Run and walk by heart rate, not pace.
Your first run starts with a walk.
First Gear on your Apple Watch tells you when to run and when to walk, so you never guess how hard to go. Your first session is twenty minutes, and you can always keep walking.
Why First Gear is different.
Most beginner 5K plans follow a clock: run for sixty seconds, walk for ninety, ready or not, or they just announce when your heart rate is in range. First Gear coaches you through it, telling you when to run and when to walk from your heart rate.
Each stage asks a little more than the last.
Phone runs
No Apple Watch? Run with your AirPods.
With AirPods Pro 3 or Powerbeats Pro 2, your earbuds read your heart rate and your coach runs on your iPhone.
Phone runs need an iPhone with iOS 26 or later, and work outdoors for now.
See how it works.
Press play. In under a minute, Lana walks you through a session on the Watch.
The First Gear method.
Same twenty minutes. A little more running.
Six stages, and you choose when to move up. Your run stays the length you set on Plan, twenty minutes by default. At each stage, your coach invites you to run a little sooner: progressive overload without a stopwatch. Stages drive your progress.
A twenty-minute run at three stages.
Illustration- Stage 1: Longer walks between runs.
- Stage 3: Shorter walks, so more of it is running.
- Stage 6: The shortest walks, and the most running of the three.
- Running
- Walking
- All the running, added up
Questions before you start.
Your next twenty minutes start here.
Pick your three days and head out. You can walk all of it.
Your first session is free, with no subscription. Then you get seven days free if you're eligible. Cancel at least a day before it ends and you pay nothing.
$4.99/month or $29.99/year after the trial. Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled. Local prices and trial eligibility appear in the App Store.