Ever since I got my first Apple Watch, I looked for apps to track workouts. In the beginning, any app would do. The most important thing was to give me feedback on how my workout was going; all the actual work was being done on the iPhone. Over time however two things changed.

First, I started to get more serious about my workouts; I would run the occasional 10k, or half marathon, and wanted to do training for this. This meant more complex workouts: intervals training, runs in hilly terrain, etc.

The second change is that these days an Apple Watch by itself is all you need on your runs. Since a couple of years the Apple Watch has a GPS receiver, enough battery to track even the longest workouts (fair enough, during 12+ hours cycle tours I tend to charge my watch halfway) and storage so that you can take all the music / podcasts / audio books you need. So about a year ago, I dropped the (bulky, never quite comfortable) iPhone from all my running workouts, and only use the Apple Watch. Time to update the apps I’m using.

I used to use iSmoothRun as the running app of choice, back in the days when Apple Watches were nothing more but a annually returning rumour. I settled on it after trying a couple of apps (RunGap, Nike), and liked it very much for many years. However I did note that after I started wearing an Apple Watch, I tended to use the built-in Workouts app more and more; the iSmoothRun app for Watch had problems with stability (not nice if 10k into your half marathon, your watch decides to freeze and loose the whole workout), and I feel the app never quite reached the level on the Watch that it had on the phone.

At some point I started to think about what my ideal workout app would look like (maybe with somewhere in the back of my mind that I could build it one day, if necessary):

• Obviously stability: nothing so frustrating as losing your progress halfway your run.
• Privacy: my running data is mine; I want to be able to share it with whom I want, and nobody else.
• Automatic syncing with Apple Watch Workouts (so that I still get my awards :))
• Runs on the Watch, but can also use the phone to run (for many sports, such as cycling and supping, I still have my phone with me).
• Flexible (and easy) creation of workouts with intervals.
• Customizable audio cues on my headphones (let me decide if I want a list of 20 metrics read out to me every km, or just a vibration on the watch, so I can check the metrics on my watch).
• Customization of metrics: when cycling in Netherlands, I don’t want to give up precious screen real-estate on my watch on meters ascended/descended; however when I take my bike for a ride in the alps, I definitely want this data!
• Support for my workouts: running, walking, hiking, cycling, supping, wind-surfing and swimming.

After a run around a lake in Germany, where I ended up climbing over fences, going through fields and jumping over ditches after because I lost my way (Apple Maps only work when you have internet connection), I added one extremely important feature:

• Support for maps that get cached on the Watch.

WorkOutDoors

Ever since I found WorkOutDoors, I cannot stop singing the praises of this app. It does exactly what I want from a workout app, stable, endless customisation, and it caches OpenStreetMap maps (in many areas I have found OpenStreetMap to be more accurate than Google/Apple maps). All customisation happens on the phone (where you have a bigger screen to configure everything), and settings are then sent to the Watch. You define multiple screens for each workout type, and can easily switch between them on the watch. For instance, when running I have a screen with a large map, and small metrics (for when I run in an unknown area), a screen with large metrics (for when I’m killing myself in a run and cannot focus on small writing), and a screen with interval information (for the interval runs).

I have to admit that over the first couple of weeks I sometimes struggled with the sheer amount of items that could be configured. The app has very reasonable defaults, but if you’re anything like me, over the first workouts you constantly run into small and large things you like to adjust, meaning you are spending a couple of minutes after each workout tweaking your settings. Once you have everything setup the way you want, you never want to go back though.

I have used it for pretty much everything I do: going for a run while on vacation, going supping in an area I’d never been before, or hiking through the alps.

Rather than listing all the amazing features, I advice you to take a look at the app’s homepage.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The app has a 4.8 star rating in the app store (at time of writing), and costs less than a large coffee.

I’m not saying that the app is perfect, and completely without problems or bugs. During my first weeks of use I ran into a number of small problems, and I sent off an email to the developer. He replied to me within hours with detailed instructions on how to fix things (most of the problems were my own fault for not carefully reading the instructions), and promised to pick up the couple of minor bugs that I found in the next release. Even the third or fourth time that I reached out, I got replies within hours (try that with a big company!).

If I had written a workout app for my own personal use, with all the features I wanted for myself, I would have come up with a small subset of what this app does (and then probably never finish implementing it, let’s be honest :)). For the use that I’m getting from it, €5.99 is laughably little for this app; if the author would have any “donate” button anywhere on the site, I would be more than happy to buy him a beer or two! I guess that all I can do, is spread the word!