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New workout type--Trail Race? (Read 409 times)

    Hi eric! Thanks for all your hard work to create and maintain this site and the log--awesome stuff! I was wondering if it's possible for you to add a "Trail Race" option to the Workout Type field, and have it generate PRs as well. I do trail and road races that are the same distances, and would love to be able to see my trail PRs separate from my road PRs, since they tend to differ quite a bit.

     

    What do you think--doable? Thanks for considering it, however you decide.

    eric :)


      majope,

      You can create new workout types by going to Options -> Manage My Activities, then click on the activity.

       

      In regards to "Trail Race", a race is a race, regardless of the terrain.  As part of the log revamp, I am planning to redo the PR page.  I am thinking that the PRs can be modified to display by terrain type.  I think that would be a better solution.


      Imminent Catastrophe

        I agree with majope, for PR purposes.

        "Able to function despite imminent catastrophe"

         "To obtain the air that angels breathe you must come to Tahoe"--Mark Twain

        "The most common question from potential entrants is 'I do not know if I can do this' to which I usually answer, 'that's the whole point'.--Paul Charteris, Tarawera Ultramarathon RD.

         

        √ Javelina Jundred Jalloween 2015

        Cruel Jewel 50 mile May 2016

        Western States 100 June 2016

        AmoresPerros


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          We've had discussions about PRs and trail races before. One complication is that track and road pacing don't vary nearly as much as trail pacing.

           

          I mean, it makes sense to put all track results into a bucket of "flat fast course" results. Maybe some paved courses can go into that bucket as well.

           

          Perhaps a 24-hour result on a track is comparable to a 24-hr result on flat, looped paved course,

           

          But, putting all trail results into a bucket of "trail" results maybe doesn't make as much sense?

           

          Does it really make sense to say that all trail 100 results are comparable -- Javelin Jundred, Western States, Rocky Raccoon, and Massanutten?

           

          Disclaimer: I haven't run any of them, so I'm just trying to make up a case to illustrate the argument -- which wasn't really my argument, but it was one that some people brought up.

           

          I think I'm trying to say that whereas all fast courses are probably fairly similar, but all the rest vary a lot more, so they aren't so much a different category, as an uncertain number of other categories.

           

          This reminds me of this: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

           

           

          This later occurred to me: If PRs were grouped by some terrain type field under the user's control, I guess they could control the bucketing in that way -- if they consider Rocky Raccon and Javelina Jundred to be equivalent terrain, they can use the same setting for them.

          It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.

          bhearn


            As long as we are talking about PRs... one issue I have is that the PR is a function of the distance.

             

            Well, duh, right? Thing is, there is the nominal race distance (marathon, 50K), and the actual race distance, as reported by Garmin. OK, so maybe that's not the *actual* race distance, but the point is, I'd like my distance field to reflect the Garmin distance, while still lumping "marathons" together for PR purposes.

             

            For ultras especially, the nominal distance is often not the actual distance. I ran an official 26.4 trail "marathon". And 50Ks are often longer. 100s are often 101 or 102. Etc.

            npaden


              For the PR's you can just uncheck the box on one if you don't want it to be in your PR's.

               

              i.e. I've run 2 Half Marathons, one was 13.23 miles and the other was 13.35 miles per my GPS.  They were both showing up as PR's because they were slightly different distances. 

               

              I went into the workout of the one that took longer and edited it and right beside the box for workout type, I checked the box "exclude from PR".

               

              Now only one of my Half Marathons shows up and it is the distance I recorded on my GPS.

               

              On the trail race though, I personally think that trail races vary so much that each one should probably have it's own PR.  A 50 miler in August on a technical trail at a high elevation would end up with a completely different result than a 50 miler in November on a nice wide dirt path at a low elevation.  There is just way more variation in trail races than road races although you still can have a lot of varation in road races, think if someones marathon PR was Boston 2012.  That's an entirely more impresive PR than one on a flat easy course in ideal temperature.

              Age: 50 Weight: 224 Height: 6'3" (Goal weight 195)

              Current PR's:  Mara 3:14:36* (2017); HM 1:36:13 (2017); 10K 43:59 (2014); 5K 21:12 (2016)

                For the PR's you can just uncheck the box on one if you don't want it to be in your PR's.

                 

                i.e. I've run 2 Half Marathons, one was 13.23 miles and the other was 13.35 miles per my GPS.  They were both showing up as PR's because they were slightly different distances. 

                 

                I went into the workout of the one that took longer and edited it and right beside the box for workout type, I checked the box "exclude from PR".

                 

                Now only one of my Half Marathons shows up and it is the distance I recorded on my GPS.

                 

                On the trail race though, I personally think that trail races vary so much that each one should probably have it's own PR.  A 50 miler in August on a technical trail at a high elevation would end up with a completely different result than a 50 miler in November on a nice wide dirt path at a low elevation.  There is just way more variation in trail races than road races although you still can have a lot of varation in road races, think if someones marathon PR was Boston 2012.  That's an entirely more impresive PR than one on a flat easy course in ideal temperature.

                 

                GPS distance will almost never equal the event distance that you ran so what I do as well as many others here is to change your distance to the events distance so you end up with a list of all the races you completed at that distance.

                 

                For example, I would change the 13.23 and 13.35 races to 13.1 so they all show up when you click on the 13.1 or Half Marathon on your personal records list.

                 

                The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff

                 

                2014 Goals:

                 

                Stay healthy

                Enjoy life

                 

                  As long as we are talking about PRs... one issue I have is that the PR is a function of the distance.

                   

                  Well, duh, right? Thing is, there is the nominal race distance (marathon, 50K), and the actual race distance, as reported by Garmin. OK, so maybe that's not the *actual* race distance, but the point is, I'd like my distance field to reflect the Garmin distance, while still lumping "marathons" together for PR purposes.

                   

                  For ultras especially, the nominal distance is often not the actual distance. I ran an official 26.4 trail "marathon". And 50Ks are often longer. 100s are often 101 or 102. Etc.

                   

                  I'm trying to figure out why a seasoned runner as yourself would want to PR's based on the GPS distance?

                   

                  The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff

                   

                  2014 Goals:

                   

                  Stay healthy

                  Enjoy life

                   

                    I'm trying to figure out why a seasoned runner as yourself would want to PR's based on the GPS distance?

                     

                    I ran a race once called a "ten miler" that was officially 11.1 miles that year.  Trail races get weird re-routes sometimes and can have funny official distances despite the name.  

                     

                    The next year, the same race was actually 10.

                     

                    *shrug*

                    "When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem." 
                    Emil Zatopek

                    bhearn


                      Exactly. Often the official race distance is not exactly the nominal distance. But I would still like that 102-mile "100" to be my 100-mile PR, and that 32-mile "50K" to be my 50K PR.

                        I ran a race once called a "ten miler" that was officially 11.1 miles that year.  Trail races get weird re-routes sometimes and can have funny official distances despite the name.  

                         

                        The next year, the same race was actually 10.

                         

                        *shrug*

                         

                        Your senario makes sense when the official distance at the event changes although they advertise it as a 10 miler or whatever.

                         

                        I see you have three different 10k races that you have changed from the GPS distance recorded by your devices to a 10k distance. This is what I would expect most people to do as the GPS distance is not necessarily accurate and a person can rarely run the tangents anyway. I see some people have many PR's for a HM that are all within the standard deviations of their recording device and just don't get why. I wonder if those people also would like an elevation gain parameter to seperate PR's of the same distance since one may have been tougher because of the elevation change?

                         

                        Anyway, carry one.

                         

                        The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff

                         

                        2014 Goals:

                         

                        Stay healthy

                        Enjoy life

                         

                        npaden


                          GPS distance will almost never equal the event distance that you ran so what I do as well as many others here is to change your distance to the events distance so you end up with a list of all the races you completed at that distance.

                           

                          For example, I would change the 13.23 and 13.35 races to 13.1 so they all show up when you click on the 13.1 or Half Marathon on your personal records list.

                           

                          Ah...  I didn't know that they would all show up if you clicked on it.  I realize the GPS isn't the real event distance but I didn't think it really mattered one way or the other.  Being able to click on the 13.1 and have all the results show up would be nice.

                          Age: 50 Weight: 224 Height: 6'3" (Goal weight 195)

                          Current PR's:  Mara 3:14:36* (2017); HM 1:36:13 (2017); 10K 43:59 (2014); 5K 21:12 (2016)

                            Your senario makes sense when the official distance at the event changes although they advertise it as a 10 miler or whatever.

                             

                            I see you have three different 10k races that you have changed from the GPS distance recorded by your devices to a 10k distance. This is what I would expect most people to do as the GPS distance is not necessarily accurate and a person can rarely run the tangents anyway. I see some people have many PR's for a HM that are all within the standard deviations of their recording device and just don't get why. I wonder if those people also would like an elevation gain parameter to seperate PR's of the same distance since one may have been tougher because of the elevation change?

                             

                            Anyway, carry one.

                             

                            I completely agree with you.  I change my results to official distance, end of story.  I don't even personally care if I have separate road versus trail PRs--trails can vary so wildly I don't know if there's a point.  I was just illustrating bhearn's point.

                             

                            Putting "Trail Race" in the course name is enough for me to be happy. Smile

                            "When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem." 
                            Emil Zatopek

                              .... I wonder if those people also would like an elevation gain parameter to seperate PR's of the same distance since one may have been tougher because of the elevation change?

                               

                              Anyway, carry one.

                               Yes, please. Wink 

                               

                              I just do PR's or whatever by race, assuming it's the same route. (actually, I don't usually do PR's)  I use gps distance for reasonable comparisons. One "half-marathon" was about 0.5mi short, but relatively flat; another was listed as 13mi (and was just about that) but had 3500ft of uphill, about 2000ft of down, iirc (over a mtn pass).

                               

                              I've got another race which splits an 8-mi trail segment in "half" and call it a 4-mi race. One half is 3.5mi (both by gps and by trail distance markers), relatively flat; the other half is 4.5mi with about 1000ft of uphill and same down. They alternate years and sometimes directions.

                               

                              In my main log (access on desktop), I do log the duration, amount of uphill, and distance (as well as approximate time in HR zones). I haven't figured out how to add uphill to this log.

                              "So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog