What’s a B-race, and Why Should I Add One?
A B-race is a secondary race you include during your main training program. It’s a great opportunity to test your fitness, practise race conditions, and shake off nerves before your main event.
Runna intelligently adapts your training plan around your B race by automatically adjusting your workouts, taper, and recovery—ensuring you stay on track towards your main goal.
How to Access the B-race Feature in Your Runna App
To add a B-race, make sure:
You’re on app version 7.19.0 or later. You can check this in your app store.
You’re following one of these plans:
Race Plan (e.g. marathon, half marathon, 10k)
Distance Goal Plan (e.g. 5k Improvement Plan, 10k Improvement Plan, parkrun Improvement Plan)
Get Fit Plan
Your training plan is version v10 or later.
Check this by going to the Plan tab then Manage Plan.
Plans created before January 2025 might need updating—tap Manage Plan to see if an update is available.
How to Add a B-race to Your Plan
You can add a B-race to your plan on the Plan tab, or inside Manage Plan
After this, we will show you when we think the most productive time to complete a B-race is, personalised to your plan.
Our coaches recommend never completing a B-race that is longer than your A race, and ideally choosing a shorter distance. On the B-race recommendation screen, you can select between the options available to find when in your plan the optimal time is.
Clicking 'Find my race' will take you to our race discovery, where you can find a race that aligns with the dates recommended by the coaches.
If you want to race outside this range, you can clear the filters to broaden the search. If you can't find your race in the list, you can make your own by clicking 'Don't see your race?'
Next, you will be asked to select your race approach, from:
Run for fun – comfortable, conversational pace
Strong and steady – solid effort, without maximum intensity, similar to a structured long run with pace targets
Going all out – aiming for a new personal best
These options help us decide how much we need to taper and recover you after the race. You can edit this later if closer to the race you change your mind.
Finally, you will be shown the B-race adjustment hub. Here you will be shown the impact of training for your B-race, on your primary race, including how we will move your workouts around and any changes to your plan.
Based on your chosen race distance, your ability, and your race approach, Runna calculates a personalised adjustment, showing you how this B-Race will impact your primary training.
This is displayed as the 'Training Impact', and can either be low, medium or high.
Different impact races will have different adjustments
Your training impact is different depending on the length of your A-race and B-race, your running ability level, where in your plan the race occurs, and your chosen racing approach.
As such, two people adding the same B-race to their plan may experience slightly different adaptations if they are different ability levels, or during different times in the plan.
Furthermore, based on the training impact of this race, we may make changes to the following parts of your plan:
Pre-B race week
In the week before your B race, we may begin to taper you by moving your deload to this week, or by slightly reducing the volume of your workouts
B-race week
In the week of your race we may reduce the number of runs or align your deload week to further taper you
We may also replace workouts, eg your long run or a speed session with the race, and may replace your speed session that week with taper intervals
Post–B-race week
You may see a number of enforced rest days after your race in order to give you some time to recover without any running.
You may also see us adjust your week in order to give you an easy run as your first workout back.
Lastly, for high fatiguing races we may give you a recovery week with lighter volume and intensity as you start ramping back up.
You can choose to accept, edit or cancel this B-race.
If you accept it, it will be added to your plan, and you're ready to go! Your workout and coaching comments will be edited to reflect this.
You can edit, or remove this B race by returning to Manage Plan, viewing the adjustment hub and selecting 'Discard B race'. This will return your plan to the original
FAQs
How Many B-Races Can I Add?
There’s no strict cap, but we recommend one or two per training cycle. Adding too many races could negatively impact your primary goal, and the app will notify you if your race schedule becomes too crowded.
Can I Add a B-Race at Any Time?
Not quite—Runna will prevent you from adding a B-Race if it’s:
Too close to your main race (within your taper period)
Too early in your training plan (if your training hasn’t yet prepared you for the race distance)
Scheduled in a way that prevents you completing the minimum distance required to achieve your A race
This could mean recommending you run the race with a different approach to minimise disruption to your primary race.
Is it Okay to Do B-Races Often?
B Races are a fantastic way to test your progress, but remember not every race should be a maximum effort. Listen to your body and use these races strategically rather than racing too frequently.