I’ve been using Apple Watch for running since the day it was released on Friday 25th April 2015. Over the 2 years and 3 months using it, I’ve earned awards along the way from completing workouts and special challenges. It’s kept me motivated and a factor of using technology for exercise that’s helped me to stay consistent.

This month I set ‘Perfect Month’ as my personal goal. I’d never been interested in this award as running alone doesn’t lend itself well to meeting move and exercise goals daily. What I’d like to see for runners on Apple Watch next is the ability to set run days and rest days on your move goals to really customise that scheduling of your workouts.

But with Apple Watch activity sharing, I see my friend Jason complete Perfect Month regularly. Jason runs, goes to the gym, has taken up boxing… he’s very active and committed to a different workout routine than me. I WANTED THAT AWARD THOUGH!

This is what a Perfect Month looks like for a runner with Apple Watch:

To get this data, I opened the Activity app on my iPhone. Tapped on ‘Workouts’ from the menu bar along the bottom of the screen. Tapped on ‘Filter’ in the top right and selected ‘Running’. I then tapped ‘2017’ to head to the month overview and I am presented with totals and averages on a month-to-month view.

27 runs adding up to 122.37 miles! And in April 2015, I never ran for the bus (April 2015 Blog Post)!

When I tap ‘Filter’ again and select ‘All Workouts’ My data is greater. There were a few days (4!) when I didn’t run. But I did other activity, mainly walking. I completed 35 workouts in July (Running and Walking) with 24 hours, 16 minutes and 57 seconds of exercise throughout the month.

These are results that I couldn’t have imagined achieving 3 years ago. I am at my personal best because I am connected to friends who share their achievements with me in a fun and vibrant way. I’m motivated by the data that I collect on myself and the way that it is presented to me. I set challenges based on what I see are my next steps or opportunities to try something different.

What’s next then? Longest Move Streak!

This achievement award runs alongside the Perfect Week and Perfect Month awards. Every consecutive day that you meet your move goal, you set a personal best for the move streak. I’m now on 39 days of closing my daily move goal (I started the streak in June!). This is going to keep me going through August until I go on holiday again.

And who knows, on holiday I’m probably going to want to run some of the cities and towns that I visit around Europe…. Maybe I’ll get Perfect Month for August too?