch and Garmin can report statistics like heart rate, blood oxygen, and recovery rate into the app, run it through some algorithms and provide users with a fitness score.

On top of that, when training for races of any distance, training plans are hard to construct if you’re new to the sport too, and with training plans added on as a paid-for service in apps like Strava and Adidas Runtastic, training for the next race doesn’t have to be a chore.

Virtual Races and Events

The pandemic changed the world in many ways, but one of the most significant for the running community was the introduction of virtual races and events.

During lockdown, many turned to running or walking as a way of keeping fit when going outside restricted to exercise and food only. And during this time when human contact and personal engagement limited, running apps provided events and challenges to motivate and incentivize those participating while providing them with a community of people taking part in the same thing.

Since then, other events have taken this onboard with races encouraging people to participate virtually. You can now even join the London Marathon from anywhere worldwide! With augmented reality, cheering squads at milestone distances, and celebrity recordings of encouragement, runners can feel like they’re part of something big.

Community and Routes

We’ve mentioned community a lot here, and it’s because it is such a major reason to join an app like this. Sharing with like-minded individuals and cheering others on from the other side of the world is an excellent way of cultivating a community.

Apps like Strava also allow you to plan routes and view a heatmap to identify commonly used trails around your neighbourhood. Sharing these routes can enable you to connect physically with people in your local area, sharing tips and tricks on the local running scene.

Using running apps as a blueprint, app developers can apply these same technologies and mechanisms to almost anything (including the subscription model!), also, keeping the community and user base at the forefront of their app development and design.