A running club app is a schedule, a route and a headcount.
A running club app is a club tool, not a tracker. It does not care about your splits; that is the job of a fitness app builder and the watch on your wrist. A club app exists so that forty people know where Tuesday's run starts, which route it follows, who is coming and which pace group they belong in, without scrolling back through three hundred messages to find out. It sits with the other community and organisation apps where the free tools get you most of the way, then stop exactly where the club starts to need them.
This page is about the plumbing: the fields a run needs so the schedule is true, the RSVP that gives a leader a real headcount, the route card, the roster with the waiver and emergency contact a club is supposed to hold, and the photo wall afterwards. Then which of the usual tools covers what, and when a club ends up building its own.
See what a running club app has to trackThe short version
Five records, and a group chat that holds none of them.
A running club app needs a run (date, time, meeting point, route, pace groups, leader), an RSVP that produces a headcount, a route with distance and surface, a member with an emergency contact and a signed waiver, and a wall for announcements and photos that does not scroll away. Strava's club events cover the first three for members who use Strava. A group platform like Heylo covers the RSVP and the roster. Nothing off the shelf covers all five the way a club actually runs them, which is why most clubs live in three apps at once.
The five records
What a running club app has to keep track of.
Every club adds its own quirks on top, but the base record set behind a run club app, a running group app or a university athletics society looks the same. Treat this as the checklist: if your current setup cannot show one of these on demand, that is the gap the group chat is papering over.
The run
One entry per run, repeating weekly. The answer to every question the group chat gets asked twice.
- Day, start time and a meeting point with a pin, not "the usual place"
- The route, its distance and an expected duration
- Pace groups on offer, each with a named leader
- Run leader and at least one sweeper at the back
- Notes: lit or unlit, headtorch, bag drop, cafe afterwards
- An RSVP cap where the route, a permit or the leader needs one
- Cancel one occurrence without deleting the series
The RSVP
The only reason a leader can see the headcount before leaving the house.
- In, out, or waitlisted once the cap is reached
- A live count per pace group, not just a total
- Check-in at the start: who actually turned up
- Guests flagged as guests, so the waiver prompt fires
The route
Reusable across runs, and the one thing worth publishing days in advance.
- Map with start and finish, distance and elevation
- Surface: road, trail, gravel or mixed
- Lit or unlit, traffic, water and toilets on the way
- A GPX file or link for anyone running it alone
The member
The record no free tool holds for you, and the one an insurer asks about.
- Name, usual pace group, date joined
- Emergency contact name and number
- Waiver signed, with the date and the version
- Membership status and dues, if the club charges
- Photo consent
The wall
Announcements that stay pinned, and photos that stay attached to the run they came from.
- Pinned notices: cancellations, race entries, kit orders
- Photos posted to the run, not to the chat
- PBs, milestones and first-timers worth a mention
A useful yardstick
Strava's club event form is a fair checklist for the run record on its own: a start time, date and location are required, and an organiser can add a route, up to four pace groups, a surface type and an RSVP cap. Where it stops is the member record, and that is where most clubs discover they need a second tool.
The schedule
A running club schedule with a headcount you can trust.
A running club schedule app has one hard job: making the RSVP count true. A thumbs-up in the chat is not an RSVP, because nobody withdraws it when plans change, and a leader who expects twenty and gets eight has planned the wrong pace groups. The schedule has to be a list of runs, not a list of messages, with each run carrying its own RSVP, its own route and its own cap.
Recurrence is the detail that catches people. A Tuesday run is one series, not fifty-two events, and cancelling the Christmas week must not delete January. The same logic holds for any running group app: the run card below is what the schedule is made of.
Tuesday · 18:30
Riverside loop
Meet at the boathouse steps
23
In
8.2 km
Distance
Road, lit
Surface
Cap 30
RSVP
A run card. The count per pace group is what a leader plans from; the total is what the cafe needs.
A weekly run, step by step
- 1
Fix the slot
Day, time and a meeting point with a pin. Same every week unless someone cancels it, and cancelling one week must not delete the series.
- 2
Publish the route in advance
Map, distance, surface and whether it is lit. The RRCA's guidance is that the run leader maps out the route and shares it with the group before the run.
- 3
Name the leader and the sweeper
A run with nobody at the back is how someone gets left behind. The RRCA suggests recruiting a few people willing to run at the back of the pack.
- 4
List the pace groups
One named leader per group, paces in min/km or min/mi, so a newcomer can pick before arriving instead of guessing at the start line.
- 5
Open the RSVP
Cap it if the route, the cafe or a permit needs it. On a multi-use trail or road a permit may be required, especially once the group exceeds 25 people.
- 6
Sign people in at the start
Who is actually here. Guests sign the waiver, and every runner's emergency contact is on file before anyone sets off.
- 7
Close the loop
Photos go on the wall against this run, and next week's run is already showing with its route and its count.
Pace groups
How many pace groups does one run need?
Pace groups are the field that decides whether a new member comes back. Too few and the slowest runner does the whole loop alone; too many and there are not enough leaders to go round. The RRCA's advice is to recruit pace leaders and outline the paces in advance, which only works if the paces are on the run card rather than announced at the start. A practical rule is one group per 30 seconds per kilometre between your fastest and slowest regulars, then adjust for the route.
Try it
How many pace groups does your route need?
Enter the fastest and slowest regular paces in your club and the length of the run. The band is how far apart two runners can be before they are really in different groups.
Suggested
5 pace groups, plus a sweeper
More than four groups is more leaders than most clubs can staff on one route, and more than a Strava event can list. Consider a shorter loop for the slower groups, or a route that regroups at a fixed point. On a 8 km route the first runner is back about 20 minutes before the last.
| Group | Pace (min/km) | Finish on 8 km | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group 1 | 4:30 to 5:00 | 36:00 to 40:00 | A named leader |
| Group 2 | 5:00 to 5:30 | 40:00 to 44:00 | A named leader |
| Group 3 | 5:30 to 6:00 | 44:00 to 48:00 | A named leader |
| Group 4 | 6:00 to 6:30 | 48:00 to 52:00 | A named leader |
| Group 5 | 6:30 to 7:00 | 52:00 to 56:00 | A leader and the sweeper |
A starting point, not a policy. Clubs that run out-and-back or looped routes can regroup and get away with fewer.
Routes
Routes: the map is the easy part.
The route record is the part that tempts people into building a tracker. Resist it. A club route needs a map with the start and finish, the distance, the elevation, the surface, whether it is lit, and where the water and toilets are, plus a GPX or a link for anyone running it alone. It is reusable: the Riverside loop is one record attached to fifty Tuesdays, not fifty screenshots.
The RRCA's safe group run guidelines put the timing plainly: the run leader should map out the routes and share them with the group in advance. That is a schedule feature as much as a map feature, since the route has to be on the run card before people RSVP to it, not posted in the chat an hour before.
How the map itself gets onto the screen, which tiles it uses and whether you need an API key, is implementation detail, covered in adding maps and location to your app.
The roster
Waivers, emergency contacts and guests.
A club that carries liability insurance holds records a group chat never will. Clubs that are members of the Road Runners Club of America are required to obtain waivers of liability from their members and participants during the join or renew process, and all guests to club training runs or programs must sign a waiver as well. See the RRCA's guidance on members and waivers. The same page tells clubs to keep the waivers on file based on their state's statute of limitations for a civil lawsuit, with access going back at least two to three years.
For the run itself, the RRCA's safe group run guidelines ask leaders to have everyone sign in before heading out, on a form that has the waiver along with emergency contact information, and suggest a QR code people can scan to reach it. That is the check-in field from the RSVP record, and it is why the member record needs the emergency contact next to it rather than in a spreadsheet only the treasurer can open.
The RRCA is American. A club affiliated elsewhere should check its own body's rules, but the fields a roster has to hold are the same everywhere: who, their emergency contact, whether the waiver is signed and when, and whether tonight's newcomer is a member or a guest.
The options
What app do running clubs use today?
Ask a run club what app it uses and the honest answer is three: a group chat for talk, a Strava club for the runs, and a form or spreadsheet for the waiver. Each covers part of the record set above. Here is how they line up against it.
| Option | Schedule with RSVP | Route on the run | Pace groups | Roster, waiver, emergency contact | Cost, checked Sept 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group chat and a shared calendar | A message and a thumbs-up count | A screenshot or a link | In the message text | No | Free |
| Strava club events | Yes: date, time and location required, "I'm in" RSVP, optional RSVP cap | From saved routes; creating a new one needs a subscription | Up to four per event | No | Strava is a free app; drawing a new route to attach needs a subscription, priced by region |
| Heylo | Yes: events, RSVPs, attendance, capacity with waitlists | Not on the feature list | Not on the feature list | Member directory on every plan; waiver collection on Pro | $0 per group on Base, $19 Plus, $59 Pro, per month, plus fees on payments |
| Spreadsheet and a sign-up form | A row per run, RSVPs as form responses | A link in a cell | A column | Yes, if someone keeps it current | Free, paid for in evenings |
| Custom club app | Yes, exactly as your club runs it | Yes, a route card on every run | As many as you run, with a leader each | Yes: your fields, your file | From $25 a month to build and run it yourself |
Strava details from Strava's Group Events for Clubs article. Heylo plans and prices from heylo.com/pricing, checked 20 September 2026. "Not on the feature list" means the feature is not listed on that page, not that it is impossible.
Two neighbouring jobs look similar and are not. Getting the club to a trailhead an hour away is a seats-and-drivers problem, which is what a carpool app solves, and a club that runs its own handicap series or mile championship is halfway to a tournament bracket app: fixtures, results and a table rather than a schedule with RSVPs.
Cost
How much does a running club app cost?
The free options are genuinely free. Strava is a free app, and the only subscriber-gated step in its club event form is drawing a new route to attach, with subscription prices that vary by region. Heylo's Base plan is $0 per group with a platform fee of 5% plus $0.59 on each payment it collects, and waiver collection sits on its Pro plan at $59 per group per month, prices checked 20 September 2026. The spreadsheet is free and costs a volunteer their evenings.
Building the club's own app on Newly starts at $25 a month, with no free plan. What that buys is not features the free tools lack so much as a member list that is the club's, in the club's fields, with the waiver and the emergency contact next to the RSVP instead of in a third tool.
When to build your own
Building a running club app that fits your club.
The honest reason a club builds its own running club app is not that Strava is bad at runs. It is that no off-the-shelf tool holds the club the way the club runs: pace groups named after leaders rather than numbers, a waiver that has to be re-signed every January, a check-in the sweeper does from a phone at the back, a second Thursday run for the marathon group with its own cap. Each of those is a small rule, and each one is where a generic events product stops.
That gap is what Newly is for: describe the club as it actually runs, the run card, the RSVP, the roster fields, who can post to the wall, and it builds a real native app around that process instead of a vendor's. iOS builds ship through App Store Connect and TestFlight, as its publishing documentation describes; the current version does not produce Android release builds, so a club with Android members should weigh that before choosing.
Sources
Where the specifics came from.
Four things on this page come from a primary source rather than from running clubs in general:
FAQ
Running club apps, answered.
A running club app is the club's own tool for organising group runs: a schedule of upcoming runs with the meeting point, route and pace groups, an RSVP that gives the run leader a headcount, a member roster with emergency contacts and signed waivers, and a place for announcements and photos afterwards. It is a club tool, not a tracker. Recording pace, distance and splits is what watches and fitness apps already do.
Start with the run card, not the group chat.
A running club app lives or dies on the boring records: a schedule that is true, an RSVP that means something, and a roster the club actually owns. Get those on paper, then build the app around them in Newly.