This month marks 11 years since I started running as a way defense against aging (but mostly a mid-life crisis) and actually identify as a runner. You know, the person who won’t get out of bed unless there’s at least 5-6 miles to run and has more running shoes than regular shoes.
For over 8 years I’ve been a member of a local running club. On long runs, the coaches hand out small strips of paper with the turn-by-turn directions. I know they spend a lot of time writing these up, so I figured there had to be a better way.
I created Runsheet, a lightweight tool that takes GPX data (uploaded, as a Strava route or from your Strava account) and converts it into turn-by-turn directions.
Runsheet does make it easier to generate the turn-by-turn directions. But not without some complications.
First, GPX data is riddled with noise. So many waypoints and many of them meaningless. If you cross the street while running, this could be interpreted as a turn, but it isn’t.
Second, while our GPS-enabled running watches also use this same GPX data to guide us with turn-by-turn directions from our watch, they have a significant advantage of knowing your location and position. Runsheet is just a dumb app, so it has to do a good job guessing (while also filtering through so many useless GPX waypoints).
This makes for a lot of hand-wavy data decisions and, well, frequent mistakes. This isn’t software that is flying airplanes or used in surgery, so the stakes are about as low as possible. However, I wanted to get it right.
To give users some flexibility, I added the ability to remove a line of directions, update the line of directions, and insert a new line. Sometimes this can be handy for adding a note (“water cooler at end of street”) or just removing egregiously bad directions that the app just couldn’t get right.
This is very much a niche side project but maybe you’ll find it helpful. If you do, let me know.
