There are so many. It is hard to know which one is best. And there seem to be more and more of them.

Below is a list of the ones I am currently using:

  • Tom Tom
  • Strava
  • Endomondo
  • RunKeeper
  • MapMyFitness
  • MapMyRun

Although in honesty I am only really using two. Tom Tom and Strava.

For me I think the choice really comes down to which one most of your friends use.

Interestingly three of the apps above all belong to Under Armour who I had always though were mainly interested in clothing for running.

A More Detailed View

Tom Tom

TomTom is the app that comes with my watch. I don’t look at this too much, although it shows me my cadence (strides per minute), which none of the others do. Perfect running is supposed to be 180. Mine is between 166 and 170 so this is something I need to work on. The other thing I love about the TomTom watch is that it uploads my runs to all of the others I mentioned.

Strava

I really like Strava and this is my favourite. Mainly because lots of people I know also use it. However they have some nice features including the ability to set up or join a running club group on there. So you can see what other people you run with are doing. I am a member of a couple of these groups:

This is a challenge that was started up by the vegan runner Matt Frazier and his sister to write and run every day for 31 days., back in January. It ticks along, although I am not running every day now and sadly I only managed the first 30 days of running but unfortunately didn’t manage to run on the 31st. Sadly my writing didn’t do as well.

And you get little widgets you can embed into your site which will show you either the latest runs by the club or a summary of the clubs runs this week.

The one below shows the most recent runs from Ludlow Runners.

Some other features I really like about Strava are that it is easy to interact with your friends runs through a nice and clean interface. They also have some monthly challenges which can be good to join. If nothing else it inspires you to run more. It also works exceptionally well for cyclists, even though this is something I don’t do much of, it is good to have.

Runkeeper

This is probably my favourite after Strava. This is mainly because it is the one my brother uses and I like seeing his runs. It is quite a clean interface and has just had a major redesign and upgrade. It is also the most popular of the apps I am looking at on Google’s play store with between 10 and 50 million downloads and over 300,000 reviews. Most of which are positive.

runkeeper

Endomondo

This is the first of the three apps that are now part of Under Armour. I don’t really use it. It was originally recommended to me by a friend on Facebook. It is another one of the apps to be between the 10 and 50 million download mark. I don’t really use it, but it does have some fun statistics. Including how many burgers I have burnt since I started using it…. Not sure of the size of burgers, but apparently it is 140!

The interface itself has a lot of ads on it which I find distracting. If it wasn’t for the fact that my Tom Tom automatically integrated with it then I wouldn’t be using it!

MapMyRun and MapMyFitness

These are also both owned by Under Armour. As far as I can see there is no difference between the two, at least in the main interface.

It’s quite clean though, so I like that. They have the ability to log food which is I suspect nice, but MyFitnessPal almost certainly does a much better job of that.

mapmyrun

Conclusion

I suspect that it comes as no surprise that I think Strava is by far and away the market leader for running apps. I haven’t really done it enough justice. This article will be updated with more details and more information.

I would love to hear your thoughts and what are your favourite running apps and why.

Time spent writing: 45 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 26 minutes – Spent getting pictures and checking the apps more. Not so much procrastination which is good!
Happy with Result: 6