_ Your activity maps are now displayed in the app.

Yes, GPS maps are now available in the app. Personally, I find this a very nice feature: I like to explore routes via the activity maps, zoom in on unknown territory and scroll through potential holiday destinations (read: searching for running routes there).

Under the ‘finished’ tab you’ll now find a thumbnail of your activity map. Tap it, and the enlarged maps opens so you can start scrolling and zooming.

We had complete control over the design of the map. Something I took advantage of! I’ like to draw your attention to some little details.
The color of your path is, of course, Trenara red. But the athletics tracks also got that color, albeit with an extra layer of transparency, because otherwise you wouldn’t see the route you ran if you were also ran on a track.
However: when you zoom out, you will very easily find these oval tracks thanks to that striking color. Comes in handy when you are on the move and want to execute a track session.
A very personal detail is the color of the water. Anyone who follows/know me knows that I am a fan of Valencia, especially the marathon over there. Well, the blue color of the waterways, lakes and seas in the app is the blue of the medal ribbon of the Valencia marathon, edition 2019. Call me nerdy, but I think it’s a nice detail!

_ Pioneering: RPE, phase 2.

As a coach I like to get feedback from my athletes, but getting that interaction via the app is of course a lot more difficult – let alone acting on that feedback. It’s impossible for me to talk to thousands of runners every week. On the other hand: we like to present ourselves as a digital, but personal trainer, which means that part of our developments must be aimed at that personal level.
As a co-founder, I like the fact that we launch new features that other competitors don’t have. Since last summer I have been pushing to include the integration of RPE in our development process. A year and a half later, I can now proudly say that we have fully implemented this. And that we now have a unique feature in the world of running plan apps.

What does it come down to?
With an RPE score, the Rate of Perceived Exertion, an athlete indicates how hard he perceived the intensity of the session. It is, so to speak, the answer to the coach’s question: “How did it go?”.
As coaches, we take that feedback from our athletes into account. If the perceived effort differs fundamentally from the training effort we intended, we may have to intervene. Especially when this happens repeatedly in a short period of time. Temporary load reduction is often a response to that feedback. After all, we should not stubbornly stick to ‘the schedule’, because there are many reasons that can be at the basis of a higher than estimated RPE. Think of lack of sleep, pressure at work, relational stress, dormant illness, poor recovery, …

That flexibility of adjusting the already adaptive plan, is now also built into the app. Another technical feat.
In short: per week we look at the training load that I had in mind and compare that score with the load as you experienced it. From a statistical point of view, the perceived load, i.e. the RPE score, is always a bit higher when the athlete has to quote himself. We take that into account. Anyone who scores above our statistical margin and therefore really has had a tough week, will receive a proposal from us to adjust a training or to delete one in the next week. As a coach and co-founder I am very proud of that feature. Because…
In detail: for every workout listed in the app (yes, for every single one of those hundreds of workouts!) I specified an RPE range. In other words: my assessment of how that training will be perceived by you. Not every interval is an 8, not every LSD is a 3 – so it’s really a painstaking job.
As a coach, I also choose the training sessions per plan and per week with which to compensate. Perhaps the best option in week 4 of a 4-workout marathon plan is to cut the interval training or shorten the long run. But in a plan with a lot of passive recovery and only 3 training sessions, I may choose to cancel the recovery training.
This feature is realized thanks to my conversations with Bram last year and our fantastic web developer at Appwise, Jonas. Because wanting the feature is one thing. Getting it into the world/the app, another.

If this isn’t customization/personalization, then I don’t know what is. It goes without saying that this is a Peak Pro feature 😉

_ A medal for your race, including a goal summary.

This one was also on the list for a long time, but was pushed back a bit due to the pandemic. Until now.
Whoever has Peak or Peak Pro subscription, gets a medal from us after achieving a goal. It doesn’t matter whether that goal was a real or virtual race.
And there is neat some data behind that medal by the way, which we are happy to share in the feedback message. For example, subscribers now get an overview of the number of training sessions and the training volume they completed during the preparation. And finally you will also be able to answer the question: “How many hours have you trained for this?”. Ideal for making an impression during small talk!