Coopah app review: An ideal, reasonably priced running companion app
Need a running plan which will get you ready for the race day? Coopah could help motivate you
Coopah App: One-minute review
Coopah is an easy-to-use, well-designed app. It was the official partner of the TCS London Marathon 2024, and one of the best fitness apps for planning your runs, alongside competitors like Runna. It is perfect if you’re training for a particular race: it will set you up with a personalized plan within a couple of minutes.
The app is clearly formatted and well-designed, although I did find it tricky to change my training days at first. I liked how it kept me on track most weeks and added yoga and strength days.
You can use the app via your smartphone and your smartwatch, either syncing your watch to the app or manually submitting your data, although anyone with one of the best running watches will find it easy to sync up. The app will inform (and congratulate) you when you are on a 'streak' of workouts, when you’ve completed a run, and when you move into the next phase of your training.
The app offers real-life coaches dishing out advice via the Coach tab, plus video advice for those new to running practices such as tempos and intervals. For just shy of £60 a year, the app can be a real motivator, and get you to the start line feeling confident. After all, it did so with plenty of London runners.
Coopah App review: Specifications
Coopah App review: Design
- Clear layout
- Designed for races
- Informative videos
The app has a clear layout, with five tabs at the bottom stating how to navigate your way through the app. Once you’ve set up the app and selected a training plan, your plan will sit on the Welcome page. The page shows the plan you’ve created, your current plan's phase, and a brief overview of your training. If you're new to running you may also find the videos helpful, with some of their trainers taking you through how to perform interval or tempo runs.
I chose to make a plan for the London Landmarks and it laid out my 16-week plan for me. However you can start as close or as far away from your race as you want, but to reap the most benefits I assume you’d need at least six weeks of training.
Once I had a plan, the app broke each phase down further into separate sections. First off was a Base, where I would build up my running for three weeks; Strength weeks, to really rack up those miles and complete some strength training; then finally two weeks of Taper, to ease off before the run.
The Training tab is really useful. Every week, it gives you a breakdown of your training day by day and any rest days. While if you click on the progress tab to the right at the top it will show you how far you’ve come after a few weeks or months of training.
- Design score: 4.5 / 5
Coopah App review: Features
- Personalized coaching from elite runners
- No smartwatch needed
- Money-back guarantee and in-app deals
The most unique feature of the Coopah app is that if you are not happy with your training plan, and you feel as though it didn’t help you get around the race course, you can ask for your money back.
Of course, you’d have to prove that you put the work in, but it shows the creators believe in their product. The app’s reward section also means you can pick up some discounts on trainers, physio appointments, and other running-related goods and services from partners, like Sportsshoes.com and Precision Hydration. So, hey, it could save you some money.
Onto the features themselves. The Coach tab allows you to submit questions to real coaches, who typically reply within one hour. You can ask your coach anything you want, about running, nutrition, injuries, and so on. Big names include coach and runner James Thie and running coach Jordan Foster, while founder Peter Coopah also answers anything technical about the app.
Each plan offers personalized pacing based on the information collected, and plans are dynamic: as you input your results, the plan may change depending on your performance.
You don't need the best smartwatch to record your run, either: it'll work just fine using the GPS on your phone. All you need is an arm, chest or waist strap and you're away. A great feature, and a potential big money-saver.
Features: 5 / 5
Coopah App review: Performance
- Easy to use
- Tracks via your phone or watch
- No guidance as you run
On the days you’re scheduled to run, you can tap the desired day on your plan and hit ‘record run’. As mentioned, you can do this via your smartphone, but using the best Garmin watch, best Apple Watch or similar will allow you to record via your watch as usual, and upload your information automatically. As you run it tracks your progress, and Coopah punctuates every mile completed it informs you of your pace.
However, the app lacks any motivational phrases or active coaching as you run, as its competitor app Runna provides, it won’t tell you to increase your pace, to keep on target or tell you how to up your cadence, but it does give you basic data at the end. This will show your splits, pace, and effort, which can then be assessed against your targets.
If you forgot to record the run you can import the data from a smartwatch, or manually add it in yourself. If you’re overly competitive with yourself, you can also asses your progress week-by-week – this will compare the distance you’ve run, streaks that week, sessions completed and your pace against prior weeks.
I asked the app to schedule me three runs a week, but you can change your schedule if you’re hoping to do more training sessions. I would have preferred a more flexible choice of between two and three sessions a week, as I also train at the gym and cycle.
I was given a mix of one long run, intervals, and shorter runs each week. I originally found it complicated to change the days I was running, so making this process more straightforward would streamline the process.
The plan starts with a build-up for one week, three weeks of Base training and subsequent Strength weeks, depending on how early you start your plan. I chose an 11-week plan, so more than enough time to train for a half-marathon while factoring in two weeks to taper.
However, I found that some of the longer runs were too long, arriving too soon in my strength phase. Nevertheless, it’s a great program to have in your pocket and certainly kept me on track. I’d love to see more coaching while running, so you can keep up with your desired pace, and also the ability to input other types of training, such as HIIT classes and yoga, so you can see how this affects your performance.
Performance: 4.5 / 5
