Trainasone progress

[Thecko]

Well I did say I'd report back how I'm finding the trainasone AI coach so I'd better actually do it

Perceived benefit? Absolutely yes. I'm really starting to notice that on my "easy" (what they call economy) runs I'm feeling more and more comfortable on them all the time, and the HR data from my Garmin does back that up (apart from if I've been a bit silly and ran faster than the plan said to )

I've also run a 10km in 55 minutes and brought my Parkrun PB down to 25:22.

To highlight - I finished couch to 5k around 11 months ago, and then almost immediately ended up with a similar injury to my right knee which I'd had on my left knee in week 2 two of couch to 5k, which kept me out for about 2 months. Then I came back and ran a few parkruns before ending up with *ridiculous* tightness in my right foot arch (which I later figured out was simply due to lack of effective calf stretching). I took Autumn off as I was being a wimp and didn't want to run in the horrid wet weather, but decided to get going again around Christmas time.

Since then I've been using AI coach plans all the way, initially the Garmin Coach 5k feature, and then Trainasone since March. In that time I've had no real injury concerns other than the odd twinge that's reminded me to do more stretching. I'm not putting that down purely to using AI coaches, but I think it's definitely because I no longer go out and try to do my fastest time every single time I go for a run Having a plan which reminds you to go slow sometimes is important, and for me having someone make that plan on my behalf is definitely the way to go

Easy to follow plan? The plans put together are definitely easy to follow, but I am finding some of the shorter runs it schedules to be a bit frustrating. There are times it tells me to do a 5 minute slow warmup run, followed by 6 minutes at an easy pace and then that's it. I know that there is benefit to doing it, in terms of active recovery etc, but there's always that little voice in the back of my head saying "what was the point of that?"

That said the frequency of short / unsatisfying runs isn't too bad, yesterday was a 1h45m run which saw me run near as damnit 10 miles 👍🏻

Worth the money? I'm currently paying the £6/month subscription, you do have the option of using it for free with a few missing features, but I'm paying because I don't see that £6/month is a lot to pay out for something so potentially valuable. As for whether I think it's worth the money, I'm leaving that judgement until closer to September when I'm due to run a half marathon