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Pre-Race

Steady Effort RACE PLAN

Spectro.Life helps you create pacing plans not just for existing races within the app itself, but also for any track you upload. The Steady Effort plan considers constant effort on uneven terrain combined with a naturally diminishing performance throughout the race. This performance is measured in Grade Adjusted Pace (GAP) and the performance drop in percentages (%). In order to create this plan, you need to introduce your desired finish time, your sustainable performance drop  measured in previous Long Runs extrapolated to the race distance, and your ability to run uphills and downhills, called running strength. The average running strength works well for most of the runners, however consider switching to uphill or downhill running strength when the difference between plan and actuals during the run is off too much.

 

The more you run with Spectro.Life, the more it learns your individualized GAP and creates a profile that minimizes the error between plan and actuals.

pre-race checklist

Reduce your pre-race anxiety by following a routine based on wisdom from many experienced runners and personalised with your own experiences

This way, you can be confident that you have everything you need to perform at your best.

Ultra-runners prepare their equipment for race
In-race Race Tempo notification for runners

In-Race

Auto-start

Race starts can be very emotional and runners want to focus on a single thing only, to start the activity on their watch. Hence you only need to "Arm" Spectro.Life a few minutes before start while you are in the starting zone, then pack your phone away and focus on the race. The app will detect when the start happens and will send you a notification on the watch to confirm it.

Accelerated race tempo

The biggest mistakes happen in the first 20% of the race, actually in the first 30 minutes, when runners go beyond their optimal pace and start racing too soon. To prevent doing so, Spectro.Life sends Race Tempo notifications at the beginning more frequently, then slowing into a frequency that is not disturbing. Race Tempo is the difference between the plan and the actuals and can be measured for the race overall or for a short segment like a kilometer or mile or in-between two checkpoints.

Instead of just quitting the race when things don't go according to plan, Spectro.Life allows for mid-race re-planning, setting objectives that are attainable, taking into account the performance drop accumulated during the race itself.

mid-race re-planning

Sunset on the trails

Other FEATURES

Long battery life

Offline-ready

Spectro.Life is easy on battery, it can work well above a full day with 1 charge on recent phones. We worked very hard to make sure medium performance runners can finish a 100 mi race with 1 charge while still assuring the necessary accuracy.

While creating a plan requires online connectivity, starting the activity can be done in offline conditions as well. In fact the whole activity can be done fully offline. The app prevents closing the activity until connectivity is available and all results are uploaded to the server.

Robustness in harsh conditions

When you get lost or cut corners around the track, the total distance will differ, but that won't bother Spectro.Life's ability to provide correct timing information.

Besides, some older phones don't fuze GPS data with magnetometer and accelerometer data and in urban environments or deep canyons or forests provide a jumping GPS signal. For those cases Spectro.Life offers a manual correction of the GPS based on the track waypoints. Just long-click on the waypoint and if the app considers feasible in terms of speed, it will move your current location.

Slope distribution chart

Also found in the race or Trial Run details page. When you need details about what are the steepest uphills and how long they are or what are the steepest downhills and how long they are the slope distribution chart can give you insights that complement the elevation profile.

When running out of battery or when being low on resources the mobile Operating System shuts down the apps that it considers consuming too much processing power. All GPS apps are high on the list of such accidental kills especially when the battery is low and during cold or hot environmental conditions. Spectro.Life besides consuming less than its peers, also has active protection to restart data collection from the point it was killed and does not lose data even when being offline.

Protection against data loss

Average slope distribution

Click on the race or Trial Run cards in Spectro.Life app to see the details and understand the average downhill and average uphill slopes of the track and have an instant comparison of the specificity of your training for your target race. 

Get my Free Runs

Born to perform

Kilian JORNET

"Spectro.Life has completely transformed the way I approach long distance running. With its innovative approach to planning and optimization, I was able to achieve my best time yet in my last race. The voice-controlled feature made it so easy to use, and I loved that it didn't drain my phone's battery. This app is a game-changer!"

Jonathan ALBON

"As an ultramarathon runner, I'm always looking for ways to improve my performance. The app calculates the optimal plan for me, taking into account my nutrition, hydration, and weight, and adjusts it in real-time during the race. This app has helped me reduce drop-outs significantly, and I would recommend it to anyone serious about long distance running."

Riley Jones

"I've been using Spectro.Life for the past few months, and it's made a huge difference in my training. The app's ability to calculate my potential based on my previous activities is incredible - it gave me a realistic goal to work towards and helped me stay motivated. Overall, I'm extremely impressed and would recommend it to any serious runner."

A Spectro.Life Product

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SPECTRO.LIFE

Masca
Ultra-runner on trail

Your second brain for the long distance ultras.

Say goodbye to the days of running out of steam in the first half of an ultra. With Spectro.Life, you can run to your full potential and focus on what truly matters - the race.

Recommended use of Spectro.Life for UTMB and ITRA race cateogories

THE ULTRA RACE APP

Pricing

Free
Runs

#2

Demo Run - Upload a track shorter than 15 km-effort (7.5 mi with 1000 ft elevation gain) then do an easy run on it to focus on the app rather than the run itself.

Long Run - Repeat the same for a track longer than 40 km-effort (20 mi with 2500 ft elevation gain) to understand the benefits of running with steady effort and learning your performance drop.

Steady Effort
flexible package

€14.99

Offered as an In-App Purchase and best used for your Long Runs and Races, the package contains planning and race tracking services for 1 Race and 3 Trial Runs or 0 Races and 4 Trial Runs. Each of these is consumed when you first create a plan, while a plan update is free. 

That's the price of 1 Gel for 1 Long Run.

To subscribe to a race that is not listed in Spectro.Life, just upload the track of the race and run it as a Trial Run.

Post-Race

Performance Drop

Measured in percentages (%) of the finishing GAP compared to starting GAP, this is the first time when an app allows you to measure your Performance Drop on uneven terrain and strive to minimize it to improve your overall race times.

In the athletics world all the records from 5000 m to the Marathon are won with negative splits and even the 100 mi or 24 hour world records have a single digit % of performance drop. This is not so common in today's trail ultramarathon as elites have around 20-25% drop in 100 miles races.

Enabling runners with this new information, we hope to promote further progress in today's trail ultramarathon performance and help mid-class runners as well to improve their chances for better race times.

race Tempo analysis

Spectro.Life analyses your race from planning to execution on kilometer or mile basis based on your preferences and calculates the overall and segment deviation of the run from the planned constant effort so that you can learn and improve. 

Measure, use and optimize Performance Drop

Spectro.Life helps you

Achieve faster overall race times with the same physical fitness by helping you strategically allocate your resources during the race, conserving energy at the beginning and unleashing your full potential towards the end of the race. With this approach your performance drop during the whole race is optimized and leads to faster overall race times.

→ PRE-RACE to create a mathematically optimized pacing plan based on your desired finish time while having a constant effort on uneven terrain, your sustainable performance drop throughout the race and your ability to run uphills and downhills.

→ IN-RACE to follow the plan without taking your phone out of your pocket by sending tempo notifications to your watch and more frequent notifications in the first 30 minutes when it matters the most in terms of overall race time. It allows you to re-plan mid-race with a new finish time once the original plan cannot be followed.

→ POST-RACE do race tempo analysis to understand deviation from the plan, measures the performance drop for the whole race and lets you understand strengths and weaknesses compared to yourself and the rest of the field to unlock further progress.

Start running with Spectro.Life and make it the new normal, just like running with energy drinks and gels. 

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