Have you had (m)any requests to integrate gps data from the app ‘Zombies, Run!’?
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Manual GPX import is my preference over integrating another service.
Dallas is right in that my motivation is not waiting many days to see the life map update. Today is Monday and neither Saturday nor Sunday’s runs have made it into CityStrides yet.
Like Jack said, it would take me no time to get the GPX and upload to CityStrides. Then I can get an updated lifemap and plan tomorrow’s run.
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I use Strava for my social sharing of my training. It is my primary public record of my activities, so despite the problems, I still prefer it to be my source if possible.
I also use SportTracks (https://sporttracks.mobi/) for my private training log and analysis.
My history does go into Garmin, but only as a clearinghouse to get it into those other sites. I COULD switch to Garmin, but I never actually do anything with that data - no information about the run, no titles, just raw data. I look at it as my cloud backup of my watch data.
I think a lot of people use Strava as their primary source fed by Garmin etc. I’ll always use Strava because its the system I decided to use for my run tracking. Garmin has most of it but it also has a lot of things I deleted or changed in Strava and didn’t bother to touch there. I think that affects new users more than anything during their initial import. For my new activities in CityStrides I could care less about Strava, Garmin works just fine. I just connected MapMyFitness and manually uploaded there to get around the current lag and it worked almost immediately. Frankly that can function as a manual upload option until Garmin is connected, at least thats my plan.
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Does that mean i can connect 2 sources here in citystirdes? i have a runkeeper account and syncing to strava and runkeeper would be a small effort to get my lifemap updated sooner. Does uploading a run in both and syncing both, give duplicates in CS?
It is possible, but for those who only use Strava as a conduit for CS (and not as their primary tracking tool) I would suggest removing the Garmin → Strava connection, otherwise this doesn’t reduce system load.
And maybe drop a vote here as well 
Patrick -
At least right now, yes, connecting both and uploading both would result in duplicates in CityStrides. There is not yet any function to determine if an activity is the same as another one.
So, as a workaround, i could connect runkeeper besides my strava, and upload to runkeeper untill the sync from strava comes through, and later delete the duplicate in runkeeper… I guess the calculation of the original run, that is then removed, will have some strange side effects?
I think you should be OK - I can’t think of any strange side effects from deleting the old activity. It might mess a bit with what streets were completed on that particular run, but I am not sure
i can give it a go with one run from yesterday, and see what happens when the sterava copy comes in and i delete the runkeeper one.
Update: i better not connect my runkeeper account to CS. I have 1650 something old runs in there. It would be duplicate galore
I don’t know Runkeeper, but could you create a secondary account just for “manual loading”?
I activated my sleeping mapmyrun. That’s empty. It’s now connected and i uploaded the strava gpx from yesterday. We’ll see what happens now…
flip between tabs to check
And BANG, immediate satisfaction. imported and synced in seconds. Now wait a few days and see what happens when the actual strava sync comes in
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thanks, just synced my garmin with mampyrun. the activity synced with city strides almost right away
After this, i am considering to get rid of my strava connection to CS and change it to mapmyrun and switch completely. It would be helpful if i could stop the sync on strava without deleting the connection. Just stopping the sync on future runs would suffice.
Hey, i am even considering to only import the CS dedicated runs to mapmyrun and keep a ‘clean’ import of my history, without walks (i personally would keep those out, although i get why James incroporates them) and very old history. when i then kill the strava link, i have a nice clean sync on my strides
Another question: i expect that connecting to one of the gpx providers to CS, this means James is getting each GPX datafile onto a server (probably cloudbased for scalabilty). Then why connect at all? make an ulpoad screen and you have the gpx without api stuff nedded to/from any 3rd party provider.
Anyone can enlighten me on this thesis?
Just stopping the sync on future runs would suffice.
Yeah, that’s an idea in Pause/Stop sync toggle that I do intend to implement.
getting each GPX datafile onto a server
Outside of the advanced LifeMap (which uses mbtiles), there are no files involved in CityStrides at all.
Then why connect at all?
This is a decent question for some people and particularly right now in CityStrides history.
I started with APIs because – going back to day one of CityStrides – I’m a Runkeeper user, they have an API, I’m not going to futz with files if I can collect data automatically through the API.
Things have changed a bit 
since then, and I’m hearing that people are much less manual-effort-dealing-with-files-averse than I am. I expect at some point I’ll offer some kind of “sign in with email/password and manually upload files” option, but right now I’m working on the Garmin integration.
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Thanks for the update. I would hope you find time for the stop sync on strava. I would go to mapmyrun just for myself but also to have one drop less in that great cue bucket.
And i hope you get along with that garmin api stuff. Thumbs crossed.
Here is a long answer…a lot of people are not technically inclined. Go ask them to login to Garmin Connect, go to their activity, download it and then upload it again. I’m not saying its hard but if I’m James I want to maximize ease of use to maximize user engagement and I think it would be a challenge for a lot of people. Also if user goes a month and comes back they have to download 30 activities manually. Its a much nicer experience to not have to do anything and have the data ingested automatically. A hardcore user would upload every time (I have been recently because of Strava delays) but if you want to capture new users and people that might not start as hardcore users (but might be someday) you want to remove every pain point possible. Usability is huge, I signed up and stopped coming because the navigation and features were not all that clear to me. I just assumed it was largely just a free version of Stravas heatmap.
The only reason I came back was because other people I know were using it (I was just manually trying to fill out my Strava heatmap).
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Am I correct in thinking it will be needed? When Garmin sync becomes a reality 
, won’t we Garmin->Strava users, need to “turn off” Strava syncs, but keep our Strava account here, and the data? I recall reading if one deletes Strava here, the data “goes away” too?
I’m excited about direct Garmin integration, and [will] offer my account for testing (in case I miss the announcement).
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Hi was thinking is it possible to set up a manual import routine for FIT or GPX files or similar? Might help get around API limits?