What is Training Preferences?
Training Preferences are a powerful way to customise your running plan to give you control over your Training Volume and Difficulty. Keeping your training structured and sustainable, you can now adjust these factors independently so you can progress in a way that works best for you.
For example, you can reduce the number of structured long runs, tweak the intensity of harder sessions, or set a cap on your maximum long run distance.
Training Volume
Your training volume determines how much running you do each week, based on your ability, availability and training goals. You can choose from three settings:
Progressive: A higher-volume option designed for runners who want more training each week, while still building fitness safely and sustainably. It’s perfect if you’re working towards a key goal or event and enjoy a fuller schedule, just make sure you’re also giving yourself plenty of recovery time.
Steady: A medium-volume option that supports consistent progress with a balanced weekly schedule. Great if you want to build fitness steadily while keeping training a little more manageable alongside everyday life.
Gradual: A lower-volume option built for gentle, sustainable progression with fewer weekly sessions and minimal disruption to your routine. Perfect if you’re juggling a busy schedule, easing back into training or simply prefer a lighter weekly commitment.
For even more control, Advanced Customisation lets you fine-tune your training volume by setting separate maximum distances for your easy runs, hard sessions, and long runs.
Difficulty
Your training difficulty determines how intense your workouts are. You can select from three settings:
Challenging: Runs at this level are designed to keep you working hard, with a strong focus on improving your speed and endurance.
Balanced: A well-rounded option that includes plenty of challenge, but keeps workouts a little more manageable to support recovery around busier lifestyles.
Comfortable: A gentler approach that prioritises consistency and confidence-building. Ideal if you’re easing back into training, managing fatigue or simply prefer workouts that feel more achievable.
Advanced Customisation allows you to further refine the difficulty of your plan by adjusting the number of hard runs per week, the intensity of those runs, and the structure and challenge of your long runs too.
How do I use Training Preferences?
Accessing Your Training Preferences
Once you have created a plan, you will be able to access your Training Preferences by the following these steps:
Open the Runna app
Head to the Plan tab
Tap Manage Plan → Training Preferences
Tap Training Volume or Difficulty to start making adjustments.
If you can’t see Training Preferences under Manage Plan, you may need to update your current plan version first.
Adjusting Your Training Volume
Move the slider between Progressive, Steady, and Gradual to select your preferred training volume.
For even more control, toggle on Advanced Customisation. This allows you to adjust:
The maximum distance for long runs
The maximum distance for easy and hard runs
Tap Save to apply your Training Volume changes to your plan.
Adjusting Your Plan Difficulty
Toggle between Challenging, Balanced, and Comfortable to select your preferred training difficulty.
For additional control, toggle on Advanced Customisation. This allows you to adjust:
The number of hard runs per week
Hard run difficulty
Long run structure
Long run difficulty
Tap Save to apply the changes to your plan.
How do these adjustments impact my plan?
Once you’ve saved any changes to your Training Volume or Difficulty, Runna will automatically update your plan to match your preferred settings. These changes won’t affect the paces assigned throughout your plan, as your pace targets are based on your estimated race time.
Instead, your preferences may alter things like:
Your total weekly mileage
How much time you spend running at a faster pace during hard workouts and structured long runs in your plan (e.g. reps, intervals or duration)
For example, lowering your Difficulty may result in fewer reps in an interval workout, but the target paces for those intervals will remain the same.
FAQs
What if I don’t see ‘Training Preferences’ under ‘Manage Plan’ in my app?
You may not see Training Preferences for one of the following reasons:
App version: Make sure you’re using version 7.2 or later
Plan version: If you created your plan before Training Preferences launched, you may need to update your plan version to access this feature.
Plan type: Training Preferences is currently available for race plans and distance-based goal plans (e.g. 10km improvement plans, marathons). It is not yet available for New to Running or Return to Running.
Can I change my Training Preferences mid-plan?
Yes! You can set them at the beginning, or tweak them throughout. Each time you change them, Runna will regenerate your plan and you will be able to flick through and see if the changes feel right for you!
What’s the difference between Training Volume and Plan Difficulty?
Training Volume determines how high your weekly mileage builds, and how quickly we build you up to it.
Plan Difficulty affects the number and intensity of speed-based workouts each week, including “hard” sessions like hills, intervals, and tempo runs, as well as the number of long runs that include pace targets.
What Training Volume and Difficulty do you recommend?
To get the most out of your training, Runna recommends selecting ‘Progressive’ for Training Volume and ‘Challenging’ for Plan Difficulty. These are the default settings, so if you don’t make any changes after building your plan, they’ll be applied automatically.
Why can’t I see the advanced customisation setting?
Advanced Customisation options will only appear if changing them would have a meaningful impact on your plan. If you don’t see a specific option, it means adjusting those factors wouldn’t have a noticeable effect on the structure of your plan.
Is there a way to undo the changes I've made to my Training Preferences?
At the moment, there isn’t a specific button to revert changes made through Training Preferences. However, you can return to the default settings by:
Setting Training Volume back to ‘Progressive’
Setting Difficulty back to ‘Challenging’
Turning off Advanced Customisation. This will revert any advanced settings back to their defaults.
Once you save these changes, your plan will regenerate using the default settings.
How do these changes affect the estimated race times at the end of my plan?
Your estimated race times will update based on the Training Volume and Plan Difficulty settings you choose. Different settings are weighted differently, so options that increase the intensity of your hard sessions tend to result in a greater performance improvement.
However, the effect can also vary depending on your running experience. Newer runners often see bigger improvements from any structured training, but more experienced runners may benefit from slightly more demanding settings to see the same level of progress.
As a general guide, choosing the most demanding settings can lead to around 10% faster progress compared to the default plan. That said, results will vary greatly from runner to runner and depend on factors like your training tolerance, nutrition, sleep, and recovery.
Will my adjusted Training Preferences carry over to other plans?
No, you will have to adjust your Training Preferences on a plan-by-plan basis.
Do Training Preferences affect my Runna Strength or Yoga / Pilates / Stretch sessions?
No - Runna Strength, Yoga, Pilates, and Stretch & Stability sessions are independent of Training Preferences and won’t be affected by any changes you make.
Got further questions?
Feel free to reach out via the in-app support channel and we'll do our best to help!