Recently we had an opportunity to speak with Christophe Roosen, the Co-founder at FITTER about TRENARA

Please share with us the backstory of what motivated you to create this app.

Gert & I, the founders of Trenara, are both runners ourselves. We're also a big fan of technology & innovation. So when we we're trying out the BSXinsight (a next generation endurance tester, which is already discontinued...) and we saw a gap between testing runners' capabilities and the (automatic) translation to a training schedule and race predictor in an app format.

Gert (an engineer) developed an algorithm, I (a running coach) was in charge of the training schedules. Trenara was born.

What features do you hope to roll out to your app in the future?

Incorporate other endurance sports like cycling and swimming would be nice. That's probably more long term. In the short term, it would be nice to download the training schedule to your running watch.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of the creation of this app?

Well, seeing a dream coming to life. The development took about 1 year, but in the first days after the release we already reached 1000+ downloads - and we released the app only in Dutch, so our market was limited. Seems we filled in a blank spot.

What is the coolest or most innovative feature of your app?

Hard to choose between the race prognosis and our feedback tool. Can we nominate 2 features? ;-)

What surprised you most in your journey to create this app?

The ease to find our funds. Family, friends and 'fools' were all we needed. No bank, no investment company, ... so no tied hands.

Which other mobile apps or technology have inspired you?

Strava for sure. Not only because they unite athletes (our public as well), but mainly because they don't stop innovating. It would be nice if they gave you the option to use their app from, let's say, 3 years ago along the current version so you'd see the difference.

Do you have any recommendations or advice for others wanting to create a mobile app?

Well, start by hiring an app agency. A good one. You might have the best idea in the world, you still need an agency to get it in the App of Play Store... They all have different approaches, so choose wisely.

How did you decide which platforms to release your app on and do you plan on releasing your app to other platforms?

We immediately released for iOS as well as Android. Would be a shame to aim for only 50% of the market.

How is your app different than the rest of the market? Which unique need does it fill?

Well, it's unique in a few ways to be honest.

First of all: we generate personal running schedules - for free. It's easy to say 'run 40 minutes in heart zone 3'. We're working much more specific because we know the runner in detail through the use of his/her historic data.

With the data provided, we also give you an estimation of what you're able to run at, for instance, a 10k race. This race prognosis seems to be much more accurate than others out there. You don't have to believe us, just check it out!

Another unique thing about Trenara is the feedback that the users receives after a training session. We'll motivate when you're doing it right, but we'll also give a warning when you exaggerate. That, we didn't see in other apps or platforms. However we believe it is crucial in the building process towards a goal. It's very easy to always run hard, but often runners get injured when they overtrain themselves.

So by literally showing our users a red light, we encourage them to follow our schedule and get them ready for their goal in the most responsible and efficient way.

You can view TRENARA here