Congratulations on purchasing yourself a new smartwatch. Whatever kind you have—as expensive as the Apple Watch Ultra or as affordable as the Garmin Forerunner 55—what you own right now is something capable of tracking your workout, including your run.
You may not be into running yet, but if you think 2023 is the year to change and start running regularly, great! It’s a fun way to exercise, and an excuse to get away from screens. Following the Couch to 5K program, and using one of your best running hours to help you do so, is a great place to start.
Couch to 5K programs vary, but they tend to help you start a running habit by guiding you through gentle cardio exercises. You’ll jog for a spell, then slow down and walk a bit, then get back to jogging again. Eventually, your runs will get longer and your walking breaks will get shorter.
Your smartwatch can help you track your progress and vital stats, such as heart rate and calories burned, while also providing guidance on areas to improve. If you’re a complete beginner, achieving your 5K goal may motivate you to stick to running for the long haul.
Here are 5 simple ways to put your smartwatch to good use, and get you off that couch and on. Stay tuned for more great health and fitness tips as we head into January, including TechRadar’s Get Fit For ’23 week, starting January 2. Don’t miss out!
1. Learn what and how your smartwatch tracks
The first thing you’ll want to do is get to grips with exactly what your smartwatch can track and display when you’re running. Most importantly, you can configure the information you see as you run, which will help you measure your progress.
If you’re just starting out, you probably don’t want to be overburdened with information, but some basic details that you might find useful include distance and time. If you’re curious about how fast you’re going, you’ll also want to know your average pace.
Smartwatches are now able to display all of this information, but how do you want to display this information? Would you rather see distances covered in miles or kilometers? Do you want all information to appear on the same screen? Is it important for you to get alerts based on things like target time and distance?
Familiarizing yourself with the available settings, such as changing units of measure or adjusting viewable data fields, will help you get the most out of your new tool. You can find the settings on your smartwatch, as well as on the companion app that is used to set them up.
2. Find a couch for a 5K plan to follow
If you have no idea how to go from couchsurfing to running a 5K, there are plenty of plans online that will give you guidance. In the UK, the Couch to 5K scheme is on the NHS (Opens in a new tab) Good place to start. In the United States, Mayo Clinic (Opens in a new tab) Their couch for the 5K plan.
Before you go online, first check that plans are turned on on the app that came with your smartwatch. Some apps do a better job than others making these training plans known.
If you choose a Garmin smartwatch like the Venu 2 for example, you’ll find the Garmin Coach, which offers adaptable plans for beginners. Fitbit offers plans through its premium subscription service for its smartwatches, and Huawei offers plans through its Huawei Health app. If you don’t find a plan, there are other options that we’ll go over next.
3. …or get the Couch to 5K app
There are many Couch to 5K apps out there, especially for those who own an Apple Watch or smartwatch running on the underlying Google Wear OS. With one of these options, you get access to two of the biggest app storefronts for smartwatches. Whichever app you choose will live on its own smartwatch, creating customized plans and sessions for you while offering additional features to keep you motivated.
If you own an Apple Watch, there are some great Couch to 5K apps to try, including WatchTo5K (Opens in a new tab), which is one of our favourites. It’s a standalone Apple Watch app so you can use it without your iPhone. This app features audio cues – to allow you to hear your progress – and supports playing music while tracking your run. The app also works with Apple Health.
For Wear OS smartwatch owners, you can try something like the C25K (Opens in a new tab), which is also supported on Tizen-based Fitbit smartwatches and Samsung Galaxy Watches. This handy app will allow you to share your progress with friends on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
4. Calibrate your watch for treadmill runs
This is an important thing to consider if you plan to do a lot of your couch up to 5K indoors, on the treadmill. All smartwatches rely on motion sensors rather than GPS to track treadmill runs. Now, while GPS is a more accurate way to track distance and calculate key data when you’re running outdoors, it won’t help you track your indoor runs. When you’re indoors, running in one place—like on a treadmill—you need to rely on those motion sensors.
There are things you can do to improve the accuracy of your data playback. On Garmin smartwatches, like the Venu 2, try tracking your run on a treadmill for the first time using the one-mile treadmill mode. Once the incline is complete, check the treadmill screen and enter that distance on your watch and save. The more you run indoors and outdoors, the more you track, the more your watch will get used to your running habits and accomplishments. So with a little work, you can improve the accuracy of your treadmill running exercises.
If you own a Fitbit smartwatch, it’s a good idea to dig into the app to adjust your stride length to improve the accuracy of the provided run tracking. You can determine your stride length by simply running a short time over a known distance, such as a school track that you know is 1/4 mile per loop. Count your steps while running and make sure you go at least 20 steps. Then divide the steps taken by the distance traveled to calculate the stride length. You can then add your stride length in the Fitbit app by selecting the Exercise tab.
5. Find some friends
Now, no one here is advising you to be that person who feeds others with every run you score, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be proud of your running accomplishments, big or small. A good way to stay motivated on your way to the 5k and beyond is to share your accomplishments with other smartwatch owners using the same platforms you use to chart your progress.
Fitbit offers an entire community within its app that you can be a part of, letting you not only share runs, but also join groups and take on challenges beyond a 5K run.
For Apple Watch owners using Apple’s Workout and Activity app, you’re connected to Apple’s Move, Workout, and Stand rings. You can view other users’ achievements, see when they’ve closed their loops of tracked and completed runs, and take on challenges, too.