[Aaron]

I’ve been meaning to make a couple of feature requests to TrainingPeaks https://peaksware.uservoice.com/forums/106657-trainingpeaks-customer-feedback for features that seem obvious to me for uphill atheletes. I’m curious on your thoughts on these features, or others I’ve missed. Looks like they have a voting system so once I get some input and add my suggestions I can report back and lobby for votes…

1) More Workout Types: I presume they don’t want a huge clutter of types or they would already have them. However….having a dedicated skiing type that includes vertical meter gain and loss seems like an obvious gap. Climbing seems another.

2) Munter rate: I would love to be able to highlight portions of my completed workout and have it report the Munter rate. I go through phases of calibrating my munter rate for different activities in different terrain/conditions to dial in my long explore planning and it would be super handy to have it auto calculated with other analysis parameters.

Thoughts? I presume 1) is a no-brainer but 2) might have a smaller niche audience.

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on May 11, 2020 at 10:05 am #41536

Aaron:

Please feel free to make any requests you have to TP. We have long requested some changes but to no avail. We are such a tiny segment of their users that we must be very low priority.

I do not know what Munter Rate is. Can you explain.

Scott

[Aaron]

Aaron on May 11, 2020 at 11:16 am #41550

The Munter rate ( of the famed Swiss guide Werner Munter e.g. Munter knot, evolution of avalanche decision making models etc) is a more precise method of the classic time estimator of ~3km and 300m or 1000′ per hr for class 1 and 2 hiking/running/skiing terrain.

TIME = (DISTANCE (km) + ELEVATION (m)/100))/rate

It is unitless, with the basic default rates being:
uphill travel on foot or skis – 4
flat or downhill on foot – 6
downhill on skis – 10
bushwhacking – 2

BCA has a good summary here: https://backcountryaccess.com/how-to-calculate-backcountry-touring-time-based-distance-elevation-gain/

https://www.appliedalpinism.com/guide-pace makes a nice little app, though only one segment at at time.

I have a spreadsheet set up where I use google earth to map out the legs and put in the km and meter inputs in.

I see Munter rate much like heart rate tracking: I did lots at the beginning and as I learnt to estimate better I only use them for critical events or to re-calibrate.

When calibrating my Munter rates I used TP to select portions of a route, grab the numbers (km, time, meters) and solve for rate. I tweaked my rates for several grade classes of uphill , footwear (e.g. running shoes vs mountain boots), and nature of trail (e.g. breaking trail in snow vs following skin track or hard surface; or loose scree or blocky talus vs good trail). I found with these rates tuned I could estimate a 5-7 hr day down to minutes for each segment.

As a TP tool, it would help with tuning rates for estimation, or I think it would a useful way to have an ‘integrated’ travel rate that brought together horizontal and vertical elements over different terrain technicalities.

Marc Chavin also has a similar approach for class 3/4 terrain:
time = (distance x 1000 + elevation) x rate / 60

As a working husband and parent of two children being able to accurately tell my wife how long I will be on my 5am sunday morning mountain explore, or choosing a feasible route, is critical to happy family dynamics!

[Rachel]

Rachel on May 11, 2020 at 1:46 pm #41566

I use XC-ski for all my skiing activity except for lift-served skiing. You can configure the activity type to include elevation loss (I think gain is included by default). I file lift-served under custom or other so that I don’t count the vertical in that activity (since I didn’t earn my turns).

[Aaron]

Aaron on May 11, 2020 at 5:40 pm #41571

Interesting rachelp, I have never been able to get xc to include elevation gain or loss. Is there a settings area where you can configure the activities?

[John S]

John S on May 13, 2020 at 7:34 am #41628

You can chasnge the metrics of the different workouts (only on the website, not the app) if you go to Account Settings; Layout; QuickViews.
All the metrics that TP has available can be added to any of the workout types, and you can delete the ones that don’t interest you.
I use Rowing for my Ski Touring (Thanks Scott Semple!) with Elevation and other relevent metrics. I added Elevation gain and loss to my xc ski so I can easily adjust for my wildly inaccurate phone elevation data and I have also added distance to my strength workouts to enable me to log a warm up run if required.