Hi David,
First — thanks for shared event courses and the public event maps. We’re an endurance coaching outfit in Brazil and we build a pre-race dossier for our athletes on top of Intervals data; those course maps have been a great addition.
We hit a wall trying to add aid stations to a race course, and thought the findings might be useful since the groundwork already seems to be there.
What we did
Race: Nike SP City Half Marathon (shared event 12455). We took the official course and enriched it with the organiser’s published aid station positions (water, isotonic, gel, first aid), snapped onto the course line.
- GPX with 9 elements (start, 6 aid stations, medical post, finish) → course 674. Track imported perfectly (408 points, 21.1 km, +304 m). But GET /api/v1/course/674 returns markers: null, and the GPX served back has 0 .
- FIT course file with 7 course_point messages (types water, food, first_aid) → course 678. Same result: track perfect, markers: null, and the download is a regenerated GPX with no course points.
What we noticed
- The API schema already has Course.markers as Marker with {lat, lng, name, description, icon, color} — the data model is there, it just doesn’t appear to be populated on import.
- The course download is always GPX, even when the course was uploaded as FIT, so course points can’t round-trip.
- Minor: the exported GPX carries Walk for a running course.
The request
Populate Course.markers on import from GPX and/or FIT course_point, render them on the course map, and ideally include them in the download (as in GPX, or by offering the original file back).
Why we think it’s worth it
For a race, aid station positions are one of the highest-value pieces of information available. They drive the entire fuelling plan — “gel 2 at the km 9.9 station” instead of “gel 2 at 60 minutes” — and they surface things athletes can’t see on their own. On this particular course there’s a 4 km stretch with no aid, falling exactly on the main climb; that single fact changes how you drink before km 10.
Showing aid, medical and start markers on the public event map would make those pages genuinely useful to anyone previewing a race, not only to coached athletes. And if course points survived through to the watch, athletes would get the “aid station in 200 m” alert that Garmin already supports natively.
Happy to send the exact GPX and FIT files we used if that helps with reproduction.
Thanks!