Friends’ weekly scorecard

Improving the friends drop-down

We’ve had several users in the past request that we add their total weekly distance on the friends drop-down. We’ve also had a few users request the ability to compare their weekly distance with the Smashrunners they follow. We added both. They might seem like minor additions, but both changes will hopefully encourage you to keep running!

Revised friends' drop-down

If you currently follow other Smashrun users, you’ll get a tooltip the next time you login telling you about the new and improved friends drop-down. If you’re running solo, here’s how it works:

  • Friends appear in the order of the most recent run.
  • The intensity of the color bar indicates how many more or fewer miles they ran than you did so far this week.

So, if your name is first on the list, then that means that you’ve run more recently than any of your friends have. And, if all of your friends have green bars next to their cards, then you’ve run more miles than any of your friends have so far this week. The total distance is calculated on a trailing 7-day period (so that includes today and 6 days back).

If any of your friends have not run at least once in the last 7 days, their stats will appear faded so you can focus more on those who ran recently.

A patch for a few Garmin users

We also included a patch for the Garmin importer. Summary stats should now match what you see on Garmin Connect. If not, please let us know so we can take a look at it!

New badge, beacon and weather

A badge for the polyglots

For those who missed our post on Facebook and Twitter, Smashrun is currently working on translating the badges to multiple languages! It’s the first big step towards internationalizing the site and, soon after, we’ll tackle the trickier task of translating the main interface.

Translator Badge To acknowledge those who are helping us, we’ve created the Translator badge. The languages we’re currently translating include: Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese(Brazil), Serbian, and Spanish.

We can add more but, at the moment, we’re only adding the ones where we’ve got translators. If you’d like to contribute to a language, please send an email to hi@smashrun.com – we’ll have you set up and ready to go!

A new tool for diagnosing your imports

Our code base for evaluating the data integrity of different apps and devices is a beast. It looks for every possible way that your data can get messed up based on what we’ve seen in the past: time traveling imports, GPS teleportation, multiple dupes of the same trackpoint, large data gaps that just went walkabout – we mean everything. We’ve also been using those tools to diagnose problems when users report data issues. We’re giving you those exact same tools.

If something is wrong with your import, you’ll see a little beacon show up in your toolbox. Click on it and it will let you know what adjustments we’ve made to clean up the data. And, like the rest of the toolbox components, the beacon is hidden from anyone viewing your runs.

Beacon

Weather data migration

We’ve given it some thought. Err… lots of thought, and we decided we’re moving everyone to the paid weather service provider that we had previously used only for our Pro users. We discovered that there were just too many gaps in the free weather service. So, we’re moving everyone to Forecast.io which is far more comprehensive. We’ll now import weather for runs within the past 3 days, so if you ran within that timeframe we should be able to get your weather (pro users will continue to have weather for their runs backfilled for their entire run history).

More fixes! Because we love fixing stuff!

– Tweaks to the pause detection

– GPX import failures due to erroneous values within trackpoints should now import

– Fixes for the “In it” badges and the Ultramarathon badge (fixed after your next import)

– FB auto-publish for imports via email should now work

– Actually, import via email notification should also dismiss on first try (let us know if not!)

Editing weather

Edit weather

You can now edit your weather for your run.

And a few fixes:

  • Improved our pause detection algorithm for apps that don’t mark off pauses in files
  • Pro user goal target now shows the target for end of day today, not yesterday (which was really silly)
  • Added several additional calculated values to the Pro section of the run info modal: purdy points, METS, overall average hill grade, average grade of just uphill sections, percent of the run that was flat/uphill/downhill, maximum hill grade.

New shortcuts on the by run page

No more flipping back between the run list and the by run page. Woohoo!

Run toolbox

We’ve added some new shortcuts just under the calendar so that you can now easily do all of the following directly from the run view:

  • Publish a run to Facebook or Twitter
  • Edit a run’s details
  • Delete a run
  • View extra details about a run

Weather Updates

Weather on newly imported data should be a bit more accurate now. We’ve fixed some timezone related bugs and we’re also now interpolating the temperature if it falls between 2 readings. So if, for example, you start your ran at 7:15am and finish at 7:45am we’ll take the midpoint of your run (7:30) and get the 2 nearest available readings. These are usually by the hour, but may be much longer depending on where you are. So, we’d grab the 7am temperature and the 8am temperature and since 7:30 is 50% of the way between the two we’d split the difference. If the available weather readings are few and far between or if there’s a sudden change in temperature this can actually make a pretty big difference.

Once we’re sure these changes are working we’ll rerun them historically. There’s definitely some limitations of the weather services we’re using, but hoping this iteration should be much closer to matching reality.

Introducing Smashweather

Weather icons

Weather is a part of every run. You may slog through a long, midday run on a steamy August day and wonder why you even bothered. Or perhaps, on the first day of spring after a long winter, that same sun might inspire you to turn a long slow distance into a joyous fartlek. Or an approaching storm, may force you to run it out, only to get caught up in it, soaked through to the bone, leaving you overwhelmed with a glorious joie de vivre, suddenly aware of the natural world and your own glorious track star in training place in it all.

So it seems like we should put it somewhere on your By Run page. For now, we’re using free data sources for the last 30 days of history, and a paid data source for our pro user’s for the last 5 years. It’s actually a pretty mean feat, figuring out if it happened to rain on the particular patch of the planet that you were running across, on the particular hour you were running across it, four and half years ago. If you look at it that way, the data is really not bad. However, I think we might have to build some sort of edit weather functionality at some point so you can correct it when it’s wrong.

The global standards for weather types are super comprehensive. Sure 99% of the weather you might ever run in will fall neatly in the sunny to rainy spectrum you see on your local TV weather report, but what if you find yourself running in (or more likely away from, at top speed) an approaching sandstorm? Fear not! We’ve got you covered! (Well, at least, the reporting-after-the-fact bit. As far as the escaping-getting-sandblasted bit goes, I’m afraid you’re on your own.)

Also, if your run has a significant heat index (usually humidity over 50% and temp > 80F/27C) or a significant wind chill, a small triangle will appear next to the temperature that you can use to cycle your weather to view that effect.

Almost everyone should now be getting their runs updated with new data as you import them (provided they’re not more than 30 days old). And we’ve got a process running now, slowly slogging through all the back data of our pro users over the last 5 or so years, and updating the weather where it’s available. It’s looking like some locations might be having trouble. It just depends on if you’re near a supported weather station or not. We’ll be on the lookout for new data sources, and see if we can improve the data quality for everyone.

To provide the weather data, we’re currently using a combination of weather sources including: ForecastIO and OpenWeatherMap

Also, in this release we fixed the following issues:

  • Safari browser edit run bug
  • Issues with streaks on the one year view
  • Fixes for some extra pause issues with Garmin runs

June Patch

Last night’s patch should address all of the Nike import issues that some users have been having recently. If your initial sync doesn’t work, please try setting a new minimum import date within settings > synced devices > then sync again.

Email us at hi@smashrun.com if you are still getting an error.

Other fixes included in this patch are listed below:

  • Restored the ability to view split data for HR, cadence, & elevation in the Pro Map
  • Negative average pace due to corrupt Garmin data is fixed
  • Editing a run should no longer take you to a run other than the one you just edited
  • Improved tracking for user referrals
  • Pro users can view the colorpicker photo as well (and there’s a new one!) > to view the default pro colorpicker, just exit the colorpicker photo and open it again

For iSmoothRun users: TCX exports that were not importing previously should now work. Some exports from iSmoothRun were missing GPS coordinates early in the run, which triggered an error when Smashrun tried to parse it.

If you’re using iSmoothRun and are still getting an error while trying to import a TCX file into Smashrun, you should give these troubleshooting steps a try (courtesy of iSmoothRun):

  1. Phone’s settings > General > Background refresh > ON and ON for iSmoothRun
  2. Phone’s settings > Privacy > Location services > iSmoothRun > ON
  3. iSmoothRun Settings > Advanced settings > GPS threshold should be 120-150 meters

Nike import error

The latest changes on Nike’s site have recently affected certain user accounts, which is causing Nike imports to fail on Smashrun. For those who are affected, we have been informed that Nike Support is currently doing manual fixes on an account-by-account basis.

From what we can tell, the cause appears to be one of three things: (1) the user is unable to log in to Nike’s website with correct credentials, (2) the user gets an error page when trying to view run activities or upon logging in, or (3) the user is unable to load their All Time activity view of their runs on Nike.

If you’re unable to view your stats on Nike’s site because your profile is broken or your activities are not loading, neither can we.

Here’s how to check if your import error is related: log in to Nike’s site > click on Activity > click ALL.

2014-06-11_1844 2014-06-11_1845

If it loads the map with all your runs, send us an email – we’ll need to investigate further.

If the loading screen just keeps trying to load, then it’s probably failing.

  • Tweet @NikeSupport and, apparently, they can fix it within the hour
    (thanks, Cecilia!)
  • Or call Nike Support at 800-379-6453 and they can fix it as well
    (thanks, Jonathan!)

Laps and Improved Segment Selection

We’ve made a couple of recent changes to Smashrun’s Pro Map!

  • You can now view laps within the Pro Map if you upload a run from a TCX file*
  • Switching between map filters no longer resets pace buckets/ HR zones etc
  • Mouse over filter will only show the overlay for the selected segment
  • Selecting segments, splits, or laps can be reset
*This is really the first step towards broader support for lap data. Two things to note: (1) laps will not be retroactively added to previous runs imported as a TCX file and (2) if you’ve got more than 28 laps, it’ll overflow from the container so… we’ll fix that.
Retain selection between filters Reset splits, laps, and segments

We also included a small section at the bottom of the settings > sync page where you can tweet at some of your favorite apps/devices to help us convince them to integrate with Smashrun!

New features and lots of fixes for April

Last night we released some new features and a patch that addresses several issues concerning the Garmin importer, delayed ranks, and import notifications, among others.

Below is the detailed list of all the feature additions and fixes for this release!

Elevation graph for Smashrun Pro users

Upon request from one of our Pro users (thanks, Adam S.!), we decided to include the elevation profile within the Pro Map. Now, when you click on the hill grade filter, the graph will show the actual shape of the elevation gain/loss. Mousing over it will show the percentage grade while the actual elevation at each point is reflected on the map.

Smashrun Pro Elevation Graph

Unlockable background images

To give users slightly more control over the look and feel of their profile, we’re introducing unlockable background images based on the number of badges you’ve earned on Smashrun! Smashrun Pro users and Founding Members will have exclusive access to certain backgrounds. To check out which background images you’ve unlocked, just go to your settings profile page.

Background image setting location

To change your background image, just select one that you’ve already unlocked, click OK, and you’re good to go.

Background image options

Run facts after importing new runs

Similar to Smashrun’s “notables”, we recently added Run Facts which appear after you import a new run. We calculate them based on identified patterns after comparing your new run(s) against your historical data, so you’ll know when you log a run that’s faster, slower, shorter, or longer than your usual runs.

Run fact

If you’re a Pro user, we’ll also let you know about patterns involving your best performing runs based on SPI, HR, and pace variability.

Import zip files

Previously, bulk imports could only be done by combining several runs within a single TCX file. Now you can import a zipped file that includes several GPX/TCX files! The process for uploading the file is the same as a standard GPX/TCX upload: mouse over the gear icon on Overview and select “Import file”.

Note: If you’re uploading treadmill runs, before you zip the files – make sure that they’re in TCX format, because GPX only includes latitude and longitude points. Treadmill runs would essentially produce “blank” GPX files. They won’t have any of your run data.

Import file

Share Smashrun Pro Maps
Adding #map at the end of a unique run’s URL will allow you to share that run’s map. This makes it easier for visitors to go straight to the Pro Map features. Check out one of my recent runs: http://smashrun.com/jacklyn.giron/run/994673#map. Of course, the URL wouldn’t work if your privacy setting is set to hide your run map details.

Facebook posts use Open Graph API

Smashrun has just integrated the latest version of Facebook’s Open Graph API so you can now share a map of your run and view your monthly totals on Facebook. However, there are a few caveats: Facebook needs to approve us to pass your custom comments (part of the Facebook auto-poster) and they also need to approve us for “explicit sharing”. Otherwise, your posts will not always show up on your news feed.

It doesn’t mean that it didn’t post, Facebook’s API is just making a decision on whether or not to display it… when it feels like it.

First, you’ll need to re-authorize Smashrun to post your runs from your Facebook settings page. The next time you post a run, it will look a bit different. You can choose to hide your map and/or your pace. There might be a short lag after you click “Publish” (we’ll add a spinner in our next release) – you’ll get a notification that it was successfully published to Facebook.

FB_post

By default, it will display your map, distance, speed, pace, and duration.

Facebook post

Also, this is only a theory but, if you like your own Facebook post, it’s more likely to show up in your friends’ news feed as well. A little trickery for Facebook’s API! We’ll update everyone as soon as the auto-poster content is back in business.

New colorpicker

Smashrun users will have access to a new colorpicker this month (thanks, Frank C.!). If you have your own colorful running-related photo that you’d like us to consider, send us an email at hi@smashrun.com. You could earn the colorpicker badge.

Beta support for Magellan Active sync

If you’re running with a Magellan Echo, Magellan Switch or Magellan Switch Up, you can now sync your data to Smashrun.

Magellan Sync

Currently, we’re still in the early stages of Magellan’s integration, but it should be stable enough to import your runs without any trouble. Please let us know if you find otherwise. The setup process can be done from the bottom of the settings synced devices page.

Additionally, if you have a bunch of FIT files that you would like to import into Smashrun, you can also upload those files into Magellan Active and then sync them with your Smashrun account.

As mentioned, there were also a lot of fixes that went out into this release. For those interested, here’s the quick rundown:

* Fixed the delay in ranks

* New Zealand Time Zone issue is fixed (thanks, Peter S.!)

* Optimizations to the Garmin importer for treadmill runs and re-importing old runs

* Custom fix to Garmin’s reversed SumDistance errors

* Facebook auto-post will now post runs imported via email

* Goal setting deadline is now set to midnight for the 1st day of the subsequent month

* Removed auto-fill for goals

* If you lose HR data during your run, it will no longer zero out on Smashrun

* SPI for deleted runs no longer show up in Pace Trends (or on the Trailing 90-day SPI)

* Hidden data will no longer show up for fastest runs of a similar distance

* Badge and import notifications should no longer overlap

* Blog post notifications are dismissed once clicked

* Email imports won’t send email message if at least one importable file is attached (thanks, Terry G.!)

Thanks to everyone who reported bugs. Your feedback helps us keep Smashrun in good shape. If we missed anything, please send us an email and we’ll try and include it in our patch.

“Heartbleed” vulnerability update

It is possible that you have read the news this week of a serious security vulnerability in the “openssl” library that undergirds a large amount of SSL/TLS traffic on the internet: CVE-2014-0160 is the official reference to what is being called the “heartbleed” vulnerability. It was named such because the specific problem is with the OpenSSL library’s implementation of the new heartbeat extension built into the TLS/DTLS protocol. Exploiting this vulnerability permits a remote attacker to read the memory of an impacted system remotely, without leaving a trace.

Yes, it is a scary bug: Smashrun Ops takes security very seriously. There are two important things to note at this time.

1. The infrastructure directly supporting, and with access to, your customer data was not impacted by this security flaw at any point in time. The tier that handles your login and demographic information, and the certificate that encrypted your credit card information, were not impacted because that infrastructure does not use the openssl library at all.

2. Smashrun owns supporting infrastructure, that does not have direct access to customer data, that was running a vulnerable version of OpenSSL. This infrastructure has been completely patched, and is believed to be exploit-free.

We thank you for trusting us with your personal information. And we thank you for your continued patronage.

Smashrun Ops