SportTracks Software

Since my four mile run yesterday went along uneventfully (10:13 pace, 80% MHR), I thought I would spend today's blog highlighting SportTracks - the software that I use as my training diary.

Like most Garmin owners, I started out using Garmin Training Center (GTC). I was in heaven to be able to record a workout and then analyze data afterwards. There is nothing that keep me more motivated than looking at improvement over time. So - everything was going just fine in GTC until I bought a new computer running Vista. All of a sudden, GTC stopped working (actually still worked but would not save new data - that's another story though). I started looking for options. At the time I was also using an online service at Training Peaks, but didn't feel that it was worth the expense ($129 a year on a subscription basis). So as I was poking around, there were a bunch of people on the Runner's World Gear and Electronics forum talking about this software called SportTracks. What I found was a piece of software that does everything that I was using GTC for (with one exception) and then some. There's been no looking back.

SportTracks is a software application that is available at ZoneFive Software. It is not an online product. It is a product that runs on your computer (as does GTC). This is important if you want the portability of an online product. Since I always have my computer close by, having an online product is not was not important to me. The other important requirement is that it is only PC compatible (sorry Mac owners!). Downloading and installation is effortless. Best of all, the product is free (although the publishers welcome donations).

Now, I'm not going to go through all of the functions and features of the product - you can get that from ZoneFive's website. But I will go through those that were important to me. First, the user interface is very nice. Clean, simple, yet provides all of the important data that I wanted to see:

Changing a view is as simple as selecting from a drop down:

For example, changing from a summary view to a split view is as easy as selecting the "Splits" view from the drop down:


Now for the really cool stuff. One of the issues that I always had is that the way I want to perform a workout is different from the way I want to track data. For example, if I have a 12 mile 3/1 LSD (3/4's of the run at LSD pace, 1/4 at HM pace), I need feedback from my watch on pace for the first 9 miles and the last 3 miles. But, in GTC, to view mile splits, I would have to set AutoIntervals on the Garmin. This means that pace data would reset each mile as well. Well, the cool thing with SportTracks, is that I am able to capture data on the Garmin using one set of criteria, and then analyze the data using different criteria! Take for example, the aforementiond 12 mile LSD. Here is the way pace data comes into SportTracks from my Garmin:

Then, by just changing the split criteria through a simple drop down:

I get what I am looking for - pace by mile:

As you can see, this product is a very full featured rich product that anyone with a Garmin should be using. Check it out if you are looking for something that provides a wealth of data analysis tools.

The only caveat - the only thing that the product does not do is allow you to upload workouts to your Garmin. There is a "plugin" that supposedly allows you to do this, but I have yet to get the time to check it out. IN the meantime, I still rely on GTC to build and enter workouts into my Forerunner.

A Six Mile Jog

Oh - and here's my right lung. If I coughed up one lung Monday night, then I sure left the other one last night! My run went off without a hitch. I kept things slow (10:28 pace, 81% MHR). I'm getting impatient because I want to run faster, but after a month off, I keep bringing myself back to the fact that I'm not where I was last December. Grrr. And, in actuality, after looking at the data from my Garmin, I'm not all that far back from where I was last month.

Just when I thought you couldn't teach an old dog (and I'm getting older by the day) new tricks, I learned yesterday how to edit data from my Garmin. Every now and then, I forget to turn my Garmin off when I'm done. When I download my watch into SportTracks, I end up with a map that has a long straight line from finish to home! In the past, I didn't know how to get rid of the data, so I would just manually enter the run. But last night I figured it out!

First thing is to download the data from your Garmin to SportTracks. Select the run that you need to edit from your Daily Activity pane. Then, select "Edit Activity" and "Split" from the submenu:

The next window is a windows where you actually split your activity into two parts. I *always* look at my watch when I finish a run. I knew that my finish time last night was 1:02.21. So, I slid the slider control until the time aligned:



This edit control will split your workout into two pieces. So, the last thing to do is to delete the second portion workout that was created:




I had to check the calories and have SportTracks recalculate those, but I was left with a map and data that looked like my run!

You Learn Something New...

...every day. A couple of days ago I learned something new about SportTracks. I have been using that application to store my training data for several months. I find that the standard reports provide a wealth of information and make it easy for me to review and analyze training data. The one issue that I was having (at least until last week) is that I wanted to be able to train with one goal in mind, and analyze data differently. For example, my workout today will be four miles at 75% MHR max. I can easily set up a workout on my Garmin to do that. But, when I look at training data in SportTracks, I want to review my pace by mile. I always thought that I could only analyze data the same way it was recorded, so if I had a four mile workout, I could only view a single four mile lap:


Up until last week, the way I would deal with this was to create a workout that had four repeats of one mile each with heart rate in the proper zone. The problem with this is that if my goal is average heart rate or pace over a certain distance, the average is reset every lap.


Last week, as I was browsing the Gear and Electronics Forum over at Runnersworld, one of the posts talked about a feature that I had no idea was there. In "splits" view, there is a way to select how you want to set laps for analysis! So, even though the device recorded a single four mile lap, by selecting the proper view, I can look at my pace by mile! Woo hoo!


I think that SportTracks has become my "perfect" app!

As far as my workout yesterday - a little four mile recovery run on the bluff overlooking the ocean at Crystal Cove. Today's plan is four more easy miles.