Thanksgiving 2019 — Tempo Turkey Trot

It’s thanksgiving here in the US, and I wanted to thank you all amazing runners out there. I am grateful for your support and love for Tempo.

Tempo has enabled me to become a part of a worldwide running community. In the spirit of that virtual community connection, I want to try something with a giveaway — let’s do a worldwide virtual 5K Tempo Turkey Trot through this weekend. Between today (Nov 28) through Sunday (Dec 1), do a 5K run, and share it with @TempoLog on twitter. We will pick 3 random runners for a promo code towards free 1-year subscription to Tempo Premium. And if you are already a subscriber, you could win a $10 iTunes gift card.

Here are the unofficial rules:

1. Everyone can participate. New and existing Tempo runners, as well as runners who currently do not use Tempo (or Apple Watch).

2. Do a 5K (3.1 miles or longer) run on any day from Nov 28–Dec 1 (Thursday–Sunday) . For your data to be viewable from Tempo, you should do the run with your Apple Watch and track it with the Workout app on the watch. But you can use any running watch, as long as you can share the final results online.

3. Share the 5K run on twitter and tag @TempoLog. Sharing has to be in a digital format. It can be a screenshot or link to the run. You can save a screenshot or share from Tempo as shown below.

4. I will pick 3 random runners as winners of promo code for a free 1-year subscription to Tempo Premium. Winners are randomly picked, so you can do your run at your own pace, pace is not important, distance is. As long as you finish the distance, you participated, and you could win!

5. If you win, and already have an active Tempo Premium subscription, you will get a $10 App Store & iTunes gift card instead.

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To share from Tempo: Use the share button from the run details screen in Tempo to save an image and share.

Tempo v2.7.0

October was a busy month with Chicago marathon for me, so this release is a double — 2 releases rolled into 1. It includes a good mix of new features as well as some nice enhancements to existing functionality. Here's a quick list,

• Splits for Segments

• Elevation Graph

• Map with Splits Info

• Details Graphs improvements (to put mildly)

• Cumulative Graph updates

Splits for Segments

One of the great features of the Workout app on Apple Watch is the ability to mark different sections of a run as segments. Segments can be created by double-tapping on the watch display, during a run, with an active Workout app on the screen. Tempo can now detect these segments to display them as separate set of splits (in addition to full mile or km splits). So if you have been recording segments to track intervals, hills, and other varying type of runs, you will see them as separate set of splits in Tempo. Splits for segments have same details as regular splits: distance, pace, heart rate, and cadence.

Segments with Split level details.

Elevation Graph

Finally! Tempo now has elevation graph. Hills can be fun and great type of workout to improve running. They can also be tricky to conquer, and affect our performance in all sorts of ways. So elevation data can be very insightful.

Tempo supports viewing elevation data alongside pace, heart rate, and cadence graphs on the Graphs screen, as well as with the running route on the Map screen.

Elevation graph is available on Graphs and Map screens.

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While implementing this I was sorely reminded of the complexity with the elevation data that workout tracking devices (and apps) have had to deal with ever since we have had GPS trackers. If I recall correctly, I think I first learned about it back in ~2003 as a runner, when I was surprised to find out that I had climbed a mountain's worth of hills while running in Chicago. At least the data said that, but Chicago is one of the best cities for runners to enjoy flat routes. The data was glitchy and inaccurate.

As you will notice, Details screen still does not show total elevation loss, or elevation gain and loss at the split level. This is because individual elevation data points can be glitchy, and the math of simply adding altitude changes along all the individual latitude, longitude pairs does not produce accurate results. This also affects elevation graph — for now it is a chart of data points and missing the line plot of averages across individual splits that we have for pace, heart rate, and cadence graphs. But this limitation led to a new enhancements for graphs — you can now tap anywhere on a graph to view the recorded data point at that specific moment during the run. We will come back to that under Graphs improvements below.

The ability to tap anywhere on the elevation graph on a map seemed lacking without highlighting that point along the mapped running route as well. So Map screen has been updated to display a callout along the route at the point that was tapped on the elevation graph. This callout display also shows pace, heart rate, and cadence along with the elevation at the selected point during a run. This is a really fun and useful feature to navigate and identify interesting parts of a run, and it has been equally fun to build!

Tappable elevation graph with a mapped route for more details.

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Map with Splits Info

In addition to tapping elevation data line on a map to show callout along the route, we can now also tap on the distance markers along the route to view pace, heart rate, and cadence of a split.

Split details can also be viewed on the map

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Graphs Screen Improvements

As described above, graphs are even more powerful now. Just like elevation, we can tap anywhere on pace, heart rate, and cadence graphs to view their respective values recorded at that time during a run. And since we are displaying 4 graphs on the same screen, when you tap on one graph, the other 3 are also switched to show corresponding data points at that time. This is a really great way to compare all 4 data points at any time during a run.

Updated graphs can be tapped to view individual values for comparison.

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Until this version, Tempo rendered graphs as linear plots, approximated into a smooth curve. With tappable granular interaction now, you will notice each data line switching to stepped format, representing the actual recorded data (each data point is sampled over a time interval with start and end time). When you clear selected point(s), the graphs will switch back to the linear plot. Please keep in mind that since individual data points for distance (used to derive pace), heart rate, cadence, and location (for elevation) are sampled (recorded) at different times during a run, selecting one metric might not always be aligned (vertically) along the timeline. Tempo is doing the closest approximation here, and it was a tricky thing to build (might need more tuning over time). This is usually not too bad with latest models of Apple Watch, but I noticed some runs — older ones (from 2015) or ones with incomplete data set — can look really out of sync.

Also, to enable better clarity, as you select/deselect, you will notice the data plot representing average values per split also hides/unhides. Speaking of clarity, average values line plot, and header layout of the individual sections on the Graphs screen have been restyled. A minor UI addition, that will eventually be available for all graphs, is the expand/collapse control for the elevation graph to allow for more vertical space on the Graphs screen.

Another small, but really nice improvement to graphs is the ability to zoom-out and fit an entire run's worth of dataset on the screen. Previous versions of Tempo only supported up to 8 splits (km or mile) to fit on the screen. This is super useful for longer runs, as well as when we want share Graphs or Map with elevation graph open. And yes, we can share a map with elevation graph now!

Cumulative Graph Updates

Cumulative graph can now display yearly training trend.

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Cumulative graph to view our training progression in one picture has been one of the favorite screens for many of us. This feature was built with Tempo 2.0, launched in 2017. It's been 2 years, and some of us have been tracking our runs with Apple Watch since 2015. As our training log grows with years and runs, it's natural to not only compare training by weeks or months, but also by years, and now we can do that in Tempo. 🙌

Also, each distance bar now shows (along the top edge) percentage change in distance volume from previous year (or month or year). One of the runners recently requested this improvement, and I was intrigued by it. For runners, change in distance volume is a good way to monitor training load (or overload) to avoid injuries. It was an easy update and an important insight, so I included it for this release. Please note that it is still experimental, and will be revisited based on your feedback and more thoughts. While the info is useful, there are days, when we might not be as interested in it, and we also have the instances of spikes, when, say, we had a down week for some reason, and the following week shows a 200% spike. Maybe add some kind of settings to hide/show it, or we all might get used to it being always visible, and it’s totally fine the way it is.

That's Tempo v2.7.0. As always please reach out with feedback, or say hi.

Enjoy & keep running!

Battery Performance of Apple Watch in a Marathon

On Sunday, October 13, I ran the 2019 Chicago Marathon with an Apple Watch Series 5. This is a quick report on how well the watch battery performed.

TL;DR: Apple Watch Series 5 used only 50% battery over a full marathon distance, ran in 3:53:25.

⚡️ 50%   ⏱ 3:53:25   🏃‍♂️ 26.2 miles

Apple Watch Setup

• Series 5, 40mm in Titanium, with ‪watchOS 6.0.1‬
• Untethered — ran without tethered iPhone
• Cellular was Off
• Theater Mode was On‬
• Used the Workout app to track the run
• Power Saving Mode for the Workout app was Off
• No streaming audio — no music or podcast was played
• Water Lock was On

Total Run Duration

• 3 hours, 53 minutes, and 25 seconds

Total Run Distance

• 26.2 miles
• Distance tracked by the Workout app: 26.91 miles (See Notes below)

Battery Used: 50%

• Only 50% battery was used to run a full marathon
• 96% charge before start
• 46% charge at the finish

Battery at 96% before start

Battery at 46% after finish

Notes

• [7:15 AM] Kept the watch powered down until 15 minutes before the race officially started.
• [7:18 AM] On startup, battery was at 99%, I tapped on the Weather complication to refresh. That seemed to take too long (couple of minutes), so I immediately turned off WiFi and Cellular. Battery was now at 97%, probably from the network call trying to refresh weather.
• [7:20 AM] Turned On theater mode about 10 minutes before the race started. Bad idea, because it got tricky to wake up the watch display and start a workout with gloves on. Yes, that was me standing past the start line to start a workout 🤪. I usually put it in theater mode after starting a run. Never go off script during a race.
• [7:45 AM] I crossed the start line at 15 minutes past official start time. About 45K runners run the Chicago marathon every year, so the race is started in waves with different corrals of runners.
• [7:45 AM] The watch had been on now for about 30 minutes, and in theater mode for about 25 minutes, at 96%.
• With Power Saving Mode for the Workout app disabled, Apple Watch tracked the heart rate with the built-in sensor through out the run. But with Theater Mode On and Cellular Off, it essentially utilized 2 out of the 3 techniques that the Workout app's Power Saving Mode uses.
• Turning Theater Mode On disabled always-on display, and required tapping the screen everytime I wanted to view my running data (pace, distance, etc) in progress. I am used to this, because I have been using the same setup during my long runs for the past year, with Apple Watch Series 4.
• Workout app reported final distance to be 26.91 miles vs the official 26.2 miles. The additional distance of 0.71 miles is pretty normal for most of the tracking devices at such long-distance races due to reasons like erratic GPS signal around tall city buildings, or turns and curves adding up.

Marathon Ready

I have been training for and running marathons with Apple Watch since it launched in 2015. In total, I have run 6 marathons with Apple Watch(es), at least one marathon with every year’s model. There is no question on how well can the Apple Watch handle marathon training and racing. With only 50% battery utilization for an almost 4-hour marathon run, Apple Watch is an extremely versatile and powerful fitness device that no runner should ignore.

Here’s my marathon run in Tempo

2.6.2: A Tribute to the Marathon Distance

“ If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon. ”

— Emil Zátopek

For many runners, marathon distance is sacred. To run a marathon, we can't fake through the training, and even when the training buildup goes perfectly, anything can happen on race day. A subtle variation from our plan on race day can have magnifying disastrous effects on our performance and experience. A lot of such critical variables are not even in our control to begin with. Running a marathon is a journey that changes us in so many ways. It’s such a unique lifetime experience that many of us find ourselves allured by the numbers 26.2 and 13.1 — the full and half marathon distance in miles.

iOS 13.1 instantly brought out the above intrigue in me. Without any specific plan around the release numbers, Tempo ended up being at 2.6.0 for iOS 13.0 launch. As iOS quickly went to 13.1, and Tempo was just .2 shy of 2.6.2, it felt like meant to be to ignore. So as a tribute to the marathon distance, Tempo has been updated to version 2.6.2 for iOS 13.1.✨

I wanted to do something simple and quick, but special for this one, so I picked up another version of dark mode theme. It was scrapped in favor of what we currently have as the default dark mode. After spending some time on it, to my surprise, the result is a beautiful new theme that we are calling Deep Blue. The name is still tentative for this one, we considered Blue Medal, Endurance Blue, Magic Blue, but for now Deep Blue it is. Please feel free to send your suggestions for the name.

There are also a couple of important bug fixes and enhancements, but I am really glad that we got this beautiful new dark mode theme in Deep Blue for this release. The fact that the theme was almost scrapped makes it special in its own way.

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Dark Mode

Happy iOS 13 release day! iOS 13 brings the beautiful new dark mode, and Tempo is ready to sport the new look on day one. Tempo looks gorgeous and vibrant in dark mode.

Quick confession time: I do not use dark mode on my mac, so I was not too sure how it would work out on iOS. But as I was implementing it for Tempo, it slowly grew on me. Now I am a convert, so much so that I implemented a dark mode override feature in Tempo. While Tempo can match the system level dark mode (on/off) preference, with the override feature, it can also be enabled in dark mode while leaving the dark mode off at the system level.

You can start using Tempo in dark mode today by updating to v2.6.0 with iOS 13. Enjoy!

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