Designed by runners for runners, RunningTrax creates personalized training programs for runners at every level of ability, whether you’re a beginner or a speed demon. We evaluate your fitness so we can create a training plan made just for you and no one else. It’s a roadmap to running success customized to your ability.

RATE Your Ability—Evaluating your fitness is easy with our TraxScore calculator. Enter your time for a recent run. It could be a mile, 5K, half marathon, whatever. New to running? Go out and run or walk a mile. Give us your time and click! You’ve got your TraxScore.

CREATE Personalized Workouts — Complete your profile to get free workouts and your own personal dashboard with video content, advice from experts and a log to track all of the mileage you’re sure to rack up. It’s free and easy. All you have to do is run! Choose the type of workout you want—by distance, time or pace—and RunningTrax will suggest a workout tailored to your fitness level. Each workout is designed to keep you in the ideal training zone—fast enough to improve but not so fast that you risk injury.

GENERATE Personalized Training Programs—Training for a race? No problem! With every day of training laid out for you, our plans will tell you how far and fast to run, keeping you in the ideal training zone to help you get the most out of your workouts. And as your TraxScore changes, your training programs adjust accordingly. How’s that for running smart?

LOG Workouts—Keeping track of your workouts and training plans is easy with our fully integrated calendar. You can track factors like distance, time, pace, type of run, weather, difficulty and more. Best of all, you can access RunningTrax through our free iPhone app too.

JOIN RunningTrax—Membership is free. When you register and create a profile, you’ll gain access to everything RunningTrax has to offer with the exception of our training plans. Programs start as low as $4.99. You can purchase as you go or buy a 12-Month Membership for just $19.99 and gain you access to an unlimited number of training plans for one year from your date of purchase.

So grab your shoes and hit the road with RunningTrax. You’ll be glad you did!

History

RunningTrax is just the beginning for FitnessTrax, Inc., our company based in Atlanta, Georgia. But we’ve already put a lot of miles behind us. J. Gerry Purdy and James B. Gardner were co-workers and running buddies in Redondo Beach, California 45 years ago when the idea for RunningTrax was born. A pair of computer scientists and running fanatics, they began hypothesizing—as scientists are apt to do—about the relationship between runners’ level of ability and the workouts they could perform. So Purdy and Gardner did what scientists do best; they turned it into a science project and developed a scoring system that could pinpoint the fitness of any runner. They published their results in 1970 in Computerized Running Training Programs, which became a ‘Bible’ for thousands of track coaches and runners.

But Dr. Purdy felt he could improve on his research even more. He completed a Ph.D. in 1972 in Computer Science and Exercise Physiology at Stanford University, where he developed a more sophisticated scoring table. Dr. Purdy presented his research at a meeting of the IAAF Technical Committee in Copenhagen, Denmark, showing that the existing Olympic Decathlon Scoring Tables were inaccurate. In 1984, the IAAF, the world governing body for Track & Field, approved new tables based on the principles recommended by Dr. Purdy—the same principles he used to build RunningTrax. Those scoring tables are used for the Olympic Decathlon to this day.

Dr. Purdy kept running and tinkering with his research. Using updated information, he created a new set of algorithms and published RunningTrax in 1996. The book, now in its fourth edition, went on to become the best selling title in Track & Field News history. Now an fully interactive website with companion mobile applications, RunningTrax is the culmination of Dr. Purdy’s 50 years of work in the fields of Computer Science and Exercise Physiology. We hope it’s just the beginning of our road to running success!

Methodology

RunningTrax uses a proprietary formula—our secret sauce—to calculate TraxScores and generate workouts and training programs. It’s based on the idea that improvement in running is not linear; it’s a curve. The faster you are, the harder it is to improve.

So Dr. Purdy developed an equation that has one linear term that simulates walking and one non-linear exponential term that awards increasing points for increased performance levels. Basically, the faster you are, the more points you get. Got it? He started by averaging the velocity of hundreds of world-class performances at every popular distance, and setting those averages as the 1400-point high end of the TraxScore range. He then averaged a larger set of mid-level performances as the 1100-point mark and estimated the next range at 400 points. With these three “known points,” he developed the basis for the RunningTrax system, using math to model a runner’s physical effort. That’s your TraxScore.

With your TraxScore in hand, we then calculate your ideal training zone at 87.5 to 92.5 percent of maximum effort. This range maximizes improvement while minimizing injury, and is used to generate your pacing recommendations in your workouts and training programs, which are written by world class running coach and exercise scientist Greg McMillan, M.S. Your TraxScore determines how many days a week you run, what type of workouts you do, and how fast you do them. And it’s all based on the science behind RunningTrax’s “secret sauce.”