Throughout April of this year, it was the return of our ‘Angels vs Devils’ training challenge. This was available to all of our users (both free and paid). The challenge was simple, to try and stick to as many of your scheduled workouts as possible. For every workout completed within 10%, users were rewarded with an angel emoticon, and conversely a devil emoticon for those that fell outside that range. As an added incentive, each angel was a ballot entry into a prize draw to win a number of prizes.
And our Bonus Prize winner is Tom from the UK for hitting his overal Workout Adherence for the month within 0.1%. This level was only achieved by 4 other users!
And for those that like statistics, here’s short run-down on the challenge:
The participants were spread throughout the world (all continents except Antarctica†) in 75 Time Zones from over 50 countries.
The above chart clearly illustrates that an overwhelming proportion of our challenge participants were male. As just over 60% of TrainAsONE users are male, one would expect a preponderance of males. The disparity is considerable though a small (but insignificant) improvement on our January Challenge.
Nearly half of participants fell in the 40 to 50 year age group
Above we see the age range of our challenge participants, where nearly half of the people were in the 40 to 50 age group, with the 30 to 40 age group being the next most common. This distribution closely mirrors the total population of TrainAsONE users, though in the total population the 40 to 50 year group is not as pronounced.
There was a big spread in the number of runs performed, with a number getting out every day!
As illustrated above, there was a large spread in the total number of runs performed over the month by our challenge participants. This was greater than on our previous challenge and is postulated to be a result of ‘lockdowns’ imposed due to COVID-19.
On average, participants received more Angels than Devils 🙂
Overall, 62% of the time participants managed to ‘hit’ their workout and received an Angel reward. This was a 4% improvement on our previous challenge.
12% of Participants received ALL Angels.
Whilst it is great that over 10% or participants achieved all Angels, it would be nice to understand why some did not receive any.
1 participant achieved the FULL HOUSE (an Angel every day)!!
(There was actually 2 users who achieved the Full House of 30 Angel runs, but one was our CEO and so does not count.)
Practice makes perfect? On average, the more runs a participant did, the more likely they were to receive an Angel.
On average participants who did a greater number of runs were more likely to receive an Angel. Of course this is not necessarily causative though the old adage of ‘practice makes perfect’ springs to mind.
There is no clear relationship between the pace of a user’s run and achieving an Angel
It has been postulated that slower runners would achieve less Angels, but whilst the above linear regression is positive, it is clear that this hypothesis does not appear to be true.
On average, participants performed worse on their easy runs!
In terms of receiving an Angel, participants did worse on their Economy (easy) runs than on their speed sessions and their assessment runs. This seems a surprising discovery, as one would have thought that sticking to an easy pace would be, well easy, and less difficult than switching between the fast and slow paces required by the other run types. Interesting…
Following the over-whelming response and positive feedback we have had, we will be enhancing our format and holding further challenges in the future. So keep a look out! And there is no better way to ensure you get personally notified than having a TrainAsONE account.
Dr. Sean Radford, the Founder & CEO of TrainAsONE, is a medical doctor, IT expert, coach and podium finisher in international endurance events. He has dedicated more than 20 years to the research of health, fitness and social well-being of the general population. He has been developing Artificially Intelligent (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) tools to help tackle some of the world’s leading health issues. Dr Radford is a Tech Ambassador for the UK, considered a leading expert in his field, and is a regular speaker at key events, as well as an author of numerous research publications.
Very interesting. I also achieved FULL HOUSE (30 angels in 30 runs), although the last day I didn’t get an angel (even though adherance % was in range), and I guess it was because I ran at 10pm and I am in Mexico, so probably that run failed to enter as an April run, as in your time zone it was already May.
A big thank you for taking part in our challenge and also doing so well. You are correct that the challenge was ran in the UTC timezone (explained on the challenge page, https://www.trainasone.com/challenge-2020-apr/). We realise this is not entirely ideal and we would hope to cater for local timezones in the future. Take care.
Very interesting. I also achieved FULL HOUSE (30 angels in 30 runs), although the last day I didn’t get an angel (even though adherance % was in range), and I guess it was because I ran at 10pm and I am in Mexico, so probably that run failed to enter as an April run, as in your time zone it was already May.
Hi Benjamin,
A big thank you for taking part in our challenge and also doing so well. You are correct that the challenge was ran in the UTC timezone (explained on the challenge page, https://www.trainasone.com/challenge-2020-apr/). We realise this is not entirely ideal and we would hope to cater for local timezones in the future. Take care.