I want this to be awesome

First of all, the good part: the training plan is good. Its fairly predictable once you know the pattern. Im approaching the end of the plan, and I think Im going to hit my new time goal. Even if I dont, Im definitely getting faster and the interval training has been key.

Jeffs coaching is nice, but its nothing groundbreaking. If you havent had coaching before, by all means download it and use it. But if youre a seasoned runner, you probably wont get much out of it. Even if its new, youll hear everything within a few weeks, and might opt to turn it off. I like Jeff though, hes really nice and its kind of fun to hear his friendly, southern voice in my ears during a run.

Now the bad parts. THE MUSIC: Do not, I repeat DO NOT download the music! Its awful. Unless you like generic electro "fitness music." And you cant delete it once you do download it. Unfortunately, youre prompted before every run to download it, and so either you download it or you have to press "not now" before every run.

THE PLAYLIST: You cant just play your iTunes playlists, you have to create playlists from within the Lolo app. This is dumb; I already have lots of running playlists set up in iTunes and on my phone. My mistake is that I downloaded the free music and have an empty playlist, so even with "max variety" turned off (its an option to mix in the Lolo music with your playlist at random), when I start a run I get the Lolo music in my headphones. I then have to turn the volume down in the Lolo app (using the on-screen slider) and start music up from my iPod app to get what I want to hear. Unfortunately, changes to the volume seem to reset the Lolo musics volume, and I have to go back to the Lolo app and pull that slider down again.

THE PACE: Something is wrong where you put in your 5K pace during set up, and its unclear if this is your goal pace or your current pace or what. This is never clarified, but its basically a pace used to calculate how long a given workout would take if you hit that pace. So its lacking, because you have two runs a week that shouldnt be at goal pace, and you have one run a week with intervals, where the intervals should be at goal pace but the 5 minute warm-up and cool-down portions shouldnt be. Its probably less of a problem for first-timers, but for people on the improve-your-time track, it doesnt make sense; there should be a goal pace and a "normal" pace, which shouldnt even be your current 5K pace but your general pace.

Also, it displays your "actual" pace in the upper-right, but as far as I can tell, this is you average pace, taking into account your total time and distance this run. So during an interval session, you run 400 meters at goal pace then walk (or run slowly) 200 meters. Therefore, the "actual" pace is merely an average, and not your actual, instantaneous pace. This is a huge fail; how else am I supposed to know (at least in GPS mode, not on a treadmill) if Im hitting my goal pace during the 400 meter sections? I use another app in conjunction with Lolo (Runkeeper) to help keep me on target during the interval sessions.

THE REPORTING: I recently did a workout that was reported at 3.99 miles is 36:39 (again, combined 30 minute with walking warm-up/cool-down), and the pace was listed as like 180 min/mile. Thats…incorrect.

STABILITY: Ive had a few crashes during runs, and while the app will get itself back to where it was, it seems a little confused for a while before it gets on track. Also, if youre not in the middle of a workout, putting the app in the background (or just going to sleep) causes it to shut down completely, and bringing it back to front means you have to go through the start screen with the stupid "lolo chime" sound again.

SPAM: Its not spam technically, but be prepared for a bunch of emails from Lolo once you run the app and create your Lolo account. You can unsubscribe, but geez. I cant think of any other app I have, paid or otherwise, that hit me so hard with marketing emails.

In short, the content is there, but there are enough flaws to make this app almost more annoying than its worth.

---UPDATE---

Lolo seems to have fixed the music; Im not sure why but at least Im not subject to the bad music the app provides anymore. But theres an even worse issue: when the phone goes to sleep, whether by timeout or by pressing the lock button, Galloways voice instructions stop. Annoying when the phone goes to sleep in the middle of an interval and Galloway never tells you to stop...

drukepple about Easy 5K - Run/Walk/Run Beginner and Advanced Training Plans with Jeff Galloway