Own the urban jungle: 4 top apps for city running

23rd August 2017

There’s a thrill in pounding urban pavements that can’t be found in cross-country trails. Running long lengths of flat gravelled paths, cruising round street corners and blitzing through the odd park – it’s massively exhilarating.

If you’re on a weekend break, running can be a speedy way to explore the mazes of any metropolis and stick to your fitness regime at the same time. Cities are also those wonderful places that play host to a number of exciting races, so if you’re aiming to compete in a marathon or triathlon – there’s no place like the streets to train.

With a blur of taxi cabs, traffic lights and pedestrians to navigate round, city running comes with its own set of challenges. But there are ways to get around them. Stop-and-go obstacles such as crossroads and roundabouts can be taken advantage of by doing squats and lunges while you wait. Cars, bicycles and other traffic can be made safer to navigate by leaving the headphones at home – it’s important to be aware of your surroundings when crossing busy intersections.

For everything else – there’s apps. We’ve come a long way from stopwatches and pedometers. Now, there’s all kinds of tech to help you reap the rewards of jogging the urban jungle and make city runs that little bit easier. Here are our favourites:

RunGo

Get to know fresh corners of your home city or fully immerse yourself in a metropolis you’ve never been. RunGo gives you on-the-go directions, through both audio cues and visual navigation in real time. It’s a travel lovers best friend; the first ‘virtual running partner’ that uses GPS to tell you which way to turn, with options to explore new terrain whenever you wish. Forget map-memorising and hit the streets in confidence.

Salomon

Bringing the beauty of trail running to urban destinations, Salomon connect runners of all levels with routes that break up routines and help you to discover new locations in your city. There’s safety in numbers, so you can enjoy the sense of community urban running is perfect for by signing up for ‘community runs’ – simply pick your city of choice and pound new grounds with like-minded locals.

RunKeeper

It’s simply got to be on the list. RunKeeper is a free mini motivator that combines GPS and community for the perfect running all-rounder. Set goals, track workouts in real time, follow personalised routines, join challenges and see your progress with this popular app. A whopping 50 million runners have it downloaded, so add your friends and share achievements with them. You can even compare workouts and see how your urban runs stack up against each other – let the competition commence.

Glympse

Sometimes, no one knows which alleys and avenues you’re sprinting through – and in urban environments, you never know what or who you’ll run into. Whether you’re an early bird on empty streets or prefer a late-night, long-distance affair, Glympse keeps runners safe through its location-sharing features. Simply pick a friend or family member, set up the duration of your city run and hit send – your recipient doesn’t need the app to receive your notification and can easily track your run.