Austrian fitness app Runtastic has launched a new feature that provides runners with stories as they work out, in an attempt to keep them motivated and entertained during their training sessions.

The Story Running feature has been designed to provide tales in correlation with the average 40-minute running times usually undertaken by users of Runtastic, with narratives ranging from the motivational through to adventure, travel and horror stories.

Each of the stories are specially designed in accordance with training interval curves, to enable them to act as training tools, with the tales using suspense, climax and emotional response to spur runners on at certain points during their workout.

“Our writers created characters that have to run throughout the story, from the first to the last minute,” said script consultant Ines Häufler, who worked with Runtastic on the project.

“We can use your natural sense of urgency. There’s someone coming after you, the main character, then you hear dogs barking… we make your running routine a really new and exciting experience.”

According to its founder, Runtastic has seen over 50 million downloads in the last four years, with 35 million of those taking place in the last year.

A video detailing Story Running is available here: http://lei.sr?a=k3t0F