*3.1. Study Objectives*

The short-term objective of the study is to assess the feasibility and usability of RunningCoach, a mobile health (mHealth) remote coaching system for long-distance runners which aims to optimize their running cadence. We are particularly interested in understanding (i) how long-distance runners interact with RunningCoach; (ii) how long-distance runners perceive the accuracy of the data collected by RunningCoach; and (iii) what running-related analyses can be performed with the collected data to provide further insights into the system and runner's performance. These immediate objectives are set for the purpose of guiding the future iterations of the study. Understanding the interactions of the user with the system, and investigating any potential usability issues with the system allow us to address those issues in the future. Moreover, exploring potential running-related analyses helps us devise hypotheses, that can be validated in future studies.

The long-term objective of our research is to achieve personalized coaching for an individual runner that will be integrated in the proposed telemonitoring system. We envision this coaching system to include the ability to take advantage of the anthropometric parameters of each individual, the individual's previous performance, and other factors related to injuries in order to devise a training regimen that is tailored to that individual. Ultimately, this personalized training regimen shall provide recommendations to the runner regarding cadence and speed, depending on the specific consecutive day of training and the previously-collected running data.

In order to achieve these objectives, we have designed a series of user studies, which are approved by the Institutional Review Board at University of California, Berkeley. In this paper, we describe the design and findings of the first study in this series, which is concerned with the feasibility and acceptability of such telemonitoring technology.
