I’m a bit of a data junkie, and nowhere is this more evident than in the spreadsheets I’ve kept for decades detailing my workouts. I do this not because I have an accounting degree, nor because I’m OCD (although one of those things is definitely true and the other is probably true). I keep records as a motivational tool. The presence of blank rows on the spreadsheet is a reminder that I’m probably falling short of my workout goals…which aren’t all that challenging but they do emphasize consistency.
For years I’ve tracked my running workouts with a phone app called MapMyRun. There’s a similar app called MapMyRide for bicyclists, but I rely on my bike computer and rarely remember to turn on MapMyRide. I rely on MapMyRun to record time and distance; it also provides data on split times – which I generally don’t care about – and elevation gain – which I care about now that I live in the Hill Country but the accuracy of which is questionable. It also has some social features that I absolutely don’t use.
MapMyRun satisfies the data junkie in me, but life is more than data, right? (Feel free to discuss this burning question amongst yourselves; I’ll wait.) Data can be enhanced by visualization, and I recently learned of yet another application that does just that for the workouts recorded by MapMyRun.
Relive is a free app that integrates rather seamlessly with MapMyRun (as well as other fitness apps such as Strava, Garmin, and others) to create a short video recapping your workout by unwinding the route onto a satellite map (said map is provided by ESRI, the good folks that make the gold-standard GIS software, ArcGIS). The aerial view doesn’t exactly provide a virtual reality experience, but it is definitely an interesting way to relive (!) the workout. The app also drops a pin on the point of highest elevation on the route, then overlays some statistics at the end (duration, pace, mileage, elevation gain – which, again, should be taken with a grain of salt). The app also generates an elevation profile of the route that spools out along the top of the window as the video progresses.
Relive doesn’t provide many options for the unpaid version of the app. You can specify whether the video will be automatically created as soon as you save your workout, vs. manually specifying when it should be created. You can do some minimal editing such as changing the title font or adding photos you took during the workout…and if you’re coordinated enough to take pictures during a run, you have my admiration and respect. There’s a paid upgrade (isn’t there always?) that provides additional after-the-fact editing, but I haven’t felt compelled to do that.
If you decide to try out the app, keep in mind that the app only retains 20 videos (I assume the paid version expands that number), and you must click the star icon to flag a video for saving. Otherwise, you can get back to the video only going to the link provided in the notification email, and that link is saved nowhere else (that I could find).
There’s no compelling reason to make Relive a part of your suite of fitness apps, but it is an interesting concept. [Update: I’ve deleted my Relive account after letting it sit dormant for more than a year and realizing that I didn’t miss it.]
May God grant me the serenity to log the things I can, the discipline to avoid the things I can’t, and the self-deception to think that it’s all quite important.