New Badges!

As of today, there’s now 35 more badges that you can earn on Smashrun! Here’s what you need to know.

The Smashrun Pro badge series are the first badges where you can choose which runs count towards them. Basically, you can choose to earn them based on your registration date (that means we calculate the badges retroactively so you might earn a lot of them immediately) or based on the day you unlock them (such as from today onwards).

Some badges – like the travel series – are harder to earn if you’re starting from today, so you may be tempted to calculate your new badges based on the date you registered. But if, like many other Smashrunners, you have a long and multifaceted training history, you might find that you’ll earn at least half of all the new badges if you set the calculation to your registration date.

Either way – it’s up to you. And, if you change your mind, you can switch your badge calculation date for the Pro series on your profile settings. Below are the details on the new badge series!

Explore the World

travel-series

For runners who often go on “destination runs” or have the willpower to run while on vacation, there’s now a set of badges for travelers. Think of them as a good excuse to run in a new city, or just extra motivation to bring your running shoes the next time you schedule a trip abroad.

Astronomical Phases

astronomical-phases

There are early birds and there are night owls. Then there are those who like to schedule their running around sunrise and sunset. We like to think that there’s something a little special about running during certain astronomical phases, so we created the sunrise, sunset, full moon, and solstice badges. You can even start with the Winter Solstice, which is coming right up!

Further to Farther

further-to-farther

Some of these badges can be as challenging or as easy as you’d like it to be. The thought behind it is pretty simple – run a longer longest distance each month. That means it’s up to you. You can even tailor it to a training plan you’ve got in mind. Or you can use it as motivation to build up for your next event.

Pace Variability

pace-variability

Pacing, as a strategy, is one of the most successful ways to set personal bests. The pros swear by it. There’s empirical evidence to back it. And, honestly, it just makes a lot of sense. So, consider these as training badges towards your next several personal bests!

Alternating Days

alternating-days

We did the streaks, extended the streaks, and went as far as challenging runners to do a Leap Year Sweep! (By the way, 2016 is a Leap Year, if you want in on that badge.) This time, we’re rewarding runners who have a different kind of stick-to-it-ness. When you’re trying to break out of a rut, you need consistency. And running every other day is not a bad place to start.

Elevation Gained

elevation-gained

You can now earn an Everest badge! And you don’t even have to earn it in one single run. You get a whole month to stack up your elevation gains. If you’re not much of a hill runner – time to shake things up!

Great Ascents

great-ascents

These are harder than the elevation series. You have to earn each badge in one run. Just think of how awesome your legs and glutes will look after ascending the tallest man made structure in the world sans elevator.

Whew! Hopefully, these badges can keep you motivated during the dreadmill months!

UPDATE

Gareth Beavis is going to attempt to earn every single Smashrun badge in 2016. He’s tilting at windmills, foolhardy at best and totally insane at worst, but I can’t wait to read about his attempt in his regular column on TechRadar.

21 Comments

Andrey Shatalin

Hi,

Great, very exiting and lot’s of motivation!

BTW it’s really tempting to do Leap Year streak!

Thanks for the great motivation!

Reply
LeAnn Splitter

I think it gave me two in error (either that or the list of qualifying runs is wrong) – Top of Table and Eiffel Tower.

But weeee new badges, I’m excited!!! 🙂

Reply
Debbie Katahdin

There’s a bug in the reporting of the stats under the ascent badges. It’s displaying the number of meters but tacking on the label of “ft.” (For example this run: http://smashrun.com/debbie.katahdin/run/665075 had an ascent of 1230 ft. but the table of runs with the largest ascent has it listed as “375 ft” rather than “375 m”.) Love the new badges! Just in time to set some goals to keep focused through the winter!

Reply
LeAnn Splitter

Also, I just noticed that all the badges say that no one ever earned them…even the ones I’ve earned.

Reply
Jacklyn

Hi LeAnn! So, Top of Table checks out for August 2015. You had two high elevation runs that month (Aug. 2nd and Aug. 16th) that added up to 1474m. Over the Eiffel counts b/c you have two runs exceeding 301m (one on 5/17/15 and another on 8/02/15). The total number of people who’ve earned a badge updates overnight. If you’re the first person to earn that badge, you’ll usually see “no one has ever earned this badge”. Feel free to email me at jacklyn@smashrun.com if you spot anything else!

Ben Tuff

Love the new badges. May even get proper running again as life resettles. But those elevation badges…with dodgy Garmin data on elevation should be easy to climb Everest on a long run!

Reply
Chris

I know right? We explored developing out own elevation correction, but that has it’s own set of issues. The “Bad elevation” tag, helps for runs that are completely messed up, but when just about every run is off there’s not much to do. Still saving up for my own barometric altimeter watch….someday.

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Brian Ogilvie

Do the solstice and other sunrise/sunset badges use GPS data to determine local sunrise and sunset times?

Reply
Chris

Yes. We grab the sunrise, sunset along with the weather data and add it to the run. If you click the (i) info icon on the By Run page it’ll show you the sunrise/sunset times on the days of your runs.

Reply
Ed

Is the date of the solstice determined by local time or UTC?

Solstice is December 22 (Tuesday) in UTC, but it’s on the 21st local time in the US.

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Ed

So I discovered!

I ran at sunrise on the 21st just in case, and my one of my “notables” said “ran on the solstice” so I knew it was the right day to do it! 🙂

Chris

We talked about badges for running 1.234, 2.345, etc, but ultimately decided against them because of all the support issues. A lot of the different services we import from drop and round decimals, and it would drive people crazy.

Reply
Fuzzybudget

I thought there was a badge for running 6 mo. solid. I can’t seem to find it now. Am I imagining it?

Reply

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