Running Data: Damn Nike – Part 2

In Part 1 of this series I gave a “brief” outline of my journey through running and how I ended up using particular training tools and apps. The purpose of this post is to highlight an issue that is important to me, but echoed by a startling minority. The scary part is that it basically affects anyone who uses a device to track fitness, activity or workout data – and yet the number of people table-flipping, making a fuss or even aware of the issue, is depressingly low.

I am talking about data access (or ownership). The Fitbit on your wrist, the GPS watch you’re using for your runs or even your smartphone, are all recording data that you generate and send to companies who analyse the data and give you interesting insights on your activities. They can tell you how much REM sleep you get at night, give you an overview of how active you were during the day, or summarise how well you did on a training run (by providing information on splits, pace, cadence and/or heart rate).

Wear all the wearables! Source.

In the rapidly growing industry of wearable technology, companies are trying to add as many analytics and features to their devices as they can. Unsurprisingly, their shotgun approach can still not provide the specific insights you’re after. But it’s ok, you can just dive through the data yourself and easily pull out the metrics you need or are interested in, right? NOPE. What, not even simple data you could look at using the built-in functions of Excel? HELL NOPE.

And this is the problem. The data is there. You’ve created it – it’s a quantification of you and it’s just sitting there. Sometimes, you can jump through certain hoops to get it, and other times you have to drag yourself over a mile of broken glass… using only your face.

The frustration (or pain) is real. Source.

The problem can be split into two interacting parts:

1. Current apps don’t provide analytics or metrics that are of interest to you, or if they do they charge you for it (these can vary from really basic information to advanced analyses).
2. These apps make it difficult or impossible to export your data.

The first part wouldn’t be so bad if not for the second. The only reason I can think of for companies to make it difficult to take data out is to force platform (and brand) loyalty. This is complete and utter bullshit. If a company’s product is good enough to solve any issues I would have with problem #1 then I wouldn’t even want to extract my data. Basically, the company is aware their product is below-par and the only way they can keep people using it is to lock them in. That is not sustainable.

I’m going to talk about the running apps I am familiar with and you should be able to get an idea of the scale of offending that is out there.

Runkeeper

Runkeeper is actually the best out of the three when it comes to exporting training data. Reason being – they actually let you. You can export all your data within a custom period to a .zip of GPX files (these contain GPS data) which can be easily imported into other platforms. Fantastic! The metrics and analyses Runkeeper provides are quite basic. Individual workout data is fine – but if you want to look at how you’ve gone over time (to see how training is going) the only thing you can look at is distance. Duration, speed, pace, heart rate, or elevation? Bah, who needs that info? Unless you want to pay for it (30 USD a year)! No thank you, but I am grateful they made it easy to get all my data out (‘Export Data’ is in the ‘Settings’ menu), and do not contribute to problem #2.

You’re doing good Runkeeper. Not fantastically… but good.

Endomondo

Similar to Runkeeper, Endomondo requires a subscription (29.99 USD a year) for you to see any type of data that includes more than one workout. However, they also contribute to problem #2, by limiting data exporting to one workout at a time (manually). I have 152 workouts on Endomondo so uh… if it takes me about 2 min to download one workout (navigating to the workout and saving it)… that’d take me… five freakin’ hours. That’s the thanks I get for subscribing for a year.

See, most people wouldn’t bother trying to get there data out so in a way their strategy of locking people to their platform must be working to some extent. However, as soon as I found out I had to continue my subscription to see detailed analytics, I was ready to jump ship.

Fortunately in the case of Endomondo, there is an easy solution. Endomondo Export is a handy tool that allows you to bulk export your data with an easy-to-use interface. I did have some problems with missing elevation data in the GPX file outputs, and wrote a Python script to help clean these. I suspect the data was bad because of my phone (Galaxy SII), but if anyone else tries to use the export tool and has problems let me know, and I’ll see if my script can help you out too. If you are a bit more technically inclined, there is also this Python script but I cannot verify its effectiveness.

Bear in mind that Endomondo can change access to their API at any time which could make either of these tools defunct. I would suggest you create backups now, while you still can – otherwise you may find yourself in the same situation as I did with the final app…

Apparently this hand gesture indicates “meh”.

Nike

I use a Nike+ GPS Sportswatch and I love it. However, for a 100 billion dollar company whose market ranges from suburban mums to the world’s most elite athletes, the design of their website and app is absolutely terrible. For the few years I’ve been using it, there have been no significant improvements in the user interface design or functionality of the website, which in this fast-paced world is totally crap. I’ve had problems logging in, maintaining sessions, viewing activity data, and browsing friends’ data. Admittedly, it’s all free – but that is not a valid excuse. Individual workout metrics are fine and over time metrics include things such as average distance and pace changes. Still not as in-depth as it could be, but sufficient for most people.

That being said, my recommendation is to stay away from Nike+ and its Running app. This is the absolute worst example of a company trying to lock you into their platform. You absolutely CANNOT export any data – not even individual workout data. Previously, you could use third party tools similar to Endomondo Export that would allow you to bulk export workouts from Nike. However, Nike have recently shut off access to their APIs except for official “Fuel Lab Partners” or whatever they’re calling them. Basically, other companies that Nike are working with because despite their wealth and resources, they can’t build a decent app on their own.

The closing off of their API has meant that the third party tools I used no longer work, and the developers of those apps have retired them or stopped updating them to keep up with Nike’s changes. I have figured out a way to still get my data out and export it to my platform of choice (RunningAhead: I can’t say enough about how good it is, even if just to park data). At the moment, the process is a little convoluted, but I am interested to know whether there are people who do want to get data out from Nike. If there are, I will try turn it into a web solution – or at the very least, post how to do it and wait to see how long it takes Nike to do something to prevent or block it.

In the meantime, I’m syncing my data to RunningAhead and saving up as fast as I can for a new running watch.

Ironically, the Nike tick showed up when I image searched “good”. Fortunately, I was able to find enough fingers to give it.