Formulas and tools
Everything the home page sums up in one line, explained in full. You can read and try all of it now, no sign-up or app install needed.
How often the coach talks, and the exceptions
| Run type | Other cues per 30 min (not counting splits, hills, pauses) |
|---|---|
| Easy run · Long run · Run-walk repeats | Up to 8 |
| Tempo · Race · Free run | Up to 6 |
| Intervals | No cap. Instead, intervals get only step, heart rate zone, pace, and auto-pause cues. Splits, hills, form, and encouragement sit out. |
- Cues are spaced at least 45 seconds apart. Key cues like safety calls and workout step changes, plus splits, don’t wait. Neither do the items below.
- Splits, hill warnings, and auto-pause and resume cues follow their own rules, so they don’t count toward the 30-minute cap. Walk/run switch cues and the breathing count only help if they’re on time, so they skip the 45-second gap too. So does the greeting when the coach recognizes a route you’ve run before.
- With just your iPhone, the rules change. There are fewer cue types, so the minimum gap is 20 seconds, pace cues come at most once every 3 minutes, heart rate zone cues at most once every 5 minutes, and there’s no 30-minute cap.
- You can switch 8 cue types on or off: Pace, HR Zones, Form, Hills, Encouragement, Running fact cards, Fuel & hydration, and Pause & resume voice. Splits get an interval instead of a switch (off, 0.5, or 1, in km or miles). Safety and workout step cues can’t be turned off. Your music dips a little only while the coach is talking.
What’s the same as a Garmin Forerunner or COROS, and what’s different?
Training load, recovery time, an estimated lactate threshold, a race pace plan. People say you need a running watch like a Garmin Forerunner or a COROS to see these. Some companies already calculate them inside their own watches. Nobody was doing it on Apple Watch. Runvis calculates the same metrics from the heart rate, GPS, and elevation data your Apple Watch already records. Dedicated watches don’t publish their formulas, so we won’t claim ours are the same. What we will do is name them: every formula Runvis uses is a published, named one, listed below. In the app, tap any metric to see what it means, how it’s calculated, and your usual range.
| Metric | How Runvis calculates it, and the formula’s name |
|---|---|
| What else do you need to buy? | With a Garmin Forerunner or a COROS, the watch itself is the product. Runvis uses the Apple Watch you already wear. The only thing you pay for is the coach subscription. |
| Training load · recovery margin (TSB) | Banister TRIMP feeds Coggan’s 42-day and 7-day exponential moving averages (CTL and ATL). Today’s recovery margin (TSB) is yesterday’s CTL minus yesterday’s ATL. Following Coggan’s definition, today’s load doesn’t change today’s recovery margin. |
| Recovery time | Estimated from 3 things: your last run’s HR-based load (TRIMP), your current recovery margin (TSB), and your HRV trend. The screen labels it an estimate, too. |
| Lactate Threshold (est.) | The pace and heart rate of your best 30-minute (or 20-minute) stretch held at 85% or more of your max heart rate in the last 90 days. An estimate drawn from your runs, not a lab blood test. |
| Race predictions · segment pace plan | Predicted with the Riegel formula and the Runvis Fitness Index. Add a course GPX and it splits your pace segment by segment to match that course’s elevation. |
| Grade-adjusted pace (GAP) | Minetti’s (2002) energy cost curve for running, with uphill and downhill effort calculated separately. |
| 5 heart rate zones | The Karvonen (heart rate reserve) method. If you don’t know your max heart rate, it’s estimated as 208 − 0.7 × age. The calculator below uses the same formula. |
| Intensity mix | If a run has heart rate data and your max heart rate was actually measured, your running time is split into easy, moderate, and hard, with the lines at 78% and 88% of max. If there’s no heart rate data, or your max is only an age-formula estimate, the run’s average heart rate picks the band, and an interval run can get lumped in as moderate. The screen shows which method it used. |
| Hill exposure | Total elevation gain ÷ total distance (m/km), counting only runs with climbing in the last 28 days (at least 2 of them). 15 or more means rolling. 40 or more means hilly. It doesn’t grade you. It records the ground you ran. |
| Heat exposure index | How much outdoor running you’ve logged on days above 22°C (or the same temperature in Fahrenheit, if that’s your setting) over the last 4 weeks, on a 0–100 scale. It appears after 3 hot-weather runs and drops once you take 3 or more days off. It shows how much heat you’ve been exposed to, not how well your body has adapted. |
| Coach's Brake | A budget, not a score. Your weekly distance over the last 4 completed weeks sets how much you can handle this week, and the pain you log after a run takes some of it back. The distance you have left and the distance cut for pain show up separately, so you can see right on the screen why it dropped. |
| Coach's Record Radar | For runs with a GPS route, it scans the whole run for your fastest stretch (your fastest split). For runs without a route, it converts your overall average pace. Each record shows which method it came from. It looks at the last 90 days. |
| Endurance training volume | A 0–100 value that blends 3 things from the last 28 days at a 45 : 35 : 20 ratio: weekly distance (maxes out at 80 km a week), your longest run (maxes out at 30 km), and how many of the last 4 weeks included a run. It doesn’t grade you. It shows how much training your body is carrying right now. Without enough data, it doesn’t make up a number: it stays at 0 and tells you on screen what’s missing. |
| Leg Load | The load a run leaves on your legs, counted in “flat-equivalent km.” An easy 1 km on flat ground counts as 1.0. Run the same distance fast, uphill, or downhill, and it counts for more. The math: 1 run = distance × intensity multiplier × grade multiplier. The intensity multiplier comes from speed, not heart rate (measured against your own easy and threshold paces): 1.0 at easy pace or slower, 1.35 at threshold, and up to 1.6 when faster. Uphill, the grade multiplier is actual pace ÷ grade-adjusted pace (max 1.6). Downhill counts for more: 1 + 1.2 × (1 − that ratio), up to 2.0, because downhill takes less effort but hits harder. The short-term value is a daily exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA, 7-day time constant), so it sits at the level of a daily average (with steady running, roughly your weekly total ÷ 7). The weekly value is the plain sum for that week. You’ll see it on the report tile and on each run’s detail screen (next to “Training Load”), right beside your actual distance. Running dynamics and walking segments aren’t factored in yet. Garmin hasn’t published its formula. The multipliers above are reference values Runvis set based on published research. |
Real app screens, captured with the app running in English.
Garmin, Forerunner, and COROS are trademarks of their respective owners. Runvis is not affiliated with Garmin or COROS. Everything here comes from public information. Neither company publishes its formulas, so we don’t compare accuracy.
Like a dedicated watch, Runvis also shows up where you look without opening the app: watch face complications (Today’s decision, Run Readiness, Until race day), an iPhone Home Screen and Lock Screen widget (Today’s decision), and, when you run with just your iPhone, a Live Activity with distance, time, and pace on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. Every value above is reference information, not medical advice.
Try it now: your 5 heart rate zones
It’s the same Karvonen formula Runvis uses for the coach’s voice. In the app, the inputs keep updating from your 7-day resting heart rate in Apple Health and the highest heart rate you’ve actually recorded, but the math is the same as below.
Zone floor = (max HR − resting HR) × 50/60/70/80/90% + resting HR. Leave max HR blank and it’s estimated as 208 − 0.7 × age. For reference only, not medical advice.
If you run in Seoul: 13 course GPX files
The GPX files for the 13 Seoul courses the app uses. No sign-up, no app install: download them now and load them into another watch or map app. Distances are listed in km in all 6 languages. GPX files carry no units, so if you use miles, the device you load them into converts them on its own.
Namsan North Loop 6.7km · Namsan Summit Climb 4.0km · Bugak Skyway 5.2km · Ansan Jarak Trail 6.1km · Inwangsan Jarak Trail 2.9km · Naksan Park City Wall 2.1km · Eungbongsan Stairs 1.6km · Dorimcheon Stream 14.5km · Banpo Han River Park 5.0km · Tancheon Stream 7.1km · Yangjaecheon Stream 3.9km · Cheonggyecheon Stream 5.5km · Seoul Forest Loop 2.0km
Routes from OpenStreetMap road and path data; elevation from Copernicus DEM / NASA SRTMGL1 (public domain). © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0.
What happens after you sign up
- Sign-up: all we need is your email address. No account to create.
- TestFlight invite: when the beta opens, invite links go out in sign-up order. Apple caps external testers at 10,000, and all you need is an Apple Account. Nothing to pay. On the beta build, every coach feature is free for the length of the beta. If you didn’t opt in to marketing emails, this invite is the only email you’ll get from us.
- Feedback: send it right from the app, or email help@runvis.app.
- Launch: we set the launch date after the beta ends. Runvis comes to the Korean App Store first, then to other countries one by one.