Training Technology

Some of you probably already know that the Motion Based website is not accepting uploads anymore. This is the result of MotionBased Technologies LLC being acquired by Garmin Ltd. in October 2005. Garmin had their own website for uploading users' activities. My view was that it was pretty lousy. They must have agreed because they went out and acquired MotionBased, whose only apparent asset was a loyal following of Garmin users who uploaded activities to their site - which in my opinion was pretty good. So after a few years of meddling with the MotionBased application, Garmin shut it down and migrated everyone over to their new Garmin Connect site. The process wasn't easy as it was plagued by delays and problems. Finally, the move was made. And guess what? My review of Garmin Connect is ... that it's lousy. On top of that, I don't have MotionBased anymore. Thanks a lot Garmin!

So now I'm experimenting with Sports Tracks. So far I like the added functions, particularly the ability to slice and dice a run into various splits without the device actually having to be set for splits. For example, here's a chart of this morning's run:



I had my Garmin set for mile splits but once I got home, I had the application split my run into half mile segments. The chart effectively shows that I was successful in running a "pickup" today (too bad my overall pace was too slow!).

I'm enjoying Sports Tracks. One thing I'm still getting used to is that the application and data reside on my hard drive rather on a web-based server that I can access from anywhere over the web. Ultimately, it's probably better that I'm in control of my data and the application. Hopefully that means a Garmin-like takeover won't knock me off a favored application again!

As a footnote, I'm also experimenting with RunSaturday which offers a web-based application that appears to be open source.