I'd be interested to know how you developed and validated the algorithm that does the part above in bold.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

 




Id be happy to go into some of the details but not all. So as you know heart rate has a large degree of variability compared to power which has none. Heart rate can vary if you are stressed, slept badly, just eaten, are fatigued, etc. This to say HR based stress calculations will never be as accurate as power based ones.
So the actual stress is calculated with the exact same mathematical formula as power stress is, where the main input is the "normalized" value, or "effective average", "NP", whatever you want to call it divided by the threshold value (IF). How I get to the normalized heart rate and HR threshold value will remain my secret.
As for the validation I simply compared the HR stress/fatigue/form to its power based counterparts (for cycling) and they track beautifully.
You may say fatigue and form build differently for running/swimming than for cycling (different muscles etc) but those differences are impossible to measure. Perhaps when we get power based running? For now consider this estimated fatigue/form not actual.

Just an FYI: Normalized power, intensity factor, and training stress score are all trademarked by TrainingPeaks. Although they like to think of themselves as Switzerland, they started cracking down on transgressors the last few year once they finally recognized that they were under existential threat. Unless you want to get sued over what appears to simply be a labor of love, you should remove those metrics.

Yes, thanks for the heads up. I was aware of the trademarks and wasnt planning on using those exact terms. The formulas I use diverge so technically speaking the metrics are not the same. I will definitely change the vocabulary used and remove the tss/if metrics.

Andrew just realized who you actually were. Well its quite an honour. Thank you for all the great work you've done!
So I have officially removed any mention of Training Stress, IF and normalized power. My apologises.
I noticed strava uses "weighted average" so I have decided to go with "effective average". Hope thats ok and that Im not infringing any law.
As I mentioned this is still a beta project, and so there is no official company registry yet or any production website as of yet. So if there are any other legalities needed to be fixed I'd be happy to correct whatever is needed. All the best.

I use Strava and Training Peaks. Training Peaks gives me the ability to easily create a training plan form myself, input daily metrics such as weight, and has the ability to easily chart data over any time period. Also the ride analysis and incorporation of normalized power is key for me. I use Strava for their segmenting, route planning (mapping my own routes and checking out other people's routes for new suggestions), and social media. If someone could combine the two effectively, I'd be all over it.

Thats what Im attempting but I realize its going to be an uphill struggle and a goal I might not ever achieve. Only time will tell :) First goal is for the website to go into full production mode. But as many have mentioned its still far from ready. Need to improve on user interface, aesthetics, content and hey even the name. I need a new brand name! haha Better to laugh than cry.

I have NOT quoted your reply to try and avoid a point-by-counterpoint reply.

I AM a professional programmer...or rather was for 15 years. I'm now a product manager for a team of professional programmers. I AM a business oriented person. I DO think in terms of market spaces; and gaps. So, my responses thus far ARE in THAT context---that of 25 year veteran of the software industry who wrote code professionally for 15 years, and has been a software product manager for the last 10. My "hobby", and "high school" comments were specifically from that context. To be more useful...

I think the market space is RIPE for disruption, by someone with the foresight to see what is missing, and the skills and team to bring those to market. Training Peaks is the best of the worst, if you take my meaning. Its really the ONLY hard core site focused on PLANNING and TRAINING in multisport. Strava is social first---and is really a LOG, not a planner. GC is more about the Garmin platform, and selling Garmin products (If you don't have a Garmin, it doesn't exist for you)--you can plan with GC, but that's not its purpose and it shows. TP is about the training, and its just good enough to keep me from looking around too hard for something better...but, boy I get frustrated with it a lot. I've used it for nearly 20 years---back when EVERYTHING was manually entered. I've made countless suggestions over the years. It seems like they just barely crawl in creating new features of squashing off long standing bugs. I wish their dev cycle was 10 times faster.

But, that's the problem for them:: they have a huge established user base, and they have lots of overhead to ensure that we all don't get ticked off when something new breaks everything. A new sight doesn't have that limitation. You can do anything you want, as long as you don't have very many users.

What do I want, that I haven't seen done well, yet?

1. Better planning.
2. Better contextualize analysis.


Planning: When I say this I mean a much more connected way of assisting me with the planning process all the way from developing the ATP to match my race goals, and vacation schedule...down to planning week structures, and daily workouts. I want something that lets me think about what I need to (training principles), and handles the rest. Training peaks simply has an ATP, and a calendar---there's no middle man between the two that helps me go from the big picture to the little picture. there are lots of ways to skin that cat, I've tried a few over the years. TP doesn't do any of them.

Contextualized Analysis: I want to compare swims/bikes/runs of a certain type, or over a certain course, or under certain conditions. I want to compare power or pace or EF or some other metric. Maybe I want to compare best 10min average NP for interval #2 on my weekly SS.x workouts where the temperature was between 90-95F. Maybe I want to look at EF/kg vs. TSS for bike workouts. As I look at my current season, and try to compare to previous seasons, I'm usually trying to assess if I'm doing better or worse than last year (or the year before). EG, am I faster than I was last year for the same workload? That requires controlling for variables that confound the answer (temperature and humidity being heavy hitters).

I could go on and on.

Tom thanks for the great reply. I see where you are coming from and in that perspective I have a long long way to go (a little higher than highschool though) hehe. But I really respect your opinion coming from a long time professional. I can see how my project may seem a little far fetched to you considering specially that I have no programming background.

As for the two items you brought up. At the moment I have a very elementary calendar with manual activity insertion (scheduling) and a chart that shows how that effects your metrics. Having a software help you schedule your training plan is a whole new ball game. Programming wise not an easy thing to do. But its a great idea and something to leave simmering at the back of my head.

As for the comparison side of things there is a lot that can be done. I already have a very basic feature that matches courses but then only presents a map and elevation charts with icons showing the route progress over time on the map. So a position comparison only. Another great idea so thanks. I'll look into this and start thinking of how I can implement more things along these lines.

I don’t know if others will find this useful, but here I go:

1. Swimming baffles me. Garmin collects great data, but you cannot graph it all. I would love to be able to overlay stroke rate, strokes per minute, stroke length, lap speed, etc... this could help me evaluate changes in form and the impact on speed.

2. Lap data - I would love to be able to customize the order of the columns and suppress lines for warm up, rest intervals and cool down. I like to evaluate my work intervals and hate how clunky it is on Garmin connect. Strava or at least the free version doesn’t display proper lap data.

3. Strava is more social media for me. I don’t use it for analytics. But I do like that I can get trends on similar routes. I also like the grade adjusted pace for running. It would be great to get the GAP for my work intervals while evaluating my running. The best I have found I can do now is look at my avg. cadence and heart rate to assess how I am doing when I run my intervals over a rolling terrain. GAP would be a helpful tool after the fact.

4. Cycling metrics - Garmin displays them. I am not sure if they are recorded anywhere. But it would be nice to see them and graph them in your tool.

5. I would like to be able to tag a run after a bike ride as a BRICK RUN. So that I could differentiate between a straight up run.

Hope this helps

Ability to at least choose chronological ordering of your and connected people's activites - none of this "we pick what you think you want to see" ordering that Strava has just brought in.

Hmm, I must be a non-social triathlete guy, I don't "Strava" & I certainly don't "Map My Anything"...I do use TP though to track my fun.

I'll second this. I hate when someone I follow on Strava uploads 2 month old workouts and they show up on the top of my feed.

Very cool hobby and excited to see what you have to offer.
Welcome to ST, I see others have given you a nice ST brash welcome.

Look into this thread about knowing the air quality of your running/cycling routes, you might want to follow it for some ideas link here.

Heart rate peek feature caught my attention - very cool would definitely like to see this in action.

Data analyst here, keep me in mind if you need help collecting and analyzing your data.

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Grow with data: Dynamic Sports Data | eBay store

Hi and welcome to ST! I must say that, like others pointed out, it's good idea to create a new strava-like website. This always brings new ideas to the fore and every product ends up copying the best ones, so every website has a chance to improve.

My 5 cents would be adding a module which would warn users if they are showing signs of excessive exercising, since it seems to be an issue with these new technologies:
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/...cise-cyclists-391136

Good luck with your endevour, I hope the final product looks and works very well!