How an Apple Watch and a coach in my ear got me running again

Reader, I’m running. I’m testing out the latest addition to Apple Fitness+, the subscription service based on the Apple Watch and usable across other Apple devices. The new feature is called Time to Run, and it works with just the Apple Watch and a pair of Bluetooth headphones such as AirPods.

It’s an audio running experience, with a trainer guiding you through their run, in this case across London, from Shakespeare’s Globe though Trafalgar Square and ending in a London pub, The Harp. The coach, Cory Wharton-Malcolm, offers a running tip and then leaves you to run to a motivating soundtrack, chiming in with more tips between songs. I’m currently crossing Millennium Bridge or, as everyone still calls it, the Wobbly Bridge.

Apple Fitness+ has been going for a little over a year now and the pace of development has been frenetic.

I’ve been a subscriber since day one, and it’s changed my relationship to fitness. There are more than 2,000 video workouts, all slickly produced and designed to be accessible to all levels. There are three trainers in each workout, so that if you’re new (or just feeling tired) you can opt for the modified version offered by the trainer on the left.

You can watch these videos on the iPhone, iPad or, through Apple TV, on a big-screen TV. The clever feature, whether you’re doing yoga, core training, HIIT, dance or whatever, is that your heart rate, measured live from the Apple Watch on your wrist, is onscreen, so you can see how hard you’re working out.

Jay Blahnik is Apple’s Vice-President of Fitness Technologies. He is charismatic, energetic and utterly passionate about Apple’s commitment to health and fitness. He spoke to me about Fitness+, which launched just over a year ago.

“I think the thing for us with Fitness+ is that our goal is to always make whatever it is you want to do, a little easier to do. That could mean making it more accessible or friendlier. It could be about being able to do it in the privacy of your own home or having access to just 10 minutes of yoga rather than having to commit to 60 or 90 minutes in the studio because of a time constraint. It could be about seeing yourself in the trainers, different shapes, and sizes and body types.”

I’ll be honest with you, running really isn’t my thing. I used to dread Friday afternoons at school when, rain or shine, Cross-Country Running was on the timetable. Oh, how I dreaded it. My best friend Paul and I worked out there was a spot that the run passed twice. We stopped, chatted and whiled away the time for 15 minutes until the group caught up with us on the second pass and joined, politely, at the back. We were never caught.

Even so, and despite my knees’ protests, I’m quite enjoying this run. Cory is a lively, energetic coach, without being overbearing and his narration is good. He’s created an acronym, LONDONER, with a tip beginning with each letter dropped in between songs. The playlist, because this is London, is exclusively from British artists, from Florence and the Machine to Elton John, via The Beatles and Ed Sheeran. As The Beatles Here Comes the Sun starts to play, the sun comes out. I’m guessing this is coincidence rather than part of the Time to Run service, although with Apple, you never know.

Time to Run was in Apple’s thoughts even as it created Time to Walk. If you haven’t tried this, it’s a delightful experience. It also only involves your Apple Watch, headphones and you. You’re out on a walk and in your ear you hear the voice of the guest, who’s walking at the same time, which gives a compelling and intimate feel to it. The guests have so far included Jane Fonda, Anthony Joshua, Shawn Mendes and Prince William, and they tell three stories that are meaningful to them, and pick three favourite songs. It’s a bit like an even more personal version of Desert Island Discs because there’s the same confessional element, but it’s just you and the guest with nobody in between.

One neat detail as you run: each workout tells you when you’ve hit the halfway point, so if you want to finish the run at your front door, it’s time to head home about now.

Blahnik is passionate about the Fitness+ audience, and while he won’t give figures of how many are signed up, he hints that the emphatic growth of the video content is a strong clue that a lot of people are doing it.

“The most important metric has always been to make something great that can meet people where they’re at, that can change the way they might look at health and fitness, make it more accessible, make it more diverse, create a space that felt safe to maybe try some things they hadn’t tried before and get more people moving in all the ways that they should be.”

I’m on the home stretch now and Corey’s latest item in the acronym is E for Energise. We’ve gone past Buckingham Palace and as each landmark is reached, a photo, taken by Cory, pops up on the Apple Watch display. Which is good for making you feel like you’re part of the exercise even if you’re running in a different city, or on a treadmill, say.

Inclusivity is a big part of the Apple Fitness+ mantra. This means that there are plenty of sessions geared exclusively to beginners, as well as workouts specifically for older people and for pregnant women. This is great, but I still yearn for the service to come up with more advanced workouts as well, yoga sessions with postures that might not suit those new to the practice, for instance. Apple’s thought is that people repeat a favourite session as often as trying a new one, and that they can cater for fitness diehards through longer sessions. As Blahnik tells me, “One of our philosophies is always to create workouts that are easy to make easy and easy to make hard.”

Now we’re out of lockdown, it’ll be interesting to see if Fitness+ remains popular. Will people go back to the gym (where, of course, you can still use the service while you’re on the treadmill or cycle, for instance) and will Fitness+ retreat to home use, or when out for a walk or run?

Speaking of which, Cory has congratulated me that I’ve done my run (and he didn’t even know exactly how much of an achievement it was for me) and I’ve come to a sweaty and stumbling stop. But my exhaustion is tempered by smugness and a real sense of triumph.

Blahnik sums the service up like this: “Our goal in Fitness+ is to make taking care of your fitness and wellbeing more inspiring, more accessible and easier to fit into your life.”

Time to Run works for all of these, and the roughly half-hour structure is effective. Will I do it again? Well, maybe, but I feel the options of Time to Walk, Yoga, Pilates and Core training will lure me in sooner and more often. Still, I’ve done a 35-minute outdoor run, which is one more than I’d ever expected. I mean, I could just run home again, couldn’t I? No, wait, there’s a cab.