[HN Gopher] Training myself to run farther with Strava's API and...
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Training myself to run farther with Strava's API and an IoT dog
feeder of M&Ms
Author : danielwmayer
Score : 112 points
Date : 2024-12-02 00:35 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.mayer.cool)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.mayer.cool)
| focusedone wrote:
| That's awesome! Do their recent API changes impact things like
| this?
| guzik wrote:
| It only affects 3rd party analytics, so it should not.
| vunderba wrote:
| Good job hijacking your own pavlovian responses to run more.
| Personally, the low-tech solution of a plunger stuck to my
| forehead with a klondike bar dangling from the end has always
| worked for me.
|
| Related but if you're wanting to get into running (and have the
| environment for it) - I _HIGHLY_ recommend favoring trail running
| over running streets /sidewalks. It's far better for your joints,
| it'll make you work harder since it'll absorb some of your
| energy, and it'll improve your proprioception.
| danielwmayer wrote:
| Thanks for the tips! I live in the middle of the concrete
| jungle that is LA so I instead have the kushiest moon-shoes I
| could find. As for the klondike bar I'll have to train up my
| neck :)
| JAlexoid wrote:
| > Personally, the low-tech solution of a plunger stuck to my
| forehead with a klondike bar dangling from the end has always
| worked for me.
|
| Or you could borrow someone's labrador retriever and have the
| dog pull you. They like to go real far and real fast... and you
| get to practice hard turns.
|
| > I HIGHLY recommend favoring trail running over running
| streets/sidewalks
|
| As a triathlete - I would add something: for me it's more a
| case of running on soil, over a hard surface. Trail running may
| take you to a stony path, which is as bad as pavement/concrete.
|
| But in the end it's training your running form to be the best
| it can be for running, that matters. Running uphill helps to
| naturally train a good form, even if it's significantly harder.
| vunderba wrote:
| I completely agree. I used to live about 10 minutes from the
| beach, and I would do sprints up and down on the sand.
| There's not much that's more humbling than getting completely
| gassed after a whooping 60 seconds of running.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > Or you could borrow someone's labrador retriever and have
| the dog pull you. They like to go real far and real fast...
| and you get to practice hard turns.
|
| You only need to be concerned about hard turns if the dog is
| untrained, afterwards, they're the best running partners you
| could ask for. Come visit us at
| https://www.reddit.com/r/RunningWithDogs/. Lots of
| suggestions for harnesses for the dog (mandatory, IMO) and
| waist leashes for the human (highly recommended).
|
| If you own the dog, they can be a great source of
| encouragement, too. They'll bounce with excitement any time
| there's a possibility of going for a run, and look at you
| with big, sad eyes when you instead sit on your phone.
|
| My old girl and I put in 20+ miles a week, 50 weeks a year,
| for a little over 8 years, or a little over 8,000 miles.
| That's a lot of M&Ms!
| imzadi wrote:
| A few years ago I did Couch to 5k. I did all my running at a
| local park with hiking trails. I actually really enjoyed
| "running" at the park. After I finished the program, I signed
| up for a 5k that was run on a flat, paved trail. I finished it,
| but it beat me up so badly that I could barely walk for the
| next week.
| browningstreet wrote:
| But what did you do next?
| imzadi wrote:
| Tore my rotator cuff doing crossfit and had surgery and
| never really got back into fitness.
| the_sleaze_ wrote:
| This is obviously the real one true definition of "adult"
| com2kid wrote:
| It is also why a lot of people in the fitness industry
| don't like CrossFit. The rate of injuries is absurdly
| high. For the longest time (maybe still) CrossFit had
| very minimal certification requirements for their
| coaches, so while some coaches had a long history and
| knew how to train safely, a lot didn't.
|
| CrossFit did the community part really well, and then
| messed up the entire "train safely" part.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Yeah, I personally wouldn't crossfit. It's complicated
| doing reps for time, exacerbating form with fatigue, etc.
| RankingMember wrote:
| Time to get into cycling!
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| A tale as old as time...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Running in a flat/straight line is an artificial construct.
| Our bodies evolved for running on rough terrain. A slower
| trail run will do less injury yet burn more calories than any
| hard sidewalk.
| hidden80 wrote:
| Race pace is tougher than training pace, too, though. I can
| run a comfortable few miles, but racing those same miles will
| cause me soreness the next few days.
| petee wrote:
| Great idea! I was picturing a device you wear that feeds you as
| you run :)
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Something like that seems like it would require extensive in-
| house testing before I actually used it for real.
| bsimpson wrote:
| Reminds me of this video:
|
| https://youtu.be/HWceX64ZC8w?si=a-mm-DP4EKMmGhXy
|
| Similar idea with origami ninja stars.
| Amorymeltzer wrote:
| >I knew I had to get a food dispenser that I could control with
| Python, so I sought out to find the shittiest, most cheaply made
| looking IOT dog food dispenser on Amazon. My rationale was that
| it would have the worst security around whatever protocol it used
| to trigger the feeding, so I could easily capture and replay the
| feed command.
|
| Turns out it was unnecessary but I like the idea of actively
| looking for the worst of something.
|
| Also, having just recently set a repeating reminder to rotate the
| mattress, yes:
|
| >I now know that what being an adult _really_ means is that most
| of your time is taken up by an ever-growing list of compulsory
| maintenance tasks that constitute the meager amount of control
| you exert over your own life.
| julianeon wrote:
| This is the kind of content I love.
|
| It does make me think: what else can you use Tuya devices &
| Python libraries to do? I've got exercise and food portions under
| control, but I'm interested in other applications.
| jeff_vader wrote:
| I've done something similar but it was only a 7 segment display
| showing how much I ran. It sat on a shelf and it was pretty fun
| to watch number go up every time I came back to my apartment
| after a run.
|
| To make everything really simple I scraped my public profile
| directly from esp8266 controller (so there's no need for extra
| steps of setting up Strava app to gain access to the API). Worked
| relatively well.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| > My adulthood litmus test has always been the following: > > If
| you know what date it is every day, you are an adult.
|
| Tangent - My definition of "adult" that I came up with as an
| early teen:
|
| "When I realize I'm looking in the _driver's seat_ of passing
| cars hoping to see pretty girls, that will mean I'm `an adult`.".
|
| Years later I had a palpable shock moment in which I glanced in a
| car and remembered coming up with the definition. "OH CRAP I'm an
| adult!"
|
| Felt like a "hoist by my own petard" moment.
| xandrius wrote:
| I generally unbundle age and adulthood.
|
| For me the definition has always been "an adult owns up to
| their own mistakes".
|
| Which is the shorter version of "A child doesn't care about
| their mistakes, a teenager expects others to fix them and an
| adults own up to them".
|
| This allows me to categorise older people who I feel like don't
| act like adults.
| aradox66 wrote:
| This is an adult's definition of an adult
| itishappy wrote:
| Maybe defining "adult" _is_ the definition for adult?
| aradox66 wrote:
| Nah no way, as some of the above definitions show,
| children - or at least teenagers/"young adults" -clearly
| conjure definitions of the adult.
|
| There is definitely a difference though between defining
| an adult from the inside vs outside
| inanutshellus wrote:
| I think it's the definition of a moral person, not an
| adult, but I do like it.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| Yes, shockingly my tween-made definition of adult wasn't very
| adult. ;)
| woleium wrote:
| i used to say i would become an adult the Saturday i go to buy
| myself a couch.
|
| Younger folk get their couches on any day and usually from
| facebook/craigslist/local classifieds
| senkora wrote:
| My definition that I came up with college was that adults had
| full spice racks in their kitchens. I had recently gotten into
| cooking and was annoyed that it didn't really make sense to buy
| spices that I would have to throw away at the end of the school
| year. (I lived out of my suitcase, so space was at a premium).
|
| I am now very happy with my full spice rack.
| guyzero wrote:
| A much improved successor to Tomatan:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOJaDDO38kk
| NBJack wrote:
| This article is a work of art. Thank you for writing and sharing
| it.
|
| I too have struggled to find something that worked for me for
| consistent exercise (surprisingly, prepaying for training helped
| more than I expected), and now I don't want to lose momentum.
| Make no mistake though; I had a LOT of help from friends and
| family as well.
|
| Bonus points for Mord Fustang.
| larsrc wrote:
| I recently found that store-brand peanut M&M's (my favourite)
| were just as good, half the price, and fair-trade! Win-win!
|
| When I joined my current job, I used M&M's as reward when
| learning the names and faces of the people there using memory
| cards. Also worked!
|
| Fortunately I've found that Belegarth fighting is so much fun
| that I need no extra carrot.
| pglevy wrote:
| I go to the gym regularly but I probably should put something
| like this contraption between me and my family size bag of
| peanut M&Ms.
| johnfn wrote:
| Just got back from a run!
|
| By far the most effective thing to motivate me to exercise, and
| run in particular, is the "VO2 Max" section of the Apple health
| app. It's a rough indication of your cardiovascular endurance,
| and the higher, the better. The real key is that, though, is that
| it basically works like an XP bar in a game: if you "grind"
| running, it goes up. If you don't, it doesn't. It's incredibly
| addicting to check the number every time you finish a run and see
| if it's ticked up slightly. It's also great because in some sense
| it is "real". If it goes up, I have an easier time on hikes, runs
| (obviously), playing sports, etc.
|
| The second thing that really got me into running is that I found
| that the most effective way to get VO2 Max to go up is to run in
| heart rate zone 4, also tracked on the Apple watch. Zone 4 is 80
| - 90% of your maximum heart rate. It's not an all out sprint, but
| you'll be moving pretty fast.
|
| The reason it's so effective is best illustrated by contrast. In
| the past, I've tried tracking a number of metrics on my run:
| total miles, average speed, calories burned, whatever. But I
| found it psychologically draining to continuously try to top my
| fastest speed, and I inevitably had off days (or weeks or months)
| when the score I was measuring wouldn't go up. Obviously as you
| get faster, this happens more and more, and it gets easy to start
| wondering if you're even progressing. Heart rate is a much better
| measure, because in some sense this is compensated for. You don't
| have to continue to beat yourself every day (or fret that you're
| not) to get to 80% of your max heart rate, and on days when
| you're more exhausted, you'll hit a higher heart rate faster, so
| the effort is roughly the same.
|
| Also, Zone 4 is a great place to be. You're pushing yourself, but
| it's a sustainable sort of push. I often found that when I ran
| sprints I wanted to die. They were so psychologically
| demotivating that I would do anything to avoid them. Zone 4 is
| not like this. It's very manageable, and I wake up excited to do
| it!
|
| At this point, I want to run every day - I'm at the point where I
| have to force myself to stop sometimes because it's healthy to
| take rest days!
|
| Usual disclaimers apply, BTW. Don't do all your running in Zone
| 4, don't immediately go from no running to an hour of zone 4
| every day, do a reasonable ramp up over a long period of time,
| etc etc.
| bagels wrote:
| What is it measuring? VO2 max is usually measured with a mask
| that can measure the flow of gasses while running on a
| treadmil/stationary bike.
| alephxyz wrote:
| Garmin estimates it using heart rate, body weight and power
| output. It also adjusts for temperature and altitude if
| possible. In my experience it still varies a lot depending on
| which conditions I exercise in but it's a decent tool to see
| your progress if you're able to test it under similar
| conditions every time.
| creaghpatr wrote:
| It can be approximated using your age, HR, efficiency, etc.
| The treadmill/mask test is more accurate though.
| ctchocula wrote:
| I like how you describe vo2 max as similar to an xp bar,
| because I've felt something similar. Zone 2 is what got me into
| running, because it made running not hurt and almost
| pleasurable.
|
| It's much more sustainable than Zone 4 (supposedly anyone can
| maintain Zone 2 for hours) and brings with it a bunch of
| metabolic and health benefits. I found the book "80/20 Running"
| to have excellent running schedules for how to mix in a small
| but appropriate amount of fast Zone 4 running into a schedule
| that's predominantly Zone 2. It has a good mix of intervals,
| tempo runs and hill runs that build you up to run 5k, 10s,
| halfs and full marathons in beginner, intermediate and advanced
| pace goals.
|
| The intent of the slow Zone 2 is to build the cardiovascular
| base that gives you better aerobic endurance without stressing
| your body out too much. Zone 4 is what makes you faster.
| iandanforth wrote:
| If you go this route consider this extra hack. Caffeine acts as a
| direct reinforcer. You can buy caffeinated chocolates and
| dispense those. This will augment the power of the treat.
| triceratops wrote:
| > what being an adult really means is that most of your time is
| taken up by an ever-growing list of compulsory maintenance tasks
| that constitute the meager amount of contol you exert over your
| own life
|
| Truer words have never been said. It's absurd how much
| bureaucracy adults have to engage with just to exist.
| seizethecheese wrote:
| This is pretty cynical. It might ring true, but I don't think
| truer words have never been spoken.
| srveale wrote:
| What do you think are the truest words ever spoken? Maybe
| just something out of the top ten.
| elliottkember wrote:
| I recently saw a tweet about someone who put on a nicotine patch
| every time he went running and tricked himself into thinking he
| loved it. He was on his third marathon!
| https://x.com/WillManidis/status/1728860291457524073
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Wow this is fascinating! I wonder whether the net health impact
| is positive or negative, I'm tempted to do this myself
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| It didn't take long to think of some healthier options, which
| I'll share here in case others think the same:
|
| - copy the m&m design (though I don't like m&m's)
|
| - do the same thing with beef jerky/trail
| mix/hummus/steak/treats like that
|
| - do the same thing, but use a good restaurant/coffee
| shop/board game/friend/TV show/hot tub/other experience
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(page generated 2024-12-05 23:01 UTC)