A few weeks ago Strava decided that it would add AI functionality to it’s app. It is for this reason that I decided to restrict which apps talked with Strava. Now Strava is doing the reverse. It has blocked access to its API so that other apps cannot use its own data.
This, in my eyes is short sighted. Strava is not the primary source of data. Garmin, Sunnto, Apple and others are.
The Apple Fitness App now has Training Load data. It looks at the workouts you have done over the last 7 days and compares it to the last 28 days. In theory this is interesting but in practice I find it frustrating.
To be specific about what I find frustrating, the Apple watch has more than 1900 workout days to gather data from. Training Today and Gentler Streak both measure HRV and assess whether I am overdoing it, within the zone or slacking off.
The automatic reflex is to wear a fitness tracker on the wrist so that it may measure heart rate but also so that we may look at the data that it is capturing without using an app. The issue with this habit is that we need to stop wearing a classic watch, as a result.
Fitness trackers want to be worn non-stop for between 3 days to four weeks before giving proper usable data as is the case with the Epix Gen 2 but also all Apple Watches, Garmin devices, Suunto and others.
Today I went for a run and the Garmin Epix Gen 2 labelled it as unproductive. Yesterday I went for a 5k run and I wore the Garmin Instinct Solar with the HRM-Pro Plus and it was just marked as a wrong. I was curious to see if I would get more running with this belt and the Garmin Instinct Solar and the answer is “nope” so the heart rate strap is not an Epix Gen 2 replacement.
For two days I rode twenty five kilometres, which, by my standards, are quite small rides. Today I rode with a group and for a while I was fine but then, when I climbed from Nyon towards Duillier I began to feel that I was fatigued. I slowed down and I couldn’t keep up with the group, or more accurately, the group had better acceleration and once you’re dropped you have to make more effort.
Yesterday I finally tested Publibike after years of considering these bikes. There is a paradox. I think nothing of spending three francs, for a coke, rivella, hot chocolate or coffee but the idea of paying 3 CHF to use a bike for a six minute ride is disturbing. I didn’t pay for six minutes, because that was my first ride. I paid 3 CHF for 11 minutes.
In Line With the Price of Coffee When you compare it to the price of a coffee or a coke, or a can of redbull from a vending machine the price is reasonable.
Two days ago Strava came out with their “Quick edit” feature that is actually nothing new. They claim that it will simplify renaming activities to get more likes but that’s not what the “simple edit” is about. It’s about renaming activities to train AI.
Some apps will call a run Morges Run, or Nyon Cycle or Gruyère walk but Strava, until now has called runs “morning, afternoon, evening or other. Finding old runs, with strava is very hard, if you want to find by location, distance or sport.
Doing the Via Ferrata(VF) on Sunday, and then hiking down was physical. For a start, I was doing a Via Ferrata, something that I have done once, before, within the last six or seven years. The hike down was also quite physical. Combined the VF and the hike tired me.
62 Hours of Rest According to Sportstracker I needed to give myself 62 hours to recover from the huge effort. It’s over 400 minutes of exercise, of which some of it was walking at up to 1900m for the first time in years.
I have had the Xiaomi Band 7 for a while but I didn’t wear it properly until the start of the new year. As a silly concept I thought that I would try to wear it for the entire year and so far I have kept to that resolution. Sometimes it’s worth trying the cheapest device that you can find to see how it differs from the flagships by Suunto, Garmin and Apple.
Yesterday it snowed for several hours and that snow was covering the path to my house. When I saw the ground turn from asphalt black to grey, to white I decided to go and start clearing the snow. It’s easy to clear snow when you have three or four centimetres, rather than more. At first it was light and easy to move so I cleared the path once, and then a second time, and then a third, and by the third I decided to stop.