Running with WHOOP: live heart rate, pace and audio cues

Is WHOOP good for running?

For the bigger picture, yes: WHOOP tracks sleep, recovery and strain, records your heart rate through the whole run and shows time in each heart-rate zone afterwards. That makes it useful for deciding whether to run hard today.

What it doesn't do is coach you during the run. There is no screen to glance at, no GPS for pace or distance, and no audio feedback. That is the gap a running app fills.

Does WHOOP track running pace and distance?

Not on its own. The strap has no GPS. If you start a run in the WHOOP app with your phone on you, the app can use your phone's location for a route. But WHOOP won't tell you your pace while you run, and it doesn't announce kilometre or mile splits.

Does WHOOP have audio cues?

No, not at the time of writing. In the WHOOP community, WHOOP staff have said Broadcast Heart Rate is designed to share your heart rate visually, not to deliver audible updates. WHOOP members have asked for exactly this: spoken pace and heart rate every kilometre, and alerts like “slow down, you're above your target zone” for zone 2 runs.

Until WHOOP adds it, the way to get heart-rate zone audio alerts with WHOOP is a phone app that reads WHOOP's broadcast heart rate and speaks to you.

How to use WHOOP Broadcast Heart Rate with a running app

1. Turn on Broadcast Heart Rate in the WHOOP app's device settings.
2. Open your running app and look for its heart-rate sensor or Bluetooth device setting.
3. Select your WHOOP strap from the list. It appears like any other Bluetooth heart-rate monitor.
4. Start your run. The app now gets your WHOOP heart rate live, second by second.

Broadcast uses Bluetooth, so keep your phone with you. If the strap doesn't show up, toggle Broadcast Heart Rate off and on, and make sure no other app or device is already connected to it. Broadcasting uses some extra strap battery.

WHOOP heart-rate zones and zone 2

WHOOP splits heart rate into five zones by percentage of your max heart rate: 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90%. Zone 2 is 60–70% — the easy-run zone. If your WHOOP zone 2 feels impossibly slow, the max heart rate it uses may be too low; a recent all-out effort gives a better number. Read more in the zone 2 running guide or work out your numbers with the zone 2 calculator.

WHOOP and Strava

WHOOP connects to Strava, so runs can share data between the two after the fact. That is useful for your training log, but like WHOOP itself, it doesn't give you feedback while you are running.

ZoneTempo: audio cues for WHOOP runners

ZoneTempo is an iPhone running coach built for WHOOP wearers. It reads your live heart rate through Broadcast Heart Rate, measures pace and distance with your phone's GPS, and speaks short cues over Spotify or any other music:

• Heart-rate zone alerts when you move into a new zone or drift out of your target zone.
• Pace cues in min/km when you leave your target pace band, plus kilometre splits.
• Quiet mode that only speaks when you are clearly off target.
• Guided setup that shows the moment your strap's Broadcast Heart Rate signal comes in.

It's free to run, and your first 3 Pro runs — with a natural coach voice and lines written for your run — are on us. See pricing →

ZoneTempo is an independent app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by WHOOP, Inc. WHOOP is a trademark of WHOOP, Inc.