Getting Started - Tour of Features

If you are not sure whether the .NET Framework is installed on your machine, follow the instructions at the Microsoft web page. Note that if you have the Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0 installed you will still need to install the 1.1 version; both can be installed side-by-side on your machine.

Download the install file from the SportTracks Download page. Regular updates will be posted here so you might want to bookmark the page. Save the .zip file to a temporary location on your PC, unzip the folder and run the setup.exe program. The program installs to C:\Program Files\GPS Software\SportTracks by default and a shortcut will be placed in the Start menu. This procedure is the same when installing updated versions in the future.

When you install SportTracks for the first time, you are greeted by the SportTracks Welcome Wizard that will guide you through setting up a new logbook. A logbook is a record of workouts, athlete information and equipment for a single athlete. Each logbook is stored in a file on your PC and you can have as many as you want. We will explore the wizard later when we create a new logbook; for now click the "Skip" button and the main window will appear.

To explore the features of SportTracks we will use the Sample logbook located in the installation directory. Open the logbook by clicking the "Open logbook" command in the "Other Tasks" area on the left side of the main window. Navigate to the installation directory (usually C:\Program Files\GPS Software\SportTracks), and select the "Sample History.gpx" file. Click "OK"

The upper-left corner shows a calendar with the workout days (known as activities) highlighted. The calendar also shows injuries or missed workout days you've entered in the Athlete History view by a red marker on those days. Using the calendar you can quickly navigate to a particular day to see the activity detail, or get a general view of your workout frequency.

Below the calendar is the tasks area. The top portion shows commands relevant to the current view. These commands may be disabled based on what you've selected in the view. The lower portion shows commands that are more general in nature and which are always available, such as opening a new logbook, importing data, or changing settings.

To the right of the calendar and tasks area is the current logbook view. There are several views you can select to view your logbook data: Daily Activity, Equipment, Athlete History, and Reports. Each of these is explored in detail below.

This will be the area where you do most of your work. The top part of the view contains a list of your activities for a single week broken down by day of the week. For days with more than one activity, the day can be expanded to show each individual activity. This gives you a quick at-a-glance view of your workouts.

The list also contains summary lines for this week, last week, this month and last month. Using the

and

buttons in the list banner you can navigate to the next and previous week. You can also jump to a week by clicking a date in the calendar.

The lower part of the view shows the detail for the activity that is selected in the activity list. The left side contains several pages of detailed data (starting with the Summary page) and the right side contains a view of the activity route (if the activity has GPS data).

Note the button with the down arrow

to the immediate left of the Summary banner in the activity detail area, this button allows you to select which detail page to view for the selected activity.

Similar buttons are located anywhere there are additional pages of data or options. If you are exploring SportTracks looking for a particular feature try viewing the different pages available by clicking this button.

Find the Running activity on <date> using the calendar, select the activity, and change to the "Pace" page in the activity detail area.

The top area shows the essential information that identifies this activity. Below is a list summarizing the activity detail broken out by zone (in this case Pace zones). Below the zone list is a chart showing the page detail over time or distance. You may also notice the page selector next to the chart - many detail charts are available on each page, which are described later. To show more of the list or chart, click and drag the border between the chart and route area to resize the view. The chart can also be maximized to take up the entire area below the activity list if you want to explore a particular chart in more detail. Do this by clicking the Maximize View

icon in the chart banner. You may want to explore the Splits, Elevation and Workout pages for this run to see what activity detail data is available.

To the right of the activity detail pages is the route view which shows the GPS data for the activity over a map background. As you will discover later, the route view and chart selection are synchronized, allowing you to interactively explore detailed segments of a particular workout, for example seeing how your heart rate response and pace varies with hill climbs. The size of the route view can be adjusted by clicking and dragging the area between the detail pages and the route view. The route can also be maximized to take up the entire area below the activity list. Many features related to the route are described later, such as editing the GPS route, measuring the distance of a route segment, selecting the map background, and changing the route display options.

The Equipment view is selected using the Select View command from the Other Tasks area. It lets you track any equipment associated with your activities such as running shoes, bikes, or GPS devices:

You can also track equipment parts such as tires or chains, workout partners, virtually anything you want to automatically track the mileage and usage of. The view gives you useful statistics such as frequency of use, last time used, and mileage. You can enter an expected life (in miles) and a purchase date, and SportTracks will predict your replacement date based on usage. You can attach equipment photos, record notes about use, and assign which activity categories will prefill with the equipment when an activity is imported.

The Athlete History view lets you track athlete measurements such as weight, % body fat, and resting/max heart rate, as well as information about training such as hours of sleep, mood, calories consumed, and injured or sick days. You can also enter a daily diary, and create a photo log to track your fitness accomplishments. Here you can also see a chart of your recorded entries - for example your weight history for the last year.

At the top of the view is a list of your activities which can be grouped by week, month, category, location, and more. This list can be filtered by various activity attributes such as distance, pace, location, or notes. Below the list you can chart these attributes across groups, or see details of a particular activity. Once you've created a report you like, you can name the report and save it, or add it to the view menu so you can quickly see the same view.