microsoft
Add "Running" conversions category
Problem Statement Distance running is a constant interplay between space, time, and pain. Eavesdrop into any discussion between runners, and you’ll be constantly hearing about paces, race times, interval splits, and hitting the wall. Athletes and coaches need to convert between different speed, pace, and race time measures when they are planning their training or races. These conversions are mentally difficult to perform, and even to think of an algorithm for, if the runner is not mathematically inclined.
Evidence or User Insights A web search can get us a lot of charts and online calculators that try to address this problem, but they usually provide conversions for a small set of data points, and only for a few measurements (usually between minutes per mile and minutes per kilometer paces).
Yet, distance running is an extremely popular sport, and very available to everyone. In 2018, more than 18 million people registered for road races just in the USA (reference). Helping this broad user base around the world easily solve their conversion problems would bring them one step closer to achieving their goals.
Proposal We propose to introduce a new conversion mode into Windows Calculator that would make these conversions easy for everyone interested in or practicing running.
A typical list of measures would include:
- Speed: Miles per hour
- Speed: Kilometers per hour
- Pace: Minutes per mile
- Pace: Minutes per kilometer
- Race time: 5K
- Race time: 10K
- Race time: Half marathon
- Race time: Marathon
- Intervals: 200m time
- Intervals: 400m time
- Intervals: 600m time
- Intervals: 800m time
Goals With this mode, a user would be able to solve real world problems such as:
- What pace do I need to run to achieve my goal 42:00 time in a 10K race?
- My training plan shows paces in minutes per kilometer, but I am using minutes per mile, how can I change them using Windows Calculator?
- What speed do I set the treadmill to for my interval workout? The plan specifies paces.
- What’s the target pace for 1’15” 400m intervals?
- If I could run as fast as Eliud Kipchoge when he achieved his latest Marathon world record, what would my 5K time be? (The right answer is “you probably can’t” but the calculator would show 14:24. Wow. I can't think that fast, let alone run.)
Non-Goals Calculating race times and paces for non-standard race distances, including ultras.
Low-Fidelity Concept
That would be super cool. Running community will highly appreciate this!!!
This is your friendly Microsoft Issue Bot. I've seen this issue come in and have gone to tell a human about it.
Thanks for the feature suggestion! This is really well thought-out, and we really appreciate it. Let's keep this idea open for discussion so the community has the chance to provide feedback. Check out our New Feedback Process for more info on the user-centered process we follow for new feature development.
This is a nice idea! It will require to modify how UnitConverter works and manage sub-units. Take a look at this proposal, it covers these 2 prerequisites: https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/issues/379.
For running, the "pivot unit" can be km/h.
From: Unit: Marathon time Value: 3:00:00
Value in "pivot unit" -> 4.25
To: Unit: Miles per hour Value: 4.25/0.621371
We reviewed the pitch and would love to move forward with it! I think this pitch is a great start, but there are still some open questions. Moving this into planning to iron out some of the details.
A particularly noteworthy question that was raised was whether this can be made even more generic to encompass all “pace” conversions (i.e., not just running, but other activities as well, like hiking, biking, etc.), but as @rudyhuyn points out, this does behave a bit different from existing converters, so that is something to think through as well.
I created calculator-specs/runningConversions to track progress. For more information on next steps, check out our spec workflow.
@grochocki can you make suggestions on user research? I was considering enlisting like-minded colleagues from my org to review the specs before a PR, but if there is a better option please share.
