Run Randomly - Fartlek workout generator

Hey all! Hope this doesn’t come across as too spammy, it started out as a little personal Python script, then escalated quickly over a couple of weekends.

Run Randomly is a tool that generates random Fartlek workouts and syncs them to your Intervals workout library. From there, you can sync them to your device using the existing Intervals integrations by adding it to your calendar.

I’ve been using it for one workout a week over the last few months, and it’s definitely brought a bit of fun into those sessions.

The Intervals interface does a great job of giving you a summary of the workout on the calendar. For these more random ones, I try to avoid looking at it too much (beyond, “ouch, that middle one will hurt”) to impart the true Fartlek spirit of surprise.

I’d love to bring a bit of randomness into your week, and would absolutely appreciate any feedback anyone has.

https://runrandomly.com

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Good idea, let me suggest something. Before the download, have the possibilty to preview what we are going to download, just to see if we like it or not.

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Great suggestion @CEscorcio. Initially I was keen to keep it a “surprise”, but totally understand that’s not really what most people want out of a workout.

I was planning on adding a screen in between the initial form and the creation on Intervals (partly because it takes a few seconds, and I’ve seen a couple of double form submits already) so I might try include it on there with a confirmation step.

Cheers for checking it out!

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I just love this idea❣
I will try it out as soon as I can!

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I got a “Bad request parameters” message when I tried to connect.

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Just looking at the code, this can happen after the login for a couple of reasons:

  • The “state” that’s sent to Intervals during the login has doesn’t match what we generated or is missing
  • The “code” that comes back once you’ve logged in is missing

It’s worth simply trying again to see if it works – there might have been a blip on either side that caused the login to fail.

On the Run Randomly side there’s a cookie that keeps a session id, and the state is saved in the session (on the server) and associated with that session id. If you have a plugin that deletes cookies when you leave the page, that could cause this issue.

Hope that helps! I’m planning a couple of changes based on @CEscorcio’s comment when I get a little bit of free time, so I’ll add better messaging around the errors when I deploy those.

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@CEscorcio nearly an entire year later (and probably 30+ fartleks for myself) I’ve added a preview screen to Run Randomly :smiley:

There’s also a more detailed preview that lists the actual times for each step if you want to be fully spoiled before the run.

From the preview screen you can still choose whether you want to download the file or add directly to Intervals.

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Nice concept, if yo could incorporate Power in it, instead of pace, you could also use it for cycling or running based on power.

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That’s a really good idea.

Toggling it on the intervals sync is likely pretty easy. I’ll have a look into how to use power (or heart rate) zones in the FIT file today and see where I get to.