Nike Run Club: Running Coach

This app is amazing. I get bored most of the times while I’m trying longer runs and Coach Bennett’s cheesy jokes have managed to get me past the 8 mile mark which is pretty crazy considering 3mi was a STRUGGLE before starting NRC. However the UI itself is a little questionable. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled this app a couple times and it doesn’t mark properly runs I’ve done before and there’s no good filter system for looking through the huge catalog of runs they have available, you literally just have to scroll A-Z through every single run. Also as somebody who lives in a colder area I force myself outside for long runs and do speed runs on the treadmill, and I’ll often forget to mark a run as indoors until it’s too late and you can’t change it while in the middle of running (maybe NRC could just make a warning or something saying hey, you don’t look like you’re moving on the GPS). The Apple Watch integration is a little finicky also, maybe 40% of the time it doesn’t show stats on the watch and I wish the indoor running would let me put my phone down and just use the watch’s sensors for tracking the distance. Also I’ve used this app a lot and I’ve started to notice a lot of the messaging gets super repetitive, like I swear they use the same script for multiple runs which is a little annoying.

UPDATE 3: with version 7.42+, sync issues appear to have been fixed. Sometime a few versions earlier, things really started to shape up. Super happy with the improvements! UPDATE 2: every update breaks the sync with the watch. Run data is lost. The time to fix is 20-30 minutes of logging out, refreshing, etc. After 14 years I might have to go exclusively to Strava. UPDATE: with phone on iOS 17.1+ and watch on watchOS 10.1+, as well as NRC 7.30.0, sync issues appear to be fixed. That brings me from 2 to 4 stars. I use this app every day, so I will update accordingly as I confirm over time if syncing, as well as the issue of constantly logging out, are fixed. Experimentally for me, it seems that being a major version behind on iPhone and Watch were adding to the problems. ORIGINAL: I’ve been using the Nike Run Club app for over a decade. Been using it for three years with an Apple Watch. Version 7.30.0 as of Nov 2023 claims to fix issues with activity syncing and getting logged out of the app constantly, but these problems seem to get more and more frequent. Several months ago, I had an issue once in a blue moon. Recently, it’s been every day. Losing workouts, nothing syncing between watch and phone, constantly having to log back into the app. What a bummer.

I’m really impressed with the coaching available as part of the app. I picked up running recently and had started tracking runs in Strava. I decided to check out NRC because a friend of mine is using it and referenced it. I’m sure glad that I did! Previously I would just go out and run hard. But it’s hard to motivate for that kind of pain. I decided to try NRC’s 10k program to give me something to work toward. It has me doing speed runs, recovery runs, longer distances, etc. As a new runner, it has made running accessible and even kinda fun. My problem is with the app itself. My 10k program from Nike is a PDF and it says which “Guided Run” I should do in the app. It begs the question why isn’t the program itself in the app? Failing that I should at least be able to search the guided runs for the name provided. But, no. So that’s why 4/5 ⭐️. It seems like they could do so much more with this app too. The coach doesn’t know my pace so can only say the level of effort I should put in. But the app does! It doesn’t seem like it would have to be very sophisticated AI to customize the training plan to me. Age should be considered too. As a 50-something I’m just not going to build strength and stamina at the same rate as a younger runner. In short, I’m happy. I’m glad I’m using the app. You should definitely download it and give it a try. AND there is still a lot of opportunity for it to grow and improve.