From Smashburger to Smashrun
Last night we had the pleasure of joining friends Todd and Christine for a grand pre-opening of the newest Smashburger, now conveniently located in our suburb's "town center." Turns out Christine’s an elite Yelper and scored an invite. They had live entertainment and characteristically great food at this fast casual restaurant (now just feet away from a Golden Spoon … can it get any better? Wait, yes, it can – the food was FREE!)
I highly recommend the San Diego Smash. And you must get the Smashfries too, tossed with rosemary and garlic.
The grand opening reminded me I was recently introduced to a new online tool called Smashrun (no relation to the burger, I’m sure). It’s still in beta but for those seeking a “fresh start” in logging running miles, it may be just what you need. I asked someone at Smashrun to answer questions for me. Here are Jacklyn's responses as they were emailed:
How does this program different from DailyMile and Athlinks, the two biggest players in this space?
• We don't consider Athlinks as a direct competitor because their demographic is specifically geared towards tracking race results, whereas Smashrun is more like a trailing log of every run you do, regardless of whether or not it's a race.
• We also differ from DailyMile in that we focus more on context for individual vs. groups of runs, as opposed to just looking at pure aggregates.
• Smashrun is built around a series of dashboards that present running data using infographics. Unlike reports which are common to DailyMile and RunKeeper, a dashboard is already tailored and prioritized; it highlights the relative importance of various metrics and, more importantly, is designed to be acted upon. Smashrun also rewards runners for their running achievements and ranks users against their chosen peers. As we grow the site, we'll build additional dashboards with more advanced charting features to help runner's make better decisions about their training.
What are the biggest advantages to using this program to collect stats? And does it parse running from other mileage (say, cycling)?
• Logging your run is easy.
• We've made the user interface as intuitive as possible and we're redesigning and tweaking as we receive feedback from our beta questionnaire.
• Earning badges help structure training. Some badges reward users for cumulative distances reached, some for speed, and others that demonstrate different types of discipline (e.g. tempo runs, interval training, speed drills, etc.)
• Facebook sharing is fully customizable. Why settle for a generic "Ran 4.13 miles at 9:27/mi" when you can post "Knocked out 4.13 miles at a comfortable 9:27/mi - time for beer!" ... perhaps, minus the beer comment :)
• Understanding your stats require less than a minute. We built Smashrun for quick use. You log in, sync your latest running data or manually log your most recent run, and glance at the overview page. Everything you need to know is in front of you: miles run overall, average pace, miles/month, average run length, average days run per week, PR's, etc.
• We don't currently show entries for other types of training, but it's something that we'll gradually integrate towards year-end 2011.
I highly recommend the San Diego Smash. And you must get the Smashfries too, tossed with rosemary and garlic.
The grand opening reminded me I was recently introduced to a new online tool called Smashrun (no relation to the burger, I’m sure). It’s still in beta but for those seeking a “fresh start” in logging running miles, it may be just what you need. I asked someone at Smashrun to answer questions for me. Here are Jacklyn's responses as they were emailed:
How does this program different from DailyMile and Athlinks, the two biggest players in this space?
• We don't consider Athlinks as a direct competitor because their demographic is specifically geared towards tracking race results, whereas Smashrun is more like a trailing log of every run you do, regardless of whether or not it's a race.
• We also differ from DailyMile in that we focus more on context for individual vs. groups of runs, as opposed to just looking at pure aggregates.
• Smashrun is built around a series of dashboards that present running data using infographics. Unlike reports which are common to DailyMile and RunKeeper, a dashboard is already tailored and prioritized; it highlights the relative importance of various metrics and, more importantly, is designed to be acted upon. Smashrun also rewards runners for their running achievements and ranks users against their chosen peers. As we grow the site, we'll build additional dashboards with more advanced charting features to help runner's make better decisions about their training.
What are the biggest advantages to using this program to collect stats? And does it parse running from other mileage (say, cycling)?
• Logging your run is easy.
• We've made the user interface as intuitive as possible and we're redesigning and tweaking as we receive feedback from our beta questionnaire.
• Earning badges help structure training. Some badges reward users for cumulative distances reached, some for speed, and others that demonstrate different types of discipline (e.g. tempo runs, interval training, speed drills, etc.)
• Facebook sharing is fully customizable. Why settle for a generic "Ran 4.13 miles at 9:27/mi" when you can post "Knocked out 4.13 miles at a comfortable 9:27/mi - time for beer!" ... perhaps, minus the beer comment :)
• Understanding your stats require less than a minute. We built Smashrun for quick use. You log in, sync your latest running data or manually log your most recent run, and glance at the overview page. Everything you need to know is in front of you: miles run overall, average pace, miles/month, average run length, average days run per week, PR's, etc.
• We don't currently show entries for other types of training, but it's something that we'll gradually integrate towards year-end 2011.
