RaceRunner: can an old-school runner learn to love the smartphone app?

OK, I’m biased, I won’t lie. I really wasn’t expecting to like RaceRunner. It’s everything I’m not keen on: it’s smartphone-centric, it involves teaming up with unknown “buddies” and it treats the notion of solitude (“Never run alone again”) as some kind of malady.

Here’s the two-line pitch: “We have gamified running, and have made it more stimulating and engaging. How? We pair users up against each other, and through the app they run virtual races in real time, anywhere in the world.”

So, why the knee-jerk antipathy? First, I don’t want my running “gamified”. I like it just the way it is: shoes on, door, run, door, shoes off, done. Positively ungamified, in other words. Second, I’m not keen on pairing up with others. In a social media age, this clearly marks me out. But I quite like a bit of solitude, especially the running kind: that private, rhythmic space where you can detach, de-stress, drift off, daydream.

What I wasn’t expecting, I confess, was RaceRunner not liking me very much. We got along tolerably well at first. My inaugural matchup was over before I knew it. I pressed “Run”, the app linked me up with Myrtie in Kingston, Ontario, and an Americanised female voice said “Go”. And so go we went. We raced the default 1km (you can change the distance, but I was still to work that out) and then we were done. The app compared our times, stored our respective routes via GPS and invited us to “share” (I didn’t; I don’t think Myrtie did either).

Second time out, I thought I’d try racing against myself. The app allows for such an option, but I sense the algorithm doesn’t really approve. Running solo? No. That’s old, analogue style. All the same, afternoon jog completed, it offered me a breakdown of our time together: route, overall time, splits, calories burned, military bases reconnoitered – the usual drill. Yet again, the software was keen for me to share. Once more, I declined.



Source: theguardian

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