The Apple Watch gives Garmin, Polar, and other popular fitness wearables a run for their money. Acting as a virtual trainer, Apple Watch can track and assess your runs, provide informative insights into your health, and help you achieve your running goals.
If you’re a runner—or want to start running—Apple Watch is the ideal fitness wearable. In watchOS 9 and later, the Apple Watch Workout app offers a variety of customization options for your favorite activities, including running. Learn how to customize the Run workout screen, set goals, and create custom run workouts on your Apple Watch.
Getting to the Run Screen in the Apple Watch Workout App
Workout is a native app on the Apple Watch that provides a wide variety of fitness activities, from running and cycling to surfing, snowboarding, and tai chi. You can use the Workout app to set fitness goals, track your progress, and assess your results. You can also sync your Apple Watch with your iPhone to review your full workout history and stats in Apple Health.
To access the Run workout screen on your Apple Watch, press the Digital Crown to open the app menu and tap the Workout app icon (a running figure on a green background). Scroll through the list to find Outdoor Run (or Indoor Run, depending on your preference). To start your run, simply tap your preferred workout to begin.
Since the release of watchOS 9, you can customize your run workout to suit your goals and experience. Customizing the Run Workout screen will allow you to focus on the running stats and metrics that are important to you.
What Metrics Can You Show During a Run?
During your run workout, your Apple Watch can display useful metrics, including time elapsed, heart rate, active calories, pace, distance, and more to monitor your performance. Comparing the Apple Watch run features to Garmin, Apple’s wearable proves itself as a solid gadget for runners.
While Apple Watch provides a preset Run workout screen, you can customize it to show or hide the metrics you’re interested in. The Outdoor Run workout screen, for example, offers these views:
- Metrics: The primary display for your Run workout, showing current heart rate, rolling mile, average pace, and distance.
- Metrics 2: The secondary display for your Run workout, showing running cadence, stride length, ground contact time, and vertical oscillation.
- Heart Rate Zones: View your current heart rate, time in the zone, and average heart rate.
- Split: See your running splits, split pace, split distance, and current heart rate.
- Segment: Shows your segment number, segment pace, segment distance, and current heart rate.
- Elevation: View your elevation profile over the last 30 minutes, elevation gained, and current elevation.
- Power: See your power profile over the last 30 minutes, current power, and running cadence.
- Activity rings: See your move, exercise, and stand contributions to help close your Apple Watch Activity Rings.
You can choose to show, reorder, and hide the above metrics as well as customize how they display during your run.
How to Customize the Run Workout Screen on watchOS 9 and Above
To choose what your Apple Watch displays on the Run Workout screen as you exercise, follow these steps:
- Open the Workout app.
- Scroll or turn the Digital Crown to find Outdoor Run (or Indoor Run) and tap the three vertical dots next to it.
- Scroll down and tap Preferences.
- Tap Outdoor Run Workout Views.
- Tap the pencil icon next to the workout view preview to edit.
- Tap each metric (e.g. Heart Rate, Rolling Mile, or Average Pace) to edit how each metric displays, or to replace it with another metric.
- Tap the X icon to return to Outdoor Run Workout Views.
To show or hide each metric screen, you can toggle Include on or off under each view within this menu. To reorder these metric screens, scroll to the bottom of the Workout Views screen and tap Reorder. Drag to reorder the screens to your preference.
As well as customizing the Run Workout screen to display your preferred metrics during your run, you can also customize what type of run workout you want to do based on your goals.
Other Run Workout Settings You Can Customize on Apple Watch
As well as customizing the Run Workout screen on your Apple Watch, you can also personalize your running workouts. For an Outdoor Run, you can customize your running goal based on the following:
- Time. Set a run workout goal time.
- Distance. Set your goal distance in miles, yards, kilometers, or meters.
- Pacer. Set the distance you want to run and the time you want to complete it for your Apple Watch to set your running pace.
- Calories. If you have a calorie goal for your run, you can set it here.
- Custom. You can create your own running workouts with a custom template. This can include a warm-up, work, recovery, repeats, and cool-down times.
Customizing your run workout on your Apple Watch can help you reach your goals and enjoy your workouts.
How to Customize Your Run Workout Goals on Apple Watch
To customize your Run Workout goals on your Apple Watch, follow these steps:
- In the Workout app, scroll to find Outdoor Run (or Indoor Run) and tap the three vertical dots next to it.
- Tap the filter icon (the three horizontal lines) to view goals by Suggested, Goal Based, Custom, Route, or All.
- Tap the pencil icon next to the goal you want to customize, e.g., Time.
- Tap Time and choose your goal running time by increasing Hours (digits in the left box) and Minutes (digits in the right box). Tap Done to save your time customization.
To start your workout immediately, tap Start Workout. Tap Send Workout to forward it to another Apple contact, or Delete Workout to remove your settings. Follow the above steps to customize the time, distance, pace, and calories, or create a custom run workout on your Apple Watch.
How to Create a Custom Run Workout on Your Apple Watch
In watchOS 9 and later, you can set up custom Apple Watch workouts. Creating a custom run workout on your Apple Watch is great if you’re training for a race or have a specific running goal in mind. To create a custom run workout, open the Workout app and follow these steps:
- In the Workout app, scroll to Outdoor Run (or Indoor Run) and tap the three vertical dots.
- Scroll to and tap Create Workout.
- Choose between Kilocalories, Distance, Time, or Pacer. Otherwise, to create a completely personalized workout, tap Custom.
- Tap Warmup to customize Distance, Time, or Open warm-up settings. Alternatively, tap Skip to exclude a warm-up from your workout.
- Tap Add to add a running segment: either Work, Recovery, or Repeats.
- Under Custom Title, tap in the box and use the onscreen keyboard to name your custom plan.
- Tap Create Workout to save your custom run workout on your Apple Watch.
If you’re keen to follow a run training program but are not sure where to start, take a look at these online running plans for inspiration.
Move Over Garmin, the Apple Watch Is All You Need for Running
The Apple Watch Workout app offers runners features that give Garmin and Polar worthy competition. Customizing the Run workout screen and your running goals gives you more control over your workouts, helping you to reach your goals faster.