In 2017, I could run or bike to the Aaptiv office and have everyone treat it as normal.
I had been running for about twenty years. When I was younger, it helped me deal with difficult lessons and challenges. I liked that the work was direct. You trained, rested, raced, and saw what happened.
At Aaptiv, running was also part of my job. I was CTO of a company that made audio fitness classes with trainers and music. Ethan had started the company because he loved running and music and could not find a product that brought them together. In October, we added three new 5K programs.
I had a running buddy at work, and we often ran to the office or during lunch. Other people at Aaptiv cared about fitness too. They understood why I might arrive by bike, need a shower, or put a run on my calendar.
That made it easier to train consistently. The commute could become part of the day’s mileage. A lunch run did not require a long explanation. I still had to plan around meetings and get the work done, but the company did not treat exercise as something separate or inconvenient.
On busy days, that difference was useful. I did not have to choose between losing the commute time and losing the workout. I could cover some of the miles while getting to or from the office.
It was also better than the subway.
Not everyone at Aaptiv ran for the same reason or at the same pace. Some people used running to think. Some used it for mental health. Some wanted time with family or friends. Some were training for a result. We worked at a fitness company, but that did not make us one kind of athlete.
The same was true of Aaptiv members. One person might choose a running class because she was training for a race. Another might choose it because the week had been difficult and she needed thirty minutes outside. The workout could be the same even when the reason for starting it was different.
I liked the measurable side of training. Pace, time, mileage, recovery, and progression helped me plan. Those numbers were useful for the product too. They helped us describe workouts and build programs that became more difficult over time.
But the numbers were not the whole reason people ran. A slow run could still be the most important part of someone’s week. A person could miss the planned pace and still keep the habit. A commute could count as training because the office and home were in the right places and the schedule allowed it.
Using the product ourselves gave us useful daily feedback. We noticed if a class description was unclear, if choosing a workout took too long, or if a training plan did not fit a normal week. We could try the classes on a treadmill or outside and talk about the experience afterward.
That did not mean the people at Aaptiv represented every member. We still needed customer research, support feedback, and product data. A serious runner can easily assume that everyone else wants the same detail or difficulty. Plenty of members were starting from a very different place.
Running with coworkers was good for the team too. A run to work or at lunch created time to talk without another conference room or agenda. Sometimes we discussed the product. Sometimes we did not talk much at all.
I also spent enough of the day on a screen that getting outside had value by itself. Running had helped me through hard periods long before I worked in fitness technology. Aaptiv did not create that relationship. It gave me a job where the thing I had done for years was relevant to the product and understood by the people around me.
On a normal day, I could run to work, build software for runners and other athletes, train with someone from the team, and ride home. That combination was one of the best parts of working there.