Add 2 manual fields + support for them w ST3/fitlog import

[mt-from-sf-to-gh]

Another ST3 migrant here! Thrilled with the work that's been and continues to be done on MTB.

As an ultra-distance runner, I've "lost" many miles importing my ST3/fitlogs into MTB. This happens when I have manually edited a distance or time in ST3 - typically to capture treadmill miles that don't record properly on watch or to capture race distances/durations when either the watch died midway or UltraTrac was used to extend battery life.

It appears that and are not getting picked up by MTB.

My request is to add these 2 fields to MTB - they can be used for manual entries / corrections. Maybe call them something like "User Duration" and "User Distance" or "Custom Duration"/Distance They would be automatically filled with whatever Duration and Distance values come in from the user's device. HOWEVER, in the case of an ST3/fitlog import they would be filled with the and fields.

And, of course, they'd be displayed in usable formats corresponding to the user's preferences - say, HH:MM:SS and Miles or KM. And, be editable by the user.

Attached is a fitlog from a race where the battery died midway, but I'd still like to have a record of the entire event: MTB import shows duration = 0:16:21, distance = 0.339 miles, ST3 manually entered duration = 0:16:21 (980 seconds), distance = 2.13 miles (3432.73 meters)

Reported by: prancer

Original Ticket: mytourbook/feature-requests/176

[mt-from-sf-to-gh]

Hello and welcome to MT!

First off, the distance is 0.340 miles because it is computed using the GPS points contained in the time slices. If you were to import a fitlog file that contains a true manual activity then you would see the correct distance in the distance field.

A more simple solution would be to have that user distance and duration as custom fields (use the ST3 plugin "CalculatedFields") and they could be imported in the Tour Editor notes as I have added that feature in MT 19.10 for the FitLogEx files (CopyData plugin ST3)(Custom Data Field Import. The data field names and values are imported in the tour notes) Example :

CUSTOM DATA FIELD: "TRIMP" : "81"

But then it would be a text only and would not appear in the statistics. I think creating those additional fields would require a LOT of work as the distance is used in lots of places.

What if you create a manual activity right after the one you imported that contains the additional miles and duration so that you have in the end more accurate statistics ?

Original comment by: FJBDev

[mt-from-sf-to-gh]

Thank you for the quick reply, Frederic.

That's what I was afraid of - the only "reasonable" way to get this info from ST3 to MTB is in text-only fashion (added to MTB notes) and losing the value of the statistics.

I didn't realize that the and items from ST3 were used anywhere in MTB - I looked, but could not find. So, I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you said "I think creating those additional fields would require a LOT of work as the distance is used in lots of places." (not discounting the work! only wondering about "lots of places")

I have 11 years of ST3 data - and even though it is only a fraction of my records, I have thousands of such treadmill and ultra-distance runs with manual "corrections" mixed in with "uncorrected" runs. Consequently, upon importing to MTB, I'm missing good records of thousands of miles training and racing - which not only deflates my totals (and ego!) but also makes it difficult to search for and create a summary of "all 100-mile races" (for example).

I will poke around and see if I can figure out how to get those total durations and distances into custom fields in ST3 so they'll at least come through in the notes.

Original comment by: prancer

[mt-from-sf-to-gh]

So, I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you said "I think creating those additional fields would require a LOT of work as the distance is used in lots of places." (not discounting the work! only wondering about "lots of places") What I meant is that in MT, all the menus using the distance values will need to be reworked because with your feature request, now the user needs to be able to have the user distance taken into account (or not!).

I understand that you want accuracy and personally, this is what I do : At my last 100miler, my watch bugged at mile 30. What I did was to create a manual activity in MT with a distance of 70 miles. In the end, I have the 100 miles in MT. Maybe you can try that solution so you can have all the accurate miles you need to have ? Does that make sense ?

Original comment by: FJBDev

[mt-from-sf-to-gh]

Prancer B, I'm new to MTB myself coming from ST3 with logs since 2004. I suspect some of those were imported into ST3, but I have a bunch of records and I know what you're going through. On your issue it's actually pretty simple in code to force the MTB track distance to use the TotalDistance from the export file, although not a user level feature right now. The issue is that if you set a user preference to always use the TotalDistance instead of the Track distances, then you'll never get the actual track distances or the user will have to switch back and forth between imports.

I see two options here:

1) If this is a one-time export then you can export your data in two traunches, one with the distance overrides and one with the native track distances. In ST3 you might be able to filter these records using the CalculateFields plugin where the "Distance" and "Distance Active" fields are sufficiently different. "Distance" will be the manually entered value and DistanceActive will be the track data. Once you've done that sort by this calculated field, decide where your cut-off is and do two sets of exports. Then on the import you need a feature that allows you to set a user preference for how to import distance. 2) The other option is to code the feature to do this math at the time of import and have either a hard-coded or user-configurable setting that determines when the system will switch from the track data to the TotalDistance data.

I'll put a screenshot of my ST3 config with this setting as an example and maybe the Calculated Field formula. If you're still in need of this import feature, let me know and I'll see if I can figure out how to get it to you. I made this change an imported your test file and it looks fine. Thanks!

Original comment by: rtdog

[mt-from-sf-to-gh]

Prancer, I forgot to mention that when recording treadmill work, you should turn off the GPS feature of your recording device. A GPS on a treadmill just records multiple records of GPS error which add up to a small distance. I use a footpod while on treadmill and GPS on the road. With no GPS track, MTB will import the foodpod disance and you won't have to do any manual data entry for future imports.

Original comment by: rtdog