Next weekend is the BMO Vancouver Marathon and all across the city runners are fitting in their last training runs. Today was a gorgeous day (sunny 22 degrees!) so I'm sure it's going to be busy on the streets. The marathon route is absolutely gorgeous and takes you through some amazing vistas, though it ends on the beautiful, but testing, seawall and a steady uphill on the last kilometer. The overall elevation gain is relatively minor, maybe even net downhill, but it's Vancouver so lots of Running Up That Hill.
Running technology is highly personal. Just look at how many flavours energy gels come in. I don't like to carry many things with me so I usually just have my phone and a stretchy running belt. Sometimes I'll bring bluetooth earbuds but most of the time they stay in my pockets and I only turn them on when I need a change of pace.
Strava is by far the most popular mileage tracker though I'm not a big fan. I run for me and it's my break from everything; screens, tech, people, distractions, work... so I'm not the target audience for Strava's leaderboard or segment challenges and comparisons. Social fitness tech does have incredible potential for encouragement and motivation though and Strava excels in that.
I used the Nike Run Club app to train for my first marathon and I loved it. It formulated a 13-week plan based on my current running regime and comfort level, was apparently adaptive as it processed how well I did during training runs (though I'm suspicious of how much tweaking it actually did for subsequent runs), and had great vocal encouragement and nuggets of wisdom from runners like Mo Farah and Nike's Coach Bennett. Unfortunately, about two years ago Nike removed the adaptive training program and the only way to get it back was to download older .APK versions. Even then, the app would have glitches because it would presumably call home to Nike and it wouldn't get the updates it needed.
I tried Runkeeper for a while and it seemed to be a killer app. It had a great web interface where you could export data and edit routes, like you forget to pause when you're passed out on the park bench for half an hour, or get distracted by the bakery counter when you have a washroom break. But there were little issues with the GPS locking, and huge issues like syncing with Rungap (more on that later).
I've been using Runtastic (now called Adidas Running) for a few years now and it does what I need it to do. It's GPS lock is good enough, it's great on batteries, I like the succinct vocal reminders of time or distance, and it's great on battery life. There's lots of features locked behind a subscription but I don't need that level of customization.
While I was trying out these different apps I used Rungap to synchronize all the data between accounts. It works well and offers lots of export features like GPX conversion. The neatest thing it does is extracting data from walled gardens like Nike. I'm not sure what magic it does but Nike didn't provide any export options when I was using it. Yet Rungap was able to not only pull data but make it readable by other apps.
Having an open, readable format like GPX makes it easy to manipulate data afterwards. It has XML fields GPS coordinates, timings, waypoints and allows for any extras like notes. The proliferation of fitness technology like heartrate, wearable tech, or even fall detection makes open data even more important so your data can always belong to you. Unfortunately this often runs contrary to commercial interests, like show companies sponsoring running apps, or proprietary data logging to lock users into one ecosystem.
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| GPX files make it easy to view and manipulate GPS data |
