Run the 2.84 twice and the 4.61 once from the same trailhead, and Trailbuddy times three laps at the gate you started from. You never touch a button.
30 m
Gate radius, set where you press Start
60°
Direction window that keeps out-and-backs from lapping
1 km
Shortest run that becomes a route
Why kilometer splits fail on a trail loop
Almost every running app splits your time at every kilometer. On a road that works. On a trail loop your watch splits somewhere different every lap: halfway up the climb once, on the only flat stretch the next. You get precise numbers that never line up.
A lap at the trailhead is the split trail runners already use. Trailbuddy takes it for you, every time you come through.
How Trailbuddy closes a lap
Trailbuddy places the gate at your first accurate position after you press Start. Once you have run at least 50 meters away and 400 meters in total, Trailbuddy closes the lap the moment you pass the gate again heading within 60 degrees of your starting direction. An out-and-back brings you through the gate facing the other way, so Trailbuddy never laps it.
Loops of different lengths that share the gate each close as their own lap. Trailbuddy numbers the laps in order and compares each lap only with laps of the same loop, so the 2.84 never races the 4.61.
A running tracker
km 3 split
Your watch splits partway up the climb today and forty meters later tomorrow. The two never compare.
Trailbuddy
Lap 3 at the trailhead
Trailbuddy splits at the gate, the same place every lap, and sets the time against your last lap, your best and your average.
Trailbuddy keeps a history for every route
Finish a run of a kilometer or more and Trailbuddy turns it into a route. Trailbuddy adds every later run of the same route to its history, with the date, time, pace, heart rate, trail surface and start temperature, a medal on your best and your gap to it on every other row.
A route has a direction. Run your loop the other way round and Trailbuddy starts a second route for it, so a clockwise time never sits next to an anticlockwise one.