Free web site launched August 1 goes where no GPS analysis tool has gone before
Sure, triathlon can be a solitary pursuit. But doesn’t it feel good to let friends know when you’ve kicked their butts on a favourite trail?
A new web site called Mookers (www.mookers.com) lets you do just that, as well as analyze and compare your workouts every step – or pedal stroke – of the way. And just like the way running, swimming and cycling make you feel, Mookers is absolutely free.
Like other analysis sites, Mookers crunches the data from your Garmin GPS device and gives you a comprehensive report on your distance, heart rate, pace (for runs), cadence and speed (for rides) and any other metrics your device records. But that’s where the similarities end.
Mookers offers three never-before-seen features that make it a much more useful tool than existing sites: automatic route recognition, specific-point analysis and social sharing.
“Mookers comparison functionality surpasses by far anything else I’ve ever seen. My favourite thing about it is that it takes the data straight from my running watch and within seconds creates an animation that I can watch to see when I started to speed up or slow down while running. This is invaluable since it helps me remember my thought process at the time of the event. You can’t get this type of information from a traditional graph or chart.”
-Hamed Nejad, Campbell, CA
Let’s say you’ve got a favourite route you like to run. Even if you diverge slightly to dodge a parked car or sidestep a fallen tree, Mookers will automatically recognize the route each time you run it, allowing you to easily compare each run. You can even watch an animated “race” of all the runs you and your friends have logged on that route.
With Mookers’ specific-point analysis, you can also mouse over any part of a route to see the data for that exact moment of your run or ride – not just laps or splits. So if your route contains a particularly gruelling hill, for example, you can see what your heart rate was at the exact moment you were powering up it.
All of these features are very cool. But Mookers gets even better.
Mookers’ Facebook-style social component lets you connect and share your workouts with “friends,” and automatically tells them when you’ve logged a new run, route or personal achievement. With the ability to search for friends by name, location or even route, friendly competition is always just a click away, even if you don’t have a local training partner. Don’t want to share your workouts? Adjustable privacy settings make it easy to keep your data to yourself.
It’s this social component that’s key to the Mookers experience, says Mookers developer Mike Read, a British ex-pat and former Ironman competitor now living in Prince George, B.C.
“Say there are 10 people in a running club,” explains Read. “They become friends on Mookers, and any time they run a route all their friends know about it. If they record a personal best, or the fastest time on that route, their friends will know. The whole premise is friendly competition.”
Race organizers, he adds, can promote their race and challenge participants to compare their performance with friends simply by adding their route to the Mookers system. And with the ability to categorize each workout by activity, such as running, cycling or even hiking, it’s super easy for triathletes to organize their training data.
Mookers currently only works with Garmin GPS devices.
To sign up and start using Mookers for free, visit www.mookers.com.
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Background
The beta version of Mookers went online in April 2011. The full version was launched August 1.
Mike Read is an application developer and former Ironman competitor from Derby, UK. He moved to Canada in 2005 and began working on Mookers in 2010. He currently lives in Prince George, British Columbia, and plans to move soon to Vancouver Island.
What the heck is a “mooker”?
In the Royal Navy, in which Mike Read spent five years as an Electronic Warfare Operator, a “mooker” is synonymous with a “mate” or “buddy.
